50–65cm Dolls Hope and Dimples - the process of making Hope's Head

Hi there! I realized I haven't been posting much in here since the initial starting of my doll making journey, so I thought I'd give an update. . just on the heads. I'll make a project journal for my bodies later. . . I've been busy!

So this is Hope.
She sort of started her life inspired by the actress Dove Cameron, and moved on from there. I've gotten lax at taking screenshots while sculpting, but at least I took a few this time around.
Here we have her before her ears lol. I always sculpt the mouth and nose first, then the eyes, and then the ears last. I'm not fond of ear-sculpting >___<.

Hope&#x27;s Beginnings by Tatterpunk, on Flickr

Then of course we have a few screenies of her with her ears. At this point in the process I'm working in Sculptris which is thankfully a free program (yay!). I made a few subtle changes (so subtle I don't remember what) between the top left and top right shots. At this point it's just tweaking and maybe making her a little less wide.
More Hope by Tatterpunk, on Flickr

Next I move over to Blender to do all the cutting (yay more free programs!!) Here you can see the various stages of cutting for this girl.

Hope01a3 by Tatterpunk, on Flickr

Finally, the printing phase. Usually I'll do a lot of small prints to do any tweaking required. This shot is from my first big print which I'm doing today! I'll update with how she looks in 1/3 once she's out of the printer.

Hope03h by Tatterpunk, on Flickr

That said, I've done a number of 1/4 fashion size prints of her, so I know I love this girl's dimply face already.

More updates soon!

 

It turns out there were a couple issues I wanted to fix and perfect once I got her done in 1/3 size. I gave her a little more in the lip filler department and will print her a little larger than I initially did today.

Edit- To explain this picture. The first is in Sculptris before I re-cut her today I did the lip fillers in there, then moved her to Blender, where I thinned her face and re-cut all of the headcap/eyes/neckhole things.

Hope04a1 by Tatterpunk, on Flickr

 

Today's updates!
Yesterday I got the master for Hope's head printed nicely. You can see that here. I pretty much just used whatever mix of resins I had lying around for it (probably porcelain-like Epax, Abs-like white- Elegoo, and ABS-like smokey black - elegoo) the porcelain infused resin I find a little easier to sand, so I like to include some of that in. . well. . everything lol.

Hope Master Print by Tatterpunk, on Flickr

Today I started the sanding process! With 3D resin printing, you get a smoothISH surface, but there are striations and support bumps you need to sand down. Sometimes when you remove the supports you also get little divots as well. I sanded her with 220 grit to start out with, then filled in places with Tamiya putty, then sanded again with 400 grit sandpaper (several times). So that's where I am right now. She's all spotty now, and I've added more putty since taking these photos.
IMG_20211004_145914 by Tatterpunk, on Flickr

 

I managed to get a lot done on Hope yesterday, particularly the first three layers of priming and sanding on the outside of her head! I still have a lot of work to do inside, but the sanding in there is coming along too.
Behind her ears needs a little work still, I added a bit of putty and sanded that down, but now I have to wait for the weather to dry up again to spray her. It's WAY too humid and rainy to spray anything just now T__T. I'm thinking one or two more layers of the Mr. Surfacer 1000 will do the trick for the outside. Then we work on the inside, and then finally the space where the headcap meets.
2021-10-06_09-33-08 by Tatterpunk, on Flickr
The Mr. Surfacer 1000 did a great job of filling in the little scritchy marks from the sandpaper as well as any remaining striations from the print!

The weather is supposed to be good again next week, so I'll probably be working on her more then.

 

Thank you! I've actually done some updates since that final faces, so I'll probably update again once I print the new version and all!

Thank you! I really love dimples - they're kinda hard to do, but I've done them on a couple different sculpts now so they've gotten easier for me anyway!