Aalish: a 60cm jeune fille in brown microcrystalline wax

Post-casting plans....

I will be casting Aalish in doll composition slip (CompoBell CS-1000).
The doll compo is much harder than carving wax, so I am hoping it will withstand
the elastic tensioning enough to string her tight enough so she can stand.
I think a BJD that can stand on her own is like, a minimum requirement.

I knit, and recently learned how to crochet, and I'm learning how to draft
a pattern sloper set, so I can design some clothes for Aalish.

So besides doing the usual things that one does for a BJD, such as insert eyes,
face-ups, body blushing, and wig-making, I also want to make her some black
leather shoes, knit her some stockings, and sew a dress for her.

It sounds like she is going to be a Dress-maker's Model, and a Fashion Doll !!!
She will not be required to pose like a gymnast, an acrobat, or contortionist.

My other idea for her include making her a scale room to sit in, for photo shoots.
I find myself thinking about making scale furniture, and steampunk gadgets to
go on the shelves and tables in the little room. So 1/3 scale dollhouse-type room
is also tentatively in the plans.

Aalish will be employed as a:
Dress-Maker's Model.
Fashion Doll.
Photographer's Model.
Photo Story Actress.
Nude Artist's Model? :XD
I have seen some very nice drawings and paintings of BJDs recently.
A watercolor set, and some Arches watercolor paper are in my studio.

The more I work on her, the more plans I seem to have for her.
Needless to say, she will be a very busy girl, once she is finished !!!

 

Single Jointing

Thank you, cloudedmind. )
I am also studying and learning all sorts of new things while I am making her.
A BJD is a multi-media work of art, and there are so many new things I need to learn !!!
Pattern-making, sewing for dolls, shoe-making, wig-making, face-ups, body blushing....
the list goes on and on !!!

Yes, I have heard pretty much the same thing from other's, and that is why I decided to make my first doll single jointed, with the ball attached to one limb. I have heard that many of the Japanese Artist BJDs have single floating joints, and it seems that in the few pictures I have managed to find of these dolls, that they do have single floating joints. One of my very favorite resin dolls is a Dollmore Lusion Dahlia 80cm, and she also has single floating joints. I've heard that she is difficult to pose, standing. However, I do want to try the single floating joints. I may try them in my second doll?

You're welcome. Thank you for sharing the pics of Akali with me. )
I can really appreciate fine jointing in a BJD, especially since I am having more difficulty than I thought I would, figuring out the jointing. As I play with Carving Wax Test Doll, I am beginning to get an inkling of some of the things that I must change. The light in my head is dim and flickering at this time, but I am hoping that I will get it eventually.

Experience is what you get when you are looking for something else.
Now I have more experience than I did when I started making this first doll.
This is one of the things about sculpture in general: you can only learn it by doing.
All the reading in the world will not make a BJD.
Reading through BJD-making tutorials is good to get a general overview of the process.
But the only way to learn how to make a BJD is to get some clay or wax and start modeling.

I started out by reading as much as I could about making a BJD.
This gave me a fairly good overview of the process.
Then I made several small drawings on graph paper.
Of those drawings, I made one larger drawing on graph paper.
Then I enlarged the graph paper drawing up to a poster board sized working drawing.
Then I used tracing paper to trace around each individual body part (front and side views).
I transferred the tracings to cereal box cardboard, and cut the cardboard out.
Then I slotted the front and side profiles of cardboard together, and filled in with wax.
In this way, my whole doll was roughed-out very quickly, and took shape quickly.

The thing is, at that point, I was just guessing at the joints.
The joints were more of a general indication of where joints should be, than actual joints.
Since my individual wax doll parts were solid, I could not test string them.

So the next thing I did was make rough shell molds of those solid wax parts, and cast
those parts in carving wax, which are hollow for the most part, and sturdy enough to
withstand elastic tensioning.

So here I am now, with a Carving Wax Test Doll, that is strung with elastic,
but she still has the general indication of where the joints should be.
That is where I am. Now I am actually starting to design the joints.

The carving wax allows me to do both additive and subtractive techniques.
So now I can really start to figure out how the joints should really work !!!

Once I figure out how to make the joints for my doll ,then I will be able to model those specific joints into the brown wax sculpt of Aalish. When I cast those solid wax parts in rough shell molds, to make carving wax parts, the joints should be working joints. All I should have to do with them at that point, is some minor tweaking, then I can refine the carving wax doll parts before making the slip casting molds.

