40–49cm Dolls Helia - my third attempt at traditionally sculpting a BJD

she sounds really cool! do you have the images hosted anywhere else you can link? i'm getting hit with that stupid glitch that won't show me the images

 

Sometimes when the images are too big they don't show up properly. Right now some of them are showing up and some aren't, which makes me think it's not the host that's the problem. (You can also add links to e.g. a flickr gallery as a back-up.)

 

Lovely progress so far!

I can see three images and no more shows up when quoting your post, so the old DoA image bug is probably not to blame in this case. The size looks fine to me. I don't have any useful advice for this, other than looking at your links and comparing the ones that does show up and those that doesn't and see is there is anything going on there.
I hope you find a way of resolving it, because I'd love to see the other images!

I usually use wooden balls for joints, when working with polymer clay.
Here are a few tricks I use to help the clay stick.
*Make sure they are free from any dust or lint. Fine sawdust can get stuck in the surface when drilling/sawing/filing the holes and channels. I use a bit of scrap clay to lift the dust off. I dab the surface with the clay, knead the clay a bit to get a fresh surface and repeat until I can feel the clay wanting to stick to the wood.
*For the first layer of clay on the wood, I give the wood a very thin coating of liquid clay. I spread it on and sort of work it into the the surface a bit and then wipe off the excess. I don't want a lot of is sitting there, because it doesn't always behave the same as the main clay and can cause weirdness later on, all I want is to get into the pores of the wood a bit better than the regular clay can.
*If possible, I try to make sure that the first bake is a gentle one and I leave the parts to cool slowly inside the oven. Wood moves with humidity and that first bake is usually the largest movement because the wood dries out quite a bit.
For the same reason, be careful around the wood when wet sanding later in the process.
Dense woods are less prone to swelling and shrinking, but are harder to cut, so that's a trade off.

For cutting, I usually buy beads rather than solid balls, so that the through hole is already drilled. If I need to enlarge it, the existing hole helps guiding the drill bit and it's usually easy to get it right. If I need to enlarge it a lot I may do more than one pass, increasing the size a bit at a time.
For the slits I use a hack saw. I usually hold the saw, blade up, or clamp it into the vice on my work bench and move the bead rather than trying to fix the bead and move the saw, since clamping a round bead into place without damaging it is tricky. I saw it a bit narrower than needed, just in case my cut doesn't come out perfect (It doesn't, ever) and then widen and smooth it using sand paper and files as needed.
I find that cutting the slit fully like that before attaching the ball to the doll part and then adjusting the length and shape of it further by filling it in with clay later during the sculpting process, is much faster and easier than trying to cut the slit exactly to size. This way I have full access for all the the rough work of widening channels and sanding the insides of the walls of the slit while it's still free from the doll, but I can still control and adjust the positioning of the pivot point inside the joint and other such fine adjustments as I sculpt.
No right or wrong here, this is just what works for me with the tools I have available.

If you decide to go with casting the joint balls yourself, look for a casting materials that can stand the heat needed for baking the polymer clay.
I have had some luck doing this with a material called Plasticréte made by Esprit Composite, an acrylic resin with a chalk-like filler that produce a dense material, not unlike fine concrete. Unfortunately the maker seems to only have french retailers these days, but maybe you could find something similar?
Baking this with Polymer clay is not it's intended use so proceed with caution, but I did a lot of careful testing and as long as the oven temperature remains in the low end of what is needed to bake the clay it does appear to work quite well. I've only used it when I wanted to replicate a part to modify it without destroying the original sculpt (such as re-sculpting female torso parts into male ones, while keeping all the joint surfaces identical so that all parts still are compatible) but I don't see why it couldn't be used for joints as well.

I will be watching this thread and look forward to see the project evolve!

 

I tried quoting the post last night, when it was first posted, and all the images showed up in the quote. So whatever service you uploaded to originally, I think worked fine, just the images were too big.

Alas I have no advice on the actual dollmaking, haha

 

i am able to see a few of the images now so that's something;;; your sculpting style is nice, it should look really cool all smoothed out!
for what it's worth i never draw my dolls out before sculpting them, i may use images as inspiration but no "design" drawings (i have sculpted over 20 dolls)
unfortunately i have no advise on the ball wooden ball joint as i usually sculpt mine form scratch for better or for worse however if you end up with specific pose issues i can definitely offer some advice lol

 

No problem at all, I can talk dollmaking all day. And I am happy to help when I can.
Yea, what tools to use depends on so many variables. Apart from the hack saw I've used a Dremel with a cutting disk or small rotary files as well for cutting joint slits. Anything that removes the wood in a controlled manner works, really, it's just the old balancing act of speed and control.

If it works, it works!
The ones I use are just wooden balls with the hole pre-drilled, so they behave the same as a solid ball would, they just save me some work. I get them from hobby stores, but you are right, they can be a bit expensive. Especially the larger ones and sometimes it is a bit of a hunt to find ones without any paint or other coating. Personally I'm fine with the cost, because when looking at the greater picture of clay, primers, silicone and resin, the beads are not that bad. But i totally get it, no need to waste money when you've found a cheaper option that works.

Wet sanding is the best way to control dust as basically no dust at all will get into the air. If that's not an option, then working over a damp towel is a good trick for catching much of the dust. It won't stop it from flying around initially, of course, but once it lands it will stay down. As a bonus it makes clean up easier.

 

i would recommend wet sanding! you will get finer results and no flying dust, dolls need so much sanding i can't imagine spending all that time outside