40–49cm Dolls Clara - Full Doll Manual Sculpting

Hello Dear Friends,

I'm embarking on a new journey, and welcome you to come along with me again! This time I'm going to take everything I've learned from making my first and most recent doll (Mira, a 19cm doll), and create a BETTER FASTER STRONGER doll

Now that I know I can get from sculpt to production, I'm going to start at the very beginning again and focus deeply on aesthetic and pose capability.

Last time (when I made Mira), my initial focus was all on posing capability at the beginning. So this time, I'm going to try to shift into a mind space that keeps aesthetic at the forefront from the beginning.

Come hell or high-water, I want to achieve the 3D version of this sketch:




Vibe: Princess-ish, athletic, fun girl
Exaggerated features: Head size, eye size, upper leg... (all to achieve a bit of a Disney-esque feel)

Technical Notes:

• Last time I used Apoxie Sculpt, this time I'll use La Doll. I can discuss the differences between the two mediums in length at some point if people are interested.
• I'm specifically going to create a real armature this time, and sculpt at least some of the pieces as complete body, then cut apart.
• Some of the edge-thickness limitations I experienced with the super small sculpting made it very hard to achieve neat sculpting. I'm going to make this doll 1/4 size to see if that helps with beauty, especially around joints.

Here we go again!!
Cheers

 

Alright - Update 1!
Revving up the engine...
....but staying slow and steady

This week I've been focusing on watching some tutorials on sculpting, anatomy, and how to use La Doll paperclay properly.

First I tried to draw front and side views next to my original-sized tracing of my concept drawing:



None of that felt right... or looked particularly good

So, I decided to go ahead and enlarge my concept drawing to "real size" which has turned out to be ~38-40cm, THEN create a front-facing version of the concept drawing over which I can draw the jointing blueprint.

Much better... enlarging the concept-drawing-tracing allowed me to then again trace exactly the pieces I needed, and fill in the rest for the base of my blueprint.



I'm relatively pleased with it so far, but there is something about the upper body ( & subsequent waist-hip ratio) on the RH drawing that doesn't quite jive with me in comparison to the LH drawing.

So for now, I'm gonna call that it for update number one, as I'm trying to be very deliberate about my steps here. Next up will be figuring out how to get the upper body area to feel "right" on that front-facing drawing, even if it's just changing dimensions ever so slightly. And then I'll overlay with a jointing system; this time with some real spheres

Onwards and forwards!

 

@Lillith That's definitely exactly it. I had traced the shoulder to make them "match" and you're right that the perspective leads to that causing the shoulder width to be off (and causes downstream effects with the ribcage, as you state). I increased the width on the shoulders & mid-section just a tiny bit right now and it looks a lot better. The arms are less inclined to behave now... but I'm going to work to keep a dainty look ... I will prevail

Thank you super much!!

 

Update 2.

Quick one today, as I think I was able to fix the front-view of Clara - I'm pretty happy with it, but if anyone sees anything else that looks particularly off, do let me know!

Technically her hands are the right size in comparison to her head, but I feel they're still a tad small - I may eventually size them up a slight bit for stylistic purposes, but I think that probably warrants me waiting to do a couple different test sculpts of hands in a variety of sizes to see what I like best.




Once I was pretty happy with the front facing drawing, I went ahead and took a pass at creating a blueprint. In the below image you'll see some overlapping regions that show where certain body parts will engage with each other. I kept the photocopies of upper and lower body on separate sheets of paper to try to maintain a set of mostly manageable sizes of reference papers



Next step... armature!

Also, theoretically my La Doll clay was supposed to arrive today... we'll see *fingers crossed*

 

Hello dear friends!

I know it's been a bit! I finished moving just a few days ago and am happy to report that I've gotten my workshop room back to a usable state!

I couldn't wait to get back to creating Clara, so as soon as I had everything out, I jumped right in. Here we go!

~~~

I started with some foam to make an armature. After cutting and shaping a bit, I realized that the limbs were probably too wonky to be quite useful, so I ran out to the store to grab some straws instead.







Not too much technical behavior here, but I finished up creating the armature relatively quickly. I wrapped all the pieces in masking tape, and then made a first layer of clay.






I let that dry overnight.

When I came back the next morning, I cut the pieces apart to remove the inner foam and straws. In retrospect I wish I hadn't wrapped the straws in tape. While it helped in sculpting the first layer, it made the straws very difficult to remove.






The end result is okay, but I had quite a bit of breakage that I had to glue together.

Here are the hollow base pieces!





While these are drying I'll start to work on making spheres for the joints.

Then I'll be able to start adding more layers and building the actual forms!

Moving right along

 

I'm back for a new update! Woo!

I'll jump right in.

~~~

After creating the base pieces from last time, I started to create clay layers in the general form of my technical drawings. This photo is probably two layers. I tried to build up the layers to approximately meet the edges of the technical drawing, but it's a little deceiving because when I look straight down at a piece aligned with the drawing, the piece looks a little larger than the drawing at the point that it's the actual correct size due to perspective.



Then I created some balls that will be the bases of the spherical joints. I made them a little larger than they will end up being so they can be formed properly once dried. The legs are also starting to look pretty nice from the front at this point, but the side view is very flat. So immediate next steps for them include building out the side view without losing the front view form.



I drew the initial sketch of the face onto the base face shape....



...and cut out a first pass at the eyes.



Ehhh.. something to work with but doesn't quite do much for me yet.



I started to get the body pieces to fit together so I can visualize how they need to be altered to match nicely....



And then I spent some time working and working and WORKING the body pieces to begin to achieve visual lines I wanted.



I'll try to remember to get some good side and 3/4 views soon. That was actually what I had focused on most that led to the above photo, but I didn't capture those just yet!


Then finally I did some eye work and started the nose.



Got a little frustrated with the eyes being perpetually off, so I filled them in to the point of being visually even, and gave myself a little more material to work with in that way.



Then I carved into the inside of the head behind the eyes, and inlaid material behind the eye holes so that the eyes themselves would lay nicely into the material behind.

At that point I reworked the eyes holes... and am starting to feel like the shapes I want are taking form.





Still a long way to go, but I'm feeling positive!

 

Definitely a ton of fun! I've been putting in a solid number of hours most M-F "workdays," so just keeping consistency on the hard work

 

Well friends, I wanted to make a quick follow-up here - I really appreciate everyone watching my projects, so I didn't want to leave you all hanging for absolutely forever.

I ended up deciding to switch to digital sculpting.

After trying and trying to beat the paperclay into submission to create a face that I was happy with, I decided to try a new route, and I'm a lot happier with the results I'm able to achieve digitally. It has it's pros and cons, but I feel right now that the pros outweigh the cons.

I commissioned an artist to bring my character to life in color, and renamed her Eliza after receiving the art back.

So I think it's best to "close" this project as it was a phase in my work on a 1/4 doll, but no longer captures the current vision of my project. I've created a new project here.

Please DM if you'd like more regular updates. I've been tracking my progress on these projects in a few places and have found myself unable to keep up with cross-platform posting as much as I'd like, but I do sincerely appreciate the support I've received from you all!!