I am still a long ways from finishing Aalish. But I am learning many things !!!
It is the Journey, not the Destination, that I am thinking about.
I am having fun !!!

 

dollhouse-type room

OMG, Jphobia, that SQUEE is infectious. :XD
I really do not have enough space to make a 1 meter cubed room either.
So my ideas about doing that are to make the walls, and floor in pieces.
Three walls and a floor would be four flat panels that could be stored flat.
A box would hold the furniture, steampunk gadgets, and so forth.
For a photo-shoot, I would assemble the flat panels, and arrange the
furniture, etc., in the room. Afterwards, it could be knocked down and
stored away flat. This is similar to a theater set.
I am finding some really good doll furniture making tutorials at DoA !!! )

 

A left hand for Carving Wax Test Doll.

The carving wax hand was cast in a hot-pour moulage mold.
http://atelierpoupee.blogspot.com/2011/04/carving-wax-hand.html
Thank you for taking a look.

 

Thank you, glimmer. )

All the parts of Carving Wax Test Doll are in a rough state, without detailing.
I am still in the process of modeling doll parts in brown microcrystalline wax.
Carving Wax Test Doll is for Research & Development of jointing.
I am having fun playing with her, even though she will never be finished.

 

Who or what is Carving Wax Test Doll?
I probably haven't explained everything as well as I could?

Aalish is my first 60cm ball-jointed doll.
I am figuring her out as I go along.
I do not have any elastic-tensioned BJDs to refer to.
So I made my own test doll, so I can figure out the joints.

This is very similar to how Martha Armstrong-Hand figured out her first BJD.
Martha Armstrong-Hand wrote a book about making porcelain BJDs, titled
Learning To Be A Doll Artist. It was first published by Scott Publications
in 1999, but is currently out-of-print, and is pretty much unavailable.

Since I found out about LTBADA, I have searched and searched for more
information about Martha's Method of making BJDs. I have managed to pick
up some bits and pieces, here and there, on the Internet.

When Martha first decided to make fully articulated ball-and-socket jointed dolls,
she made herself a test doll of carving wax by making a mold over a seven-inch
Rosebud Baby that she had designed for Mattel, and cast carving wax
into that mold. Then she gradually worked out the joints by trial and error with wooden
balls and simple hinges. After that, she translated what she had found out experimenting
with her test doll, into the joints for her ball-jointed dolls.

Carving Wax is a design material that Martha discovered when she was working
as a professional sculptor in industry in the late 1950s and early 1960s. She brought
the carving wax from industry into her doll making studio. In my opinion, this carving
wax is one of the most amazing things that Martha gave us. She made her own
carving wax recipe so she could control its consistency and color. She measured it
by weight:

9 parts paraffin
9 parts talc
1 part beeswax
1 part carnauba wax

She melted the waxes in a double boiler or crockpot. She used a thermometer to make sure
it didn't get too hot (under 180 deg.). Then she added the talc and mixed everything thoroughly.
My recipe for carving wax is a modified version of a modified version of Martha's recipe.
Here is the carving wax recipe that I modified:

4.5 parts microcrystalline wax
4.5 parts paraffin wax
9 parts talc
1 part beeswax
1 part carnauba wax

My own carving wax recipe looks like this:

1 part microcrystalline wax (14oz.)
1 part paraffin wax (14oz.)
2 parts talc (28oz.)

I used what I had on hand, without having to order any carnauba wax or beeswax. I used
Baby Powder Talc which I found at the Dollar Store in 14oz bottles. They had two kinds
of baby powder, one that listed Talc and Fragrance as the ingredients, and the other which
listed Cornstarch and Fragrance as the ingredients. I bought the one with Talc as the
main ingredient.

Needless to say, my carving wax smells a lot like a freshly dusted baby's bum.

