so if i wanted to get into ball-jointed dolls but specifically the kind shaped like dragons and stuff, how would i even start doing that?
hi a friend linked me to this post and i thought i'd dump a whole lot of links on you lol
most dragon bjds are rare, limited, and by a few makers, especially if you want anything bigger than a pet doll that fits into your hand. but the biggest names you want to look out for are:
dream valley
dollzone
whale tower
cuartosdolls
dearmine
dream valley makes almost exclusively fantasy dolls. a couple years ago they made a 1/6 and 1/4 dragon named "griffin" (yes, they called a dragon griffin w/e). besides the sizes, the 1/4 version has jointed hands. they rarely rerelease dolls. you will probably have to find one secondhand, and he will probably cost you at least $800-1000. besides griffin, they also made flo who is a flower dragon. their other dragon dolls are mostly anthros or pets, you can view them on the rest of their side. pets include eve/bor, garey/carey, sirey/cory, rubin, umi/bora, xion/adela. their anthros include sylves, velarde, collier, silina, cayes, and grayson. they have humanoid bodies with dragon feet, tails, and wings. denverdoll has velarde and some of their pet dragons in stock. it looks like alice's collections (very old and reputable dealer) has a bor in stock.
dollzone makes a ton of dolls and often dips into fantasy, but they're not exclusively fantasy like dream valley is. (dream valley artists also branched off from dollzone.) sometimes they collaborate with other artists too; their biggest full on dragon shadow was one such collab. it's big and very spiky! they also cast dragon heads for another artist, mr. long and yunchi. these are heads designed to go on on 75cm bodies, but you can sometimes stick them on smaller bodies if you don't mind the gapping. i have yunchi on a 72 body and it looks ok but i don't mind the gapping. they're both retired so you'll have to find them secondhand. they've also made some anthros on dragon bodies like yin-long 1/4 and 1/3 and 1/6. their blind box sister company also made the penny's box dragontaurs which use the yin long design but small.
whale tower is an independent artist who spun off from dream valley and is most known for rafayeh. they also made a baby version of her called raffi, they've made some draconic snakes, and they're in the process of making a qilin. rafayeh has had a couple of releases and no clue if they plan on selling her again. she costs like $1000 too
cuartosdolls made a lot of dragons back in the day including a huge boy named antares but she seems to have retired from dollmaking. antares is basically impossible to get, but i know you can sometimes find legitimate darkhorns and rarely a nebo.
dearmine mostly makes pets and smaller anthros of various types, but i have a cloud. he's about 42cm tall. it looks like they've released his sculpt but not in that color and fullset too. they'll probably bring him back, but in different colors and looks. he has deer hooves and clawed hands. they also have a little dragon named chopin, who they rerelease often i think.
some one offs also include spirit imprint's she is a dragon, loongsoul's dragons white and black. fairyland has made some dragon legs and tails under their fairyline and fairyline60 lines. denverdoll has some fairyline60 dragons in stock. but full on dragons are rare. finding legitimate ones is harder, especially for older dolls like cuartos. :( don't trust ebay unless it comes with a legitimate certificate of authenticity...
hope i could help! if you like any of these dragons you can also try searching for box openings on youtube for an impression of how they look and move.
EDIT: also with den of angels in the process of shutting down (it's...complicated lol), your best resource for sales and info besides ebay, instagram, xianyu, etc is the big bjd discord. there's someone selling a white shadow there rn!
