Dolls made in the US (NEWS 2006.11.21)

I don't live in the States, but absolutely, if the face sculpt and quality was good, and also if the price was reasonable, I'd totally buy from a US supplier I really don't care where they come from, I buy what I like, and what meets my standards

 

I'm not sure where the people who made some of the dolls on this forum are from, but there are a handful of dolls made by english speaking people on these boards, who have been cast and sold to others on DoA ^^ so I would def consider it if I liked the style of your doll I don't care where the doll is made, just as long as he or she is a style that I love

 

There are people in the use who are casting dolls and/or heads in resin. It's just that it's not that common. But I've definitely seen them, and they are all amazing.

If you do your own I'm sure people will be interested. Whether they buy or not will depend on if they happen to personally appeal. With so many people on these boards, there should be at least some interest!

Definitely go for it and see!

 

Well, what about the Bishounen House? He is in Maryland and makes and sells his boys. So I think you could do this and they would sell definetely. ^__^ So yeah go for it! ^__^

 

Oh and this might help with the "hollow" question. ^__^
Link

 

As long as it looks good!!!!
God... my wish list will get even more scary...><

 

Make a minifee sized corpse blue fae with pointy ears and wings you've DEFINITELY peaked my interest

 

i totally agree, for me it's the face that grabs me (yeah, i'm that shallow!) also hearing feedback from other buyers is useful as well as seeing what they have done with theirs in terms of face-ups etc.

 

I personally am not fond of American styled things (eg clothes ) and if you live there you would obviously have that influence. So for me, personally, I probably wouldn't be interested.

But that's just one person's tastes! I think if you could make an attractive, quality doll it would be popular.

I think I have seen quite a few people asking for links to US made doll websites. The few available ( BH, Leibchen, Matilda etc) are relatively hard to get hold of, but are definately loved.

Basically if the doll is nice it will sell! Good luck!

 

a corpse blue dollie? where do i sign up? that would be *awesome*! good luck with it!

 

I would want a great face, nice torso and excellent joints/flexibility. If you had those features, I would purchase one.

 

For me it would completely depend on the sculpt. If there were a doll I liked and it were made in the US... OUTSTANDING!! All the better to save shipping fees.

And if it happened to be a doll that didn't have some interesting/appealing feature about it, I probably would be more likely to, I don't know, adopt a poor waif from the marketplace forum (I'm such a sucker for a lonely face...)

Oh god... then I just read the word "elf". Color me doomed.

 

i'm going to be watching this closely, it's beginning to sound very interesting....
i was going to buy a few bodies to dye pale green and golden for elves, a blue one also sounds interesting......(a bit like emily in the corpse bride shade of blue!?)
i can't wait to see photos'!

Just seen your next post below:
Drool!!!! Me want NOW!

 

Do check out the Artist's section on this forum for ideas as to how other dollmakers are going about their work and joy.

Coloring resin is rather difficult for deep or intense colors, but if you wish to go that way, there are tips on that aspect, too.
Not because you can't get colors and dyestuffs, but because the resin may come out splotchy or swirly or irregularly in other ways, even though it may have been mixed quite well.

Look up also the materials used by others and their properties.
Everybody has her own preference as to how a sculpting material should feel, behave, and look. Hopefully the descriptions will help you find your ideal sculpting material.


Current US dollmakers in the abjd-styled dolls are Bishonenhouse and Fancyboots.

Good luck.

Ann in CT

 

I'd rather buy a doll near my country which is in Asia. The nearer the shipping the lesser..it would be or if they had a shop lang in HK, that would be good. But yeah I want to know how US BJD would turn out too

 

liebchen from fancyboots is a us doll and she has been very successful !!!