How did Martha use the carving wax to make a BJD?
First, she designed her doll with concept drawings, then made full-size working drawings.
She used the working drawings (front view and side view) to make a wire armature.
The armature was attached to a modeling stand.
She modeled her original doll sculpt in oil-clay over the wire armature.
Then she removed the oil-clay sculpt from the modeling stand.
This was easy to do because she designed her modeling stand with pipe fittings.
So all she had to do was unscrew the pipe fittings from the modeling stand. Brilliant!
Next, she cut the original sculpt into parts for plaster molding.
Note that because the oil-clay sculpt was modeled over a wire armature, that the wire
armature was cut in the process. Her method requires a new wire armature for each new doll.
She cuts the original oil-clay sculpt at the head, the shoulders, and the hips.
She then had six doll parts to mold in plaster rough shell molds. (Head, Torso, 2 Arms, 2 Legs)
Wax and water do not mix. So if she soaks the plaster rough shell molds in water until
they are fully saturated with water, she can pour melted carving wax into the molds and
the carving wax will not stick to the plaster molds. Furthermore, because the carving wax
in the molds starts to thicken up along the walls of the mold, when the carving wax is thick
enough, she can pour the excess carving wax back into her wax pot, and have hollow castings!

The carving wax is tough enough to withstand elastic tensioning!
And, the parts are hollow which allows the elastic to go through the limbs and the torso,
and the head. This allows the carving wax BJD to be test strung before the final molds
are made. It is much easier to modify the carving wax doll parts than to discover that your
joint design does not work after the final molds have been made.

Next, she cuts the carving wax doll parts at the joints. She had made other molds of balls,
and she cast carving wax balls of various sizes into those molds. Then she used an electric
wax pen and sculpting tools to design the joints and attach the balls to the limbs, and
sculpt sockets and so forth.

Another property of carving wax is that it can be finished glass-smooth! After Martha
designed the joints in carving wax, and test strung the doll parts, she would refine the doll
parts so they could be used as master patterns for making porcelain slip casting molds. From
what I have gathered, she was a perfectionist, and all her doll parts were refined to the
highest level. Martha was a professional sculptor and doll maker.

If you have read this far, then you should now have a much better idea of what
Carving Wax Test Doll is to me, in my process of doll making. I am loosely following
Martha's Method, even to the extent of making a test doll for myself, so I can figure out
jointing for my 60cm BJD, named Aalish.

Carving Wax Test Doll will never be finished for molding, but she will probably be
finished as a test doll that is strung with elastic, and she will be able to stand and pose
and so forth.

I will use what I find working with Carving Wax Test Doll, and apply that to my current
work-in-progress Aalish sculpt, which is being modeled in brown microcrystalline wax
(Victory Brown). I am trying to document my daily progress (or lack of progress) on my weblog.
Keeping a journal or notebook of your doll's progress is also a part of Martha's Method. I
find that doing the journal of this first 60cm BJD is a very good way to keep motivated, and
to remember what and why I am making this 60cm doll in the first place.

Please see http://atelierpoupee.blogsot.com/ for more information.

 

With this right hand, Carving Wax Test Doll now has all of her dolly parts attached.



More details at my weblog: Atelier de Poupée.

 

Carving Wax Test Doll

Thank you, glimmer.

The bad news is, my old camera is getting on in years, and is wearing out.
It takes forever for me to get it switched ON these days.
The good news is that my daughter, who is in Photography School,
told me yesterday that she is going to give her old digital camera
to me, because she does not use it anymore, so......
yes, I think I will be able to take a nice full length picture of
Carving Wax Test Doll, and post it here. I am hoping to get the
camera today, but I never know how that will turn out.

I have been practicing adding carving wax to Carving Wax Test Doll.
It can be a rather slow process, but sometimes slow is good.
In this case, I am adding breasts to the upper torso.
Since the upper torso was molded before any modeling was done,
it is completely flat, so building-up breasts takes a long time,
using the drip-drip-drip method and a wax pen.

So I have tried a different method, and welded some pouring
cups from the hands to her upper torso, in order to get some quick
build-up. Yeah, this is what Carving Wax Test Doll is all about.

By the time I get Aalish modeled in brown wax, and molded and
cast in carving wax, I should have much more experience working
with the carving wax. Also, because Aalish will be fully modeled,
I am hoping I will not have as much to do as far as adding carving
wax to her. I am hoping that all I will have to do is tweak some
joints, and smooth her out for the final molds.

 

This is a work-in-progress photo with my old digital camera.

 

My daughter just dropped off the digital camera that she is giving to me.
It is a Nikon Coolpix L3 with a 256MB flash card in it.
There are a lot of buttons on it. She also brought the manual.
It takes 5.1 megapixel pix, and has a 3x zoom lens.
The test photo is 2592x1944 in size !!!

My old digital camera, purchased in 1997 has a 2MB flash card in it.
It takes 640x480 resolution pix.

