3D printing a BJD with an FDM printer

Hi there!

Congrats on your new printer! What kind do you have if you don't mind me asking?

Honestly I can't say I'm an expert on FDM printing for dolls, as I have an SLA printer instead lol.
But I do have some experience with FDM printing in general, and the best thing you can do is to run some test prints unrelated to dollwork for right now. For FDM printing, layer height, melting temperature, and nozzle translation speed are going to be your three biggest hurdles to get over first, so I'd recommend looking up some test prints and run them a few times, adjusting settings for each print. Once you dial in those settings, you should be good to print pretty much whatever you want for dolls! Looking up calibration tutorials specific to your printer will help as well.

One thing to note though is that FDM prints will sometimes have pretty significant layer lines that will need to be sanded down if you want to cast your doll in resin at some point, so keep that in mind in your process.

I'd also look up tutorials on how to properly add build supports to your models, and also how to hollow them out. Sometimes if you don't have your support settings quite right they can leave divots or hangnails on your model that you'll have to fill in/sand off later if you want a smooth surface. A pair of good wire nippers will be your best friend here.

I hope that helps!! Best of luck on your printing, I hope you'll post results here!

 

I sort of... well, like I typically do, dove headfirst when I got my Ender 3 Pro and printed several BJDs that I found on Thingiverse as some of my first prints. I wasn't completely bonkers about it though, I did scale them down to 1/6 scale. I later printed two more scaled at 1/4 scale. All of these were printed at standard settings and with supports, sometimes with a raft.

I don't think I'd recommend going as all out as I did, but printing one or two at a smaller scale might help give you an idea of what works and what does not in construction and material differences. The doll I'm planning out is going to be in polymer clay, which has yet a third set of parameters to play with, but the printed dolls helped me figure out which joints were most important for what I want to do with the doll.

Sanding is definitely going to be a requirement. There might be a sweet spot combination of filament/nozzle size/etc... but you're probably still going to need to sand some. Just an annoyance of the technology. Well, if you print with ABS you might be able to do acetone polishing, but that's a mess of it's own, and not one I know much about.

Sadly, I can't help much on the design side. I'm a decent sculptor with polymer clay*, but Blender and I are still not quite meshing well. I'll get there eventually.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!

Nyx

*Decent = my dragons look like dragons, my people look like people, my cats... are still either toonish or schnausers, damnit!

 

It will work, but you will be sanding forever. I recommend using a filler/primer (like Mr Hobby's Mr Surfacer) to make it easier, though you might lose detail if you are working with a smaller doll.