Wigs How to reduce bulk on super tiny wigs?

Honestly, I would also say use less fiber. Also, try to get a fiber that is decently fine, that will also decrease the poof. I've been learning to make wigs myself and you can make them with a lot less fiber than you think! I just received 2 new alpaca wigs from a seller and I am reminded that in comparison my wigs are thick!

 

Use very thin fibres. Make the wefts with as little hair as possible and as thin as you can manage. Also leave more room between the wefts, especially at the back of the head where the hair on top of the head will cover what is underneath.

 

Thinner fiber and less of it. Two main components.
The thin fiber is crucial for tiny wigs. (For my gulliver dolls I even used cat’s hair, because it thinnest and softest I could find.)
Good luck with experiments!

 

I would also add try not making wefts at all, but just gluing small sections of hair on at a time. I did this when I made some smaller wigs (for a 17cm doll) and it seemed to help. The extra glue needed to make the weft and then to glue the weft to the head might add up at such a small level.

Edited to add another thought - perhaps by making the wig cap (at least the outer part) the same color as the fiber you could get away with even fewer layers of fiber. At such a small scale it may blend better and not look like bald spots as it might on a larger doll.

Anyway, I hope you can figure it out and are pleased with your results!

 

i tend to not make wefts when making my smaller wigs.

another thing that ive found that helps is when making a wig with the hard cap, mixing in paint with the glue for last few layers that matches the hair color goes a long way at being able to use less fibers on the wig. makes any gaps in the thinner areas less noticeable

also last thing ive done with the smallest of my wigs is ill start from the top and nape of the neck, then fill as needed.

 

I have a 15Lucent as well and I'm unsure of which way I'm going to go on his wig (soft/hard cap). For the soft cap I'm thinking of using the reinforced toe/tummy control parts of a pair of nylons doubled as I think that'll give enough bulk for sewing on wefts but not be too bulky for his tiny noggin. I have some very thin corded elastic but if that feels too thick I also have some jewelry elastic I can try.

I can't do this for a while though as I recently nearly dislocated my thumb in a moving accident and have only 1 hand that is functional. But I'd be curious to see what options you come up with for these tiny guys.

 

I have never made wigs for a 15cm doll or figure before, but I have made wigs for 1:6 action figure female head sculpts (much smaller than a Barbie sized head). I agree with the previous commenters, that making thinner wefts does reduce the bulk by a lot. I also prefer soft cap wigs, but making sewn wefts is my biggest nightmare, as you (general use of "you," maybe it's just me though!) can't control hair bulk as well as with glued wefts, and you kind of "need" to waste a lot of hair length to make them (at least, if you're folding them, to secure the hair to the thread). Having said that, making thinner glued wefts is not as easy as it sounds; the sparser the hair is glued together, the easier the weft breaks and it kind of defeats the purpose of making a weft. I am tempted sometimes to just glue the hair directly onto the cap, but I don't know how well that would hold in the long run.

I would personally not go with yarn, for tinier wigs because it adds a lot of bulk, even if you make thinner wefts. I still struggle to make the wefts as thin as I would want