This is a big step up for my doll photography.

 

Thank you, for your kind words, liu484.
I look at the photos and say to myself:
The feet are too big, and the hands are too long......
But Aalish is supposed to be a teenager.....
and that is how teenagers are supposed to be, right?


It is very good for me to see this photo.

 

update 20110721

This is where Aalish is today.



Carving Wax Test Doll is shown on the right, for comparison.
Carving Wax Test Doll is tensioned with 3mm elastic doll cord.

Aalish has new hip joints, cast from a moulage mold made from a billiards ball.
Otherwise, most of what I have been doing with this project is experimenting with
Carving Wax Test Doll, trying to learn how to use my awesome batch of carving wax.

You can see the details at my weblog.

 

Thank you, glimmer. )

I recently got some new hot-pour moulage molding material, so I'll mold Aalish's brown sculpture wax head again, cast it in carving wax, and put it on Carving Wax Test Doll.
Carving Wax Test Doll and Aalish have the same head, but it just looks different in brown sculpture wax. Well, actually, the brown wax head has some new work done on the mouth and eyes, but probably not that noticeable.

My process:

1. Drawings
2. Cardboard armatures made using the working drawing
3. Modeling doll parts in brown microcrystalline sculpture wax over the armature
4. Waste molds (hot-pour moulage)
5. Cast carving wax in waste molds
6. Design ball joints and test string carving wax doll parts
7. Refine carving wax doll parts
8. Slip casting molds (plaster)
9. Cast doll composition slip in plaster molds
10. Clean cast compo doll parts (remove seam lines, etc)
11. Bake cast compo doll parts in kitchen oven
12. Paint cast compo doll parts
13. Assemble the BJD
14. Make wig
15. Make clothing
16. Make shoes and accessories
17. Post finished BJD in the Finished Work gallery.


So I'm still at step three. :dead

 

Thank you, Katherine.
The process is loosely based on Martha Armstrong-Hand's method, with a little bit of
Yoshida Style thrown in, and some of my own mess.
Progress is actually very slow, but I try to do a little bit of work on my doll each day.

Martha A-H recommended oil-clay for beginners. She said it is very easy for beginning sculptors to use oil-clay because it doesn't dry out, and it is easy to model.

Also, oil-clay can be reused forever. I am big into reusable sculpture materials. I would have used oil-clay for my doll, except I didn't have enough of it on hand. I did have enough brown sculpture wax though, so I used it. The wax is also reusable. If you invest in reusable sculpture materials early on, they will pay for themselves in the long run.

So anyway, because oil-clay is relatively soft, it needs an armature and a modeling stand for support. Also, because of the softness, it cannot be tensioned, for testing joints. So Martha A-H made molds of the original oil-clay sculpt, and cast carving wax into those molds. Wax and water do not mix, so the plaster molds she made were saturated in water before she poured molten carving into them. When the carving wax got thick enough in the molds, she poured the excess carving wax back into the wax pot. Thus, she had hollow castings to refine for the final porcelain slip casting molds.

Carving wax can be refined to a high finish, and, it is strong enough to withstand elastic tensioning, so joints can be designed, using the carving wax doll parts. Then after the joints are designed, and test strung, she refined the carving wax doll parts to a high finish for use as patterns for making the final slip casting plaster molds.

My carving wax is an awesome material, and I am very happy to have discovered it.
My Carving Wax Test Doll is what I am using to learn how to work with carving wax.
She will never be cast in anything. She will always be an experimental work-in-progress.
Aalish will be molded, then cast in carving wax when I am finished modeling her.

You're welcome. I enjoy learning new things, and sharing what I learn with others. I hope Aalish turns out beautiful. She does too. I think that all teenage girls want to be beautiful.

I am planning on casting Aalish in doll composition slip (CompoBell CS-1000).
Brown sculpture wax --> waste molds --> carving wax --> plaster molds --> doll compo.
)

 

Yesterday I cast the carving wax upper torso of Aalish in a moulage (agar-agar) mold; the second of sixteen carving wax doll parts that I must make in my process. I have previously cast the lower torso in carving wax. This is a snapshot of the carving wax upper torso as it came out of the moulage (agar-agar) mold.