 

I have a Bishonen House boy on my wish list so country of origin deffinatly isn't an issue for me

although I wouldn't be very intrested in a body under 60cm personaly (all my planned dolls are taller at around 70cm+) I might be intrested in just a head though

 

I am interested in buying a US made doll as well, so long as I like the sculpt. I really don't think a hound size is for me... But it seems like most of the dolls that get cast on this forum are either tiny, hound, or don't appeal to me. x.x' I want an American made doll for Lestat, acctually... that's why I was looking a BH, but he would be so big compared to my minis. XD

What did upset me was that in BJD Orbyrarium they only mentioned Fancyboots in the list of doll companies... No mention of BH at all. It made it seem like Liebchen was the ONLY US made doll sold in high quantities... But, then again, they left out a few companies. (DZ, anyone?)

 

I've sort of written off buying any further dolls... I sort of stopped at 5... otherwise I'd buy just about anything with a pretty face.

But, yeah, if it was appealing enough to me, I'd certainly get one.

 

^^ If it were up to par with other BJDs and I liked the mold, of course.

But really, it has to be up to par. I'm not insinuating yours wouldn't be. Just let people see the head before you start paying for materials and maybe take pre-orders too. A lot of people will compliment what you make but still not be interested in buying it.

 

I think it's a little unfair to lump art and design from an entire nation together under "American styled." Of course I've been accused of doing this to other countries, too, so I guess it all depends on where you're standing. *sigh*

 

I would buy it..if the sculpt was good.I like to browse through this swection of the forums and see what everyones doin anyway. I really like elves and seeing as your planning on doing a Drow is ohh so tempting. (as badly as I want an elf)

 

i'd buy if he's cute

 

no, piccies yet (will work on it)
i'd like to see a mini size body (44cm ish) with those nice double jointed knees so that they can kneel withwout showing elastic! (i can't remember the companies name with the pic on for SD size 60cm, sorry)
(tensiya?)

 

So... I'm curious... are you planning to do a lot of practice dolls? I wouldn't reccommend immediately trying to work towards a marketable product without ever having sculpted even a small practice doll.

 

oops sorry if I caused offence...

it wasn't my intention to label absolutely everything that comes from America to be American styled. what I meant was, her doll will likely have an American influence (she did sort of imply this herself). Like dolls in different countries will show the nationality through how they are dressed. It is a subtle thing. I can often recognise British doll's from photos (maybe that's just the dull lighting though haha)

In general the country of origin is evident in artist's work. not always of course, but often. that's all I meant.

 

I completely understand the enthusiasm, in fact, I occaisonally entertain the idea of getting a BJD cast or casting it myself, and look forward to being able to do that one day. Not to burst your bubble or anything though, but honestly, DON'T expect your first product to be marketable. Especially since you've never before sculpted something like this. It'll take hellacious discipline, patience, an asston of sandpaper and/or exacto knives, and patience, and patience. Sense of proportion helps, and I trust you have it - but artistic talent in the 2-d spectrum really only goes so far. I don't mean to brag but I like to consider myself quite very talented as far as goes drawing and painting - And then when I tried a BJD head, the first time around, it was a horrifying case of elephantisis.

Good luck though.

 

I'm stalking you now, just because I'm interested in seeing what you come up with ^0^

I had an intense sculpting class, and I got really good but didn't enjoy it, so the thought of making a BJD scares me XDDD

 

Oh, when I mean intense, I mean we had to learn a lot and fast. xD;
And it's at the Academy of Art in SF, for a foundations class, we only sculpted humans and human parts.
Are you building an armature to create your "practise" doll on? *0* I hammered my finger a lot of times making those.
I guess I just didn't like the class mostly because it was so early in the morning, and I had to stand for 5 1/2 hours XD

I wanna see pictures when you start!!! ^_^

 

College sculpture classes are pretty intense... and at a good high school with the budget for it I'm sure it would be too. The teacher at my gradeschool had the kids sculpt gargoyles out of ceramic clay, they seemed to really enjoy that. XD

My first sculpture class was 1 carving project(needed stitches after that!), 1 sculpting the nude figure and casting it in plaster(mold built from plaster and then cast in plaster), 1 wire sculpture and welding project, and the final was lost wax bronze casting. You sculpted something out of clay, made a plaster cast, poured the wax, made a plaster of the wax, then poured moulten bronze in it(which melts the wax and gets all over the floor, oops!). In sculpture II we had no limits so long as everything was larger than a bread box and you did one project with wood, one with metal and finished with an iron pour. My project for the iron pour was a giant helmet. The molds for it weighed more than my /car/. We had to break up old radiators for the iron they were made of and they had to be broken up into pieces smaller than a golf ball, I had massive shoulder muscles after all the sledgehammering. XD Granted, these were college classes and I was a sculpture major. Eventually I got burned out because it was /too/ intense. My teacher was a fine artist and I'm well, not. He wasn't keen on my sculpting dolls because I enjoy it, it wasn't deep enough for him. e_e I ended up with my degree in web design/3d animation... but I'm still sculpting and sewing for a living. XB


back on topic, I think with the popularity of Kaye's dolls and Liebchan I think people would totally go for a doll made in the states. People buy the dolls based on what they look like, not where they come from. I've casted some heads myself, but no full dolls yet. I'm still getting the hang of the coremolds for arms and legs.

 

woah, talk about intense!
i have had experience in metal working, jewelery making and various other arty crafty things for a quite a while, i can sculpt a solid figure, but when it came to doing a bjd my head nearly exploded!
It's a completely different ballgame figuring out muscles with range of movement for the joints, and how far to take it and what method to use to string etc.
i also like the idea of using plaster moulds for casting, but i've heard that it's awkward for resin, i'm thinking about apoxy sculpt or clay, it's just i'm familiar with plaster. resin makes me scared!
It is quite a big committment to consider a castable master core. i admire anyone who gets that far! (i'm nowhere near that stage yet!)
Sorry for the ramble, i'll finish in a sec.....
Also having checked out liebchen and bishounen house, i have to say that you would probably need a unique selling point / something that the other companies don't offer to make it a cost effective production, that is of course if you are looking to sell widely.
Sos about the ramble guys...i'll try to think of something more relevant next time!

 

we did have a guy cast babydoll heads he'd altered in iron and them make little stuffed bodies for them. They were really really amusing. XD

 

No offense intended, but most likely your thread isn't going to stay active until you have pictures to show. There are a lot of other people working on dolls right now too!

 

Well cool.

Personally, I want to see if I can tell where you're from based on how you sculpt.

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yes, I am a wiseguy.

 

Because I'm a curious soul and the concept of a lil blue mini with drow ears interests me, I'll ask if there are any pics or news on this project ?

 

Sorry this is a bit OT but this is where I am up to too! I actually don't know if I should make a coremolds for them or just drill them after I cast it in resin. Please, any suggestion is much appreciated. ^^

I imagine the coremolds for arms and legs are going to be thin cylindrical tubbing and is probably going to be hard to pull out... back to the drawing board.

 

Elven dolls intrigue me and since drow was mentionedsign me up for stalking as well

 

Stalkety, stalk, bumpity bump....
How's it going, o sculpter of things drow?
I've already made some drawings to make Emilys' dress and veil from the corpse bride...don't worry, i suffer from lack of patience and over eagerness...

 

my doll just came in a cardboard box with two pillows, not an actual carrying bag, I think a box is fine

having the box around is usefull for storing him though, plus its a nice shimmery purple so not a complete eye sore when it stands in the corner of my room

 

i agree, having a carry case isn't essential, my dz boz is nice enough to leave in the corner and not look messy.

as to limited editions, you could always still make a limited run in a year and that would be it, apart from the next year you could add something slightly different like a different hand style and number on the head or something. that way someone could say 'i'm so lucky, i have a 2007 H.M!' and everyone would know that it was from the first run or a 2008 and know it's the second run.
just a thought.

 

Oh I haven't looked for awhile... what's the special doll now?? do you actually have pictures or other info to share? Hint? Hint?

I'm such a total sucker for interesting sculpts!!

K

 

I'm stalking the thread too... I'm curious!

and just as a note... a number of people have mentioned matilda as being a US made doll... she's not... that is, if you're talking about Kaye Wiggs Matilda. She's australian-made.

good luck!

-Liza