Casting Hollow doll casting and stringing self Made BJD's?

I wqas curious as well about casting (I am a clay artist, not a caster... ) becasue I want to cast my next doll. So while I was at Otakon I asked Donn, and he was real nice and showed my how he did it with his dolls.

He cast his parts SOLID and drilled a hole through them for the elastic. This, of course, makes his dolls VERY heavy (albiet realllllyyy durable!), I was like "woah!" when I got to hold one. HEAVY! XD

He said for casting hollow parts you'd need to put in a middle piece or something in when you cast...

I am figuring then you could epoxy on the ball-part of the joint separate after casting the hollow arm/leg parts. That's how it was done in a kit BJD I saw someone making. Then the ball is part of the part it's supposed to be part of (that's a lot of "parts" XD haha)

For the body you might have to cast it in two halves and glue those together afterwards (sand the seams then, etc).

For my Super Sculpey doll, I imbedded little cut piece of nail into the hands/feet where the S-hook rides. I’m not sure how you’d do this on a cast resin model. Like I said before, cast the ball part of the hand / foot joints separate, and then put in the metal bit and hook, and then glue the ball part over it so it’s stuck in there securely. ^^

These are just my ideas, and how I saw it done on one kit model BJD.

 

I have a pretty good idea how this is done:

step 1: make a sculpture

step 2: Now that you have a sculpture ready, you have to do a preliminary mold of everything... I've never done this, but I've read enough forums and websites to have a vague idea. You make a mold using some cheap mold rubber, or alginate. From there, you pour a special kind of prototype wax into the mold. Wait for it to cool so that a thin layer of the wax is hard, but the center is still liquid. Poke a hole in a prepared area of the mold, and let the wax drain out. You should be left with a thin shell of your sculpture. This is where the professionals would iorn out the little imperfections, and add all those special internal parts, like joining pegs and something for the elastic cord to run through. After all this is done:

step 3: Another mold is made of the final draft of the sculpture. This time you'd use something really durable, like silicone with a high tear ratio.

step 4: start making molds

step 5: enjoy selling your doll and let the money roll in!

This whole thing is way super expensive and time consuming. There are a lot of other ways to end up with a nicely made doll. I was thinking instead of using wax for my project, using some stuff called Magic Sculp. I'm planning on making a "push mold" and then iorn out the kinks on the hardened magic sculp, then go on to make the final doll.

I hope my comments were helpfull.

 

Look into slush-casting? Your mold will then be hollow (duh) and all the openings on the body where the string will go through must be shut, but can be drilled open after the cast is complete. I understand you pour resin into the mould, but not enough to fill it, only enough to coat the entire mold in a decent thickness layer. The mold then has to be rotated so that everything is coated and the resin doesnt just set as a lump down the bottom. If the shell that you get isn't thick enough, repeat the process to add more thickness.

the alumilite and smooth-on websites both have how-to sections which are very helpful. I believe you will find links in the Painting and Customising-section.

 

Another way to do it (it'd be more toxic and expensive) would be to make a mold, and then use fiberglass resin to cast it. You just brush on the resin, add some fiberglass, and then brush in more resin. It's super sturdy, can be sanded, drilled. That fiberglass is a tool of the devil though! It's a nightmare if you get a fiberglass splinter. You can't see where it is to get it out!