I've always thought of dollz as existing in two main categories; the cartoon dollz and diy base/handdrawn.

Cartoon Dollz	DIY/Base Dolls

Deep Fried Dollmaker Victims

Cartoon dollz were my gateway to diy/base dolls. However, I was growing sick of the dollz from The Palace. The main offender being the classic “prep” style pictured above. After being plucked from The Palace these dollz became fodder for drag n' drop dollmaker pages. Not many people were actually editing them anymore. This led to an endless cycle of stagnant dollmaker dollz deep fried from being screenshotted thousands of times and recycled into new dollmaker pages. Screenshot, deep fry, upload, chop heads and clothing items, turn into dollmaker, rinse and repeat. It was unfortunate. Lastly, and probably most importantly, The Palace dolls were becoming lame.

Then, one day I discovered this new, different kind of doll. A doll that could be made from hundreds, if not thousands of base options. Why have one base when you could have them all? I had been practicing my skills in the palace avatar editor and MS Paint. I was ready to advance to this new frontier.

In fact, I even have an embarrassing story about it.

It was in the midst of a summer where I was too young to work, but my parents trusted me enough to be mostly left to my own devices. I'd guess probably around 12-13. I spent most of that summer making dolls and posting them on my geocities doll site that I had named “cherry tonic”. I even learned how to use the dodge and burn tools in psp7. While I wasn't good, I was cookin'.

One day, I've got a base pulled up and I'm ready to start a doll and my grandma shows up unexpectedly. She walks behind me, looks at the computer audibly gasps, and in her thick ass French accent she says “NAKED GIRLS?!!”. I scrambled to try to show her evidence her that I was not partaking in the viewing of naked girls. Did she believe me? I'll never truly know. (Rest in peace) Regardless, it will forever be burned into my catalogue of childhood cringe. The best part? I'm like 99% sure this is the base that I had open.

No offense to the person that made it, but it kinda looks like bobby hill. I can't remember what I was planning on making with that base. I do know I never finished it. But today is the day. I made a sabrina carpenter. Sorry grandma, it's still a half-naked girl.

These days, I'm no snob when it comes to pixel dolls. I love them all. In the last couple of years since I started this site, I've made a handful of dolls from various bases I've found around the internet. I don't see a lot of doll making these days and it's truly a shame. If you're thinking about making dolls, the best time to start was 10 years ago and the second best time to start is right now.

These are all the dolls I've made, click for base credit.

In the current year there are still sites actively making dolls and bases. Please check them out!