My point of view

A few days ago, I came across a dolling website. The owner did not just have dolls, but also some texts about the dolling world in general and about programs and dolling styles in specific. After I’d read them, I was so shocked about the content and the opinions, that I closed my browser and lost the link. Maybe it is better this way, because I don’t want to accuse anybody.
In her texts the webmistress said things that made me feel shocked and then angry. And a while later, I was just sad about it.
She said that “the other dollers” are no real dollers, or at least they don’t work hard. “The other dollers” seem to be more experienced ones, who make beautiful dolls with many details and perfect shading. She was probably thinking of Suzy from DHF or someone else famous.
In the texts she told us, that these dollers make so beautiful dolls just because they’ve got expensive programs like Photoshop and other “equipment” like graphic tablets and so on.
She also used the - in my opinion quite old – reproval, that this dollers mostly tool shade and that, because of this, their dolls would be worth less, because tool shading would be so much easier than pixel shading.

I hugged my graphic tablet I’d just got for Christmas and started my Paint Shop Pro I use for dolling and then I asked myself if my dolls are not as good as hers because I doll with a graphic tablet and use a lighten/darken tool to add shadows. I think they are not worse. I thought that before and I didn’t change my mind. But this girl made me think. If there are more people out there who think like her. And why they do think so.
This girl seemed to be quite new to dolling and her dolls looked naturally not like the ones of very experienced dollers, because she just started. So maybe she wrote the text because she was jealous. Still, it’s wrong in my opinion.

Many new dollers start with MS Paint and then can’t wait to own Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop, because they think their dolls would improve so much if they had it. I thought like this, too, when I first started. But I soon noticed that I was wrong. And that it is difficult to tool shade clothes. It’s hard work, too, and not better or worse than pixel shading. An expensive paint program doesn’t make a good doller.
I got a graphic tablet for Christmas, and at first it was really hard to doll with it, because I wasn’t used to it. I don’t think my dolls improved much since I use it. It’s just another way, and it isn’t much easier than dolling with a mouse.

All in all, I think there are four Ps of dolling. There are tons of things more, but if you have this four, that’s a good start. They’re: Practice. You can read hundreds of tutorials, if you don’t try, you won’t get good results. You learn most about dolling while practising. And for this you need Patience. You shouldn’t rush to get tons of dolls done, but spend as much time as a doll needs on it. You might have to do a piece of clothing like hundred times, but it makes your doll beautiful. And because of this you should be Proud of it. If you say your doll is shit, many others might think the same and you have properly no motivation to make new dolls. If you spend much time on a doll, you can and should be proud of it. To be that, there’s another thing you need: Passion. You should love you hobby, dolling, and you should be very passionate if you make a doll. That is what makes them beautiful.
These are the four Ps, Practice, Patience, Pride and Passion. Photoshop is not one of them.