First project: Shark BJD

I've always been fascinated watching a lot of other people in this hobby crafting their own heads or body parts or entire dolls and even though I've wanted to do it myself, there's always been something holding me back. But tonight, I bit the bullet and took a break from everything that's been stressing me out and just got stuck in.

I wanted to do a shark as my first one because one, i absolutely love sharks, and two, it's not a design that is incredibly daunting with all sorts of joints and stringing things that need to be figured out. In fact, the way I'm thinking of going with it, there will only be 9 parts in total.



So I drew up a kinda cartoony grumpy shark and cut a sheet of acetate slightly smaller to give me a base to work on. For the body, at least. I'm taking things one step at a time and I'll worry about the pectoral limbs later.



Materials. I had 100g of paperclay lying around that i had never used, plus another airdry clay. The method I'm thinking of is making the base from paperclay then making a junk cast in the airdry for detailing and splitting the sculpt for jointing.



But I still put in some cores simply to build it up and give it a little more stability while I'm working. The cores are facial tissues rolled up and taped.



I'm not entirely sure how long this took. Maybe an hour? That is most of one of my 50g packets of clay and it's mostly at the shape I want it. Tomorrow I'll do the other side (or maybe the day after) and then work on evening the shape out and then the pectoral fins.



Sketched a little more on my drawing as I went since I was thinking about that rather than paying attention to the movie on my laptop. The mouth is going to be articulated with three locks. The stringing will reach from there to the tail, and another string will connect the two pectoral fins, though they won't be posable.

I am considering adjusting where the joint on the last two sections of the tail will go; whether the anal will go on the same piece as the caudal fin and keel, or on the other part with the pelvic and second dorsal fins. The other thing I am considering is whether I add a headcap at all and, if I do, then where. I'm considering doing it around the first dorsal fin, but if I do that then I will need to adjust where the joints meet.

But I'll worry about that when I get that far.

 

I've actually been thinking about this for most of today at work and I've realized a great (and stupidly obvious) flaw. I'm probably going to have to string both the head and the mouth to the tail (S-hooks. S-hooks everywhere.) because if I were to try magnet the head, it wouldn't be exactly mobile or posable.

And I think you're right, Lillith, about probably not needing a headcap of some variety. I think I'll go with not having one and if I need to add one later... I'll deal with that then.

 

Finally got to do some more progress on this last night after a ridiculous work schedule. It's not much but at least I've got a better idea now of what needs to be done.

Unfortunately, I left the clay out so long that it dried enough to contract and actually curve so the tail and dorsal fin are a little... off-kilter. But I can fix properly that later. I managed to get it so it wasn't so bad but it's still noticeable.





This side is a lot smoother because I used a different method of applying the clay. I am going to get some sandpaper tomorrow and maybe get another pack of paperclay. Going to sand it up and see what needs adjusting and see if I can't straighten him up a little more.

 

I really like this concept

For the stringing idea I can offer an idea. The head would be a face plate then under the faceplate would have something like a neck but it would hold the S hook so it can keep the whole doll stringed from the tail (like a doll leg but in this the whole body)

The face plate would be the best idea too since it will make it easier to put eyes in and stringing. I have enough issues trying to put eyes in past a S hook in a small head when i put eyes into my dolls lol. This is an idea to think about.

 

greymalkin: On my first side, I was just applying in clumps and smoothing out a little as I went. For this side, I start with the same method to build up most of the side, then I switched to instead taking a large clump, rolling it between my hands a lot to warm it up, and then smoothing it out to form a sheet that would cover most of the side of it. Then I smoothed in the edges to try and blend them in as much as possible with the rest.

That faceplate idea sounds good though. I might end making a couple of heads and trying different ways.