See a larger image at my weblog:
http://atelierpoupee.blogspot.com/2011/10/carving-wax-upper-torso.html

The process is basically:
1. Concept Drawings and Full-Size Working Drawings with a front and side view.
2. Modeling material over armature. Model basic forms.
3. Moulage (agar-agar) waste molds of modeling material doll parts.
4. Cast carving wax doll parts in waste molds.
5. Refine carving wax doll parts.
6. Make final plaster slip casting molds, using carving wax doll parts as patterns.
7. Cast doll composition slip (CompoBell CS-1000) in plaster slip molds.
8. Trim and finish compo doll parts.
9. Assemble BJD with elastic.
10. Insert eyes.
11. Make wig.
12. Make clothes.
13. Make shoes and accessories.
14. Display completed BJD.

I am currently working on steps two, three, four and five.

Thank you for looking.

 

Thank you for your kind words.
I am happy to know that my weblog is also helpful and interesting to others.
This is my first 60cm BJD and I am figuring it out as I go along.
I try to do a little bit of work on my doll every day.

 

You can use just about all the pottery hand-building techniques with modeling wax.
You do not use slip to join wax. I 'weld' wax together with a hot metal wax tool.
Wax is very firm until it is warmed in the hand. When cool, it is very firm again.
Some sculptors like to warm chunks of wax under a lightbulb, or in a wax pot.
I do that when I am first roughing out my forms. Then I use a broad blade knife
to spread the warn wax. Wax does not dry out. Wax does not harden (like clay).
Wax is reusable over and over again, for as many different projects as you
want to make. Simply put the wax in the wax pot and warm it up. I have been using
the same modeling wax for over twenty years now. For all practical purposes, my
modeling wax is free, since it has amortized the initial cost over many years of use.
This makes modeling wax (or oil-clay) one of the least expensive modeling materials
for making sculpture.

 

Thank you, Nike.

I am looking forward to eventually getting to the point of making the plaster slip casting molds and casting all the doll parts in doll composition slip. I have just recently become interested in papier mâché and am planning on making some projects with it. It does have a wonderful quality, plus it is lightweight and durable. I will probably be using a boiled wheat paste recipe for the glue. I have been saving newsprint paper. It is so exciting to work in different mediums. Also, as you have mentioned, there is no need for any fancy equipment, such as a kiln, air compressor, or pressure pot.

With my own hand and face, if I put the heel of my hand on my chin, and put my hand up over my face, the tip of the longest finger is about at the hairline, more or less. The hands of Aalish are the same proportion. However, they seem to appear too big (to me). Perhaps it is because so many dolls have such small hands? I don't know. Anyway, for the time being, the hands are going to remain the same size. I just need to finish modeling and detailing them.

Anyone is free to offer constructive criticism to me at any time. I am a big fan of the educational emphasis here at The Joint, so please, critique as often as you wish.

Thank you for the link. I really enjoy the tutorials at Deviant Art.

 

Embracing Failure.

It has been awhile since I have posted in this WIP thread; since November 2011, ten months ago.
Here I have documented some of my trials and tribulations making a Ball Jointed Doll.

In January 2012, I declared that these two sculpture wax versions of my First BJD were a Fail.

I was not happy with the first version, so I made a new working drawing, and started a second version.
The thing is, with the second version, I tried to reuse some of the doll parts from my first version,
modifying the parts by adding sculpture wax to them, and only remaking certain parts, in order
to fit the new working drawing. Overall, the parts were bigger, and I felt better about them, but the
more I worked on the second version, the more I felt that something was wrong with her. She was
not looking very good when I put all the parts together over the second working drawing. I finally
had to admit that I had failed a second time.

The only good news is that I will be able to reuse my sculpture wax, carving wax, and hot-pour moulage
for other projects. The only material that is being thrown in the dustbin is the cereal box cardboard armature.

It was not easy to admit to a failure when I had put so much time into those first two sculpture wax versions.
But finally, I did admit failure, and I embraced it, here, and here.

What I decided to do is start over from scratch, and try to follow Martha Armstrong-Hand's method of
making a ball-jointed doll. I am a big fan of Martha A-H, and ever since I discovered her method, I have
been fascinated with it.

So what I am going to do is to start a new WIP thread for the third version of my
first BJD. I will try to post the highlights of my progress to the new thread, and will continue to
document my daily progress of making a ball-jointed doll at my weblog, Atelier de Poupée.

Continued at Aalish III.

Thank you for reading, looking, and watching.

Love, love, love.

(^_^)