Materials Has anyone ever made a wooden BJD?

how loose can you be with the interpretation of what wood is?

For instance would a modelling material created from sawdust and white glue count as wood? this tutorial here shows how to make a bjd using the sawdust. And if you left it without paint to show the wood.

 

otherunicorn carved two bjd bodies from wood, one jointed and one non-jointed. He also used a lot of putty and ofcourse primer and paint. I think it is not easy to carve a doll from wood, unless you can also do some additive sculpting with a wood-filler of some sort, such as sawdust mixed with pva glue, or Wood Forma.

 

A lot of the older dolls, from the 50s and earlier, are composit made with sawdust that's mixed with glue and putty to make it a sculptable paste. I use composite at the core of my doll's torsos to create a stronger interior that won't collapse or crunch when I cut them open to turn into two-piece torsos, I then sculpt paperclay on top of the composit.

 

This page has lots of info on wood and dollmaking.

 

I was going to say that Pupapa.com sells some wood clay....UxD

Carve wood to make a bjd must be very difficoult >_<Uu

 

Some suggestions:

Make a clay head first, to get some sense of how heads work, and to use as a model when you're carving.

Consider making just the head and a bust to put it on. A whole doll sounds more like a semester-long project to me. :P

 

I know that I have seen professional american BJDs made out of wood that had porcelin heads. I used to get a catalogue from such a dollmaker. I've been looking for the company online for years and I haven't been able to find them again, and I can't remember the name... but I'm sure you can do it, with the right tools.
Also, if you think about it, those little artist maniquins are done in the ball joint fashion, they just don't have a very high level of detail.
Perhaps keeping that in mind you could make some sort of BJD style person, just not quite the same way as many of the resin kids. ^_^;;

 

Ken's website: http://www.anime.net/~kens/nono/a_page21.html

 

I've carved in wood before and its difficult, you need to shop around for the right kind of wood. HOWEVER, the combination of whittling (taking off small chunks with a knife), drilling, sanding, dremeling, and grinding in a woodshop (as opposed to taking a hammer and chisel to it) doesn't sound too hard. Thats sort of the way i work things out, by carving at baked super sculpey. The only problem with wood is adding pieces on, and the wood cracking under stress.

you have to pay attention to grain too. For example pine is very soft, but it has a large grain so that chunks just pop right off that you never inteded to carve away.

however, you can go to craft stores like micheals and get premade chunks. They have large oval pieces of wood for the head, you can use large wooden beads and really thick dowels for the arms and legs.

I can do a bit of research for you about it because i know one of the classes in my art college are carving small wooden heads right now ^^

hope this helped >.<

 

Also, the original ball-jointed dolls that ALL of our ABJD are based off of were made of wood. Of course, that was some...hmm...400 years ago, give or take a few, and it was in Germany.

I think you can do it. ^_~

 

I haven't 'made' a doll out of would per-say, but I have taken an artist model doll, taken off its head, re-strung the body with elastic rather than a spring, and put a Dollfie Plus head on it.
The wooden body is actually my Edward Scissorhands DP head's temporary (maybe final) body. It fits in Barbie/Ken clothes and is pretty posable, so jah. I'd say he's good for now.

 

I'm thinking about making a doll or two out of wood... it really doesn't look as hard as my current carving project (I'll undertake "Project Pinochiette" when I've finished carving this figurine), mostly since I can work in pieces, as opposed to having to SCULPT arms from a chunk.

Anyone have any advice on the type/species of wood to use? I've heard Bass is good for figurines, but I'm not sure if it'd lend itself to BJD, and I've never worked with it (I think I've only worked with pine. I know I carved one thing out of pine, and my other carvings were a "mystery wood", but they felt the same way.)

 

I think that the best would be either ebony or cherry wood. Though if you want a cheaper wood than go with cedar or pine.

 

Okay! Thanks! It might take a while, but I'm hoping to have initial (ROUGH!) pictures up by December....maybe.

First, I need to finish this other carving...

 

Dude! I would love to see a wooden BJD. That would be amazing.

 

this could be very helpful for my friends as he's been wondering about something similar to this. I'm sorry that I don't have any tips or anything though, good luck