~20cm Dolls 1/12 Doll, Concept to Production

Hey @Lillith - Thanks for sharing that they look so familiar! -- Definitely helps me to feel like I'm on the right track... I got very, very close today with a couple changes that I made, and your list is *super* helpful as well.

The small batches detail is so interesting to me, sure enough, I can feel the cups heating up more quickly when I have larger batches. The heat reaction speeds itself up like crazy! So interesting!

My vents are currently very tiny... if I continue to run into issues I'll make that fix for sure. Luckily removing material from the mold is one of the easier changes to make And the overpour into the vents is something I thought I noticed, but wasn't sure if I was just crazy, so thank you for mentioning. It does seem to just cause a blockage that air no longer pushes out of, instead of the resin falling down in through the vents and bubbles working their way back out... that does surprise me a little bit. Not quite the behavior one would expect when working with what seems like a fluid!

Anddddd, thanks for the humidity note! I thought by working in California that I would mostly just be watching temperature, but when I looked at my humidity sensor today it was far higher than your recommendation here - so I'll be sure to keep tabs on both! The original pours I showed here were in 85F weather, so it was pretty hot. No idea what the humidity was. But it didn't take too long of me scratching my head about it to look up manufacturers recommendations for temperature of the resin, and realize I was working at a temperature they recommend to *speed up* the reaction. Easily fixable because I do get up early though, so today's work was now in the early morning hours.

Luckily a lot of the pieces I did super early in the morning did come out, so once I get all the pieces, I'll post another update It's getting very, very close!!!

 

Well my friends, here we are.

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I promise to follow up with a reflective post sometime very soon, as well as some better photography... for now, here is Mira from her birthday party

She has been born!




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If there's anything anyone wants me to talk about process-wise or any open questions y'all have, do let me know! I'll probably do a write-up in about a week (I'm off in a couple days for a mini local vacation, a great idea after getting through this whole project! ).

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Okay, and one more photo because I can't resist....






And maybe just one more





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Okay, everybody. I'll write again soon. Enjoy your week!!

 

She is exactly 19cm tall

I'm fortunate to have been able to really focus on this project. It's been a wonderful opportunity to be able to spend *so* much dedicated time on something like this. Clearly I had no concept of how long it would take when I started!

I had made some sculpey figurines many years before, but I had never worked with Apoxie or done any serious sculpting.

There are some engineering things I will want to iterate on for next dolls (which I'll discuss in more details in a future update), but it's been interesting to balance my lofty goals with the realities of some of my collection of dolls made by other people too ... for example, I have so many dolls that don't pose very well or need wiring or sueding by default, so from that perspective I'm very proud of my initial success in engineering her. I do think handling her will be a lot easier if I can track down a proper material to add a little bit of "glue sueding" into her hip joints, though. My other tinies have that, and I like the effect of it.

Gosh, I just I love her so very much!!!

I have to say thanks so much for following along with me so much and offering so much commentary & support, @Lillith .... I've really appreciated it much more than I can articulate well over a text-based forum; that feeling of doing a project "with someone else around" really has helped me in many ways!

 

@Lillith

 

Alright.
This will be the last update I make on this thread.... Thank you my dear friends for following along on this project. I'm really proud of how far I've come, and I've learned so much!
It's not been easy - but I've gained a ton of confidence as a doll maker, and I can't wait for the next round where I'm able to implement a lot of what I've learned.

I'll do a little reflection below. I hope it's of interest

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Sculpting

So, thinking back to the beginning, I am happy with the sculpting material that I chose as a base (Apoxie). It was strong and easy to sand, and when I dropped pieces I had no worry of them breaking. When I originally made Mira's face, I tried layering over the apoxie base with a material called Green Stuff. In theory it was easier to add detailing into Green Stuff, but in practice it was a nightmare to sand.

Once I realized there were tiny handheld dremels, I was no longer worried about how I would put detail into the Apoxie, so the Green Stuff became even more of a relic and a headache. Going forward I only plan to use apoxie to create my master models. I love the way it feels to work with, and now I'm confident in my ability to add detailing into it.

One of the things I held myself back with was not knowing when it was better to just remake a part versus keep trying to sand it or build on top of it to fit my vision; I think knowing where that line is only can come with practice. There were certainly a couple cases where building on top of parts was the right choice. I feel better equipped to make that evaluation having a whole doll-making process under my belt now.

Other than that, I think getting through making the master was mostly about being consistent on working on it, and instead of getting frustrated with the parts, simply stepping away and asking what I had learned from things "not working yet." Every problem was solvable with time, rebuild, or a little bit of different design thought.

Mold-making and Casting

I started learning about casting probably two months before I intended to make my first mold. I searched and searched for the technical information I needed to feel I understood the mold making and casting process at a deep level, and I'm glad I did. Some of the tradeoffs I learned about (with one of the more obvious being higher quality silicone and resin for a higher price) were worth making the tradeoff to get a better material outcome. Understanding what features of the materials I would be getting for the price was helpful in making those decisions.

Moldmaking has been a big challenge. I couldn't find many examples of actual doll part molds, but I found a few! And having those visuals really helped me. I did a lot of the right things - and I also learned a lot that can only be learned by doing it yourself. My molds generally work. There's a lot I can do better next time, and it's helpful to be running the casting and know the "why" for why I would make certain changes to my mold designs. Most of my molds are some version of "spoiled pet" at this point, and I have to remember each of their little quirks as I get them set up for each casting run. I hope to minimize that behavior next time I make molds. It's not the end of the world, but it does make each casting run pretty tiring from a cognitive load perspective. While it doesn't seem to be affecting the overall outcome of my parts, I get a ton of flash in spite of clamping the molds. I have some thoughts on how to reduce this too (one of them being to design proper clamps - my method is really janky), and intend to do so next round.

Tools! A lot of resources that discussed mold making and casting waffled back on forth on whether a vacuum pump (for mold making) and/or a pressure pot (for casting) was really necessary. I personally can't imagine how I would've gotten good results without either. I would never skip on either of these, or encourage anyone else to. The amount of money you save on either of them is just going to get lost on junk casts in the long run if you intend to produce any sort of volume.

And then environment... California is perpetually too hot to run casting. I get up and start my production work at 6am to try to beat the heat, and even that wasn't doing the job at first. So I bought a mini-fridge and I cool small bottles of the resin at a time. This has completely fixed my issue, and furthermore seems to be allowed me to work in super high humidity. I am not sure I can explain my fortune with the humidity thing right now because I don't really know how temperature of resin and humidity conditions react to each other.. but here we are and it's working. I do not take that for granted ... lol. I'd love a controlled room to do this, but I'm working with what I've got - which is an apartment with a deck. So I'm glad.

Anyway, here's a couple images of my parts... I've got a pic with molds included (and a bonus set of parts that didn't come out correctly in one!) and a picture without molds. I think the photos are neat







As the artist, of course there's lots I see that could be better. I did a super quick cleanup on this Mira I've got right now, and so I'll have to get a little more tidy on the rest of the parts, but I really just wanted to get to be able to paint and play with one of them, so I'll clean her up later

That being said, I am truly so proud of her. I feel very satisfied with the outcome for my first ever doll - as well as the fact that I completely hand-sculpted the master model. I don't plan to switch to 3D modeling any time in the near future because I truly just loved this particular process, and I personally think there's something very special about how she turned out which I believe is due to being so totally handmade.

Just in time, I also figured out how to paint SUPER tiny lines, so I gave her a tiny faceup and manicure.

And with that being completed -- feels a little bittersweet to say it, but -- I'll sign off on this project journal. Happy to answer any future questions, and if people stumble upon this much later, I'm always open to DMs to chat about the process.

Take good care, everyone!