DIY: BJD Character Poster

One of my goals for this year in 2021 was to make some kind of database for my dolls. I have quite a lot of dolls and at times I forget who came from where or when I even got them. Sadly I never took the time to document when I got my dollies in or keep record of their names.

Low and behold I finally found a really neat way to have my dolls documented so I will never forget! A BJD character poster!

Where to start

First, I went ahead and made a word document of all my dolls from the first ones I got in to the most recent. I listed them with their name I gave them, their company name/sculpt, and when I received them.

After creating the list I sorted out what dolls fit in each size category. I figured it would be too much to shove all my dolls onto one poster. Since I had well over 30 dolls ranging in different sizes I decided that I would make a poster for my 1/3, 1/4/ and 1/6 sized dolls.

If you decide to make your own poster you could do it in anyway you like. Maybe you want to do it just solely based on dates and not separate by size, or maybe you have several from the same company. The possibilities are endless!

Taking photos

Something I don’t do too much of is take photos of my dolls. I am in no way shape a photographer and even though I have a very nice camera all I really do with it is shoot YouTube videos. What I did know is that I wanted uniformity between my pictures. I brought out a white trifold cardboard display board (like the ones used in science fairs) and I made sure my dollies used that as the background. Since this was to be a database poster I just wanted headshots. I made sure my lighting was decent and then took photos of all my dollies.

Feel free to check out this video of me hilariously figuring out my camera and how novice of a photographer I really am.

Once the photos were done I uploaded them to my computer and got ready for the next step. Where to make a poster?

Creating the poster

Once I had all my dolls in order from when I got them and their size I started looking around different sites on where to make posters. I am always tempted by Walmart.com because their prices for photo projects is always so affordable. The downside though is that their shipping/production is not reliable at all.

I also did look at Shutterfly.com because the offer amazing deals. As tempting as their deals were, the shipping and time it would take to get to me was not worth it for me to get a single poster.

One of my recent favorite places to get photo work done is believe it or not, CVS. I do all my kiddos prints and holiday cards through them and have not had any issues. The best part is they offer 1hr prints and store pickup. They also offer an array of templates to use so you can create many things. CVS also can create posters and at reasonable prices too. There were many poster designs to choose from and I went with a design that had 15 photo squares. It looked very much like a Pokemon poster or something and I figured it would be perfect for importing pictures of my dolls.

I started right away on the 1/3 BJD poster. This whole poster creation process was actually great for me for many reasons. I not only got to finally have a place that has on record how old my dolls are but what their names are. It also allowed me to see the dolls that had no names. Making this poster was a great bonding moment because I didn’t just want to leave their name blank on the poster. This process made me really sit down and think and look at the nameless dolls I had and let me come up with a name for them. I feel like they are more complete now with names and they aren’t just “that doll”.

Final touches

I wanted to make sure that everything was accurate and centered as best as I could before printing it. One thing that I did struggle with is that you can only zoom in so much on CVS’s photo project creator. There were times where I would try to center things or change the size and it was hard to tell if I got it where it needed to be. Once I got things finalized I was ready to purchase.

I opted to have my 1/3 resin dollies on the top of the poster and my vinyl/ABS dollies on the bottom of the poster. It was really fun decorating the poster with embellishments and color. I ordered the poster in gloss since that came in faster. It was simple to check out and I arranged to pick it up from the store the next day. The poster was $12.99 and I ordered it in a 12×18 size which was perfect for my wall. There was one size larger and one smaller than the 12×18 but I felt anything bigger would have taken up too much space especially since I plan on making 2 more. Going smaller I think would have been odd too because the font for the words were already a font size 15.

The end result

I was very pleased with how it turned out. Even though it was a gloss finish it still seemed pretty matte to me. It fit perfectly on my wall and I can totally imagine having the other two next to it on display for my other dollies. Eventually I would like to get it framed so it can keep the poster in nicer condition. The BJD character poster made for a very nice display piece and I am so happy to have a good quick reference I can use to see when I got certain dolls in and what their companies were.

The sky is the limit with these posters and I could very well see a Pullip poster, a fashion doll collection poster, or even a BJD pets poster! This is just yet another avenue collectors can explore with their dolls and create something amazing.

Do you have a database for your doll collection? How many dolls do you currently own? Tell us in the comments section down below.

Here is my video showcasing the poster on my YouTube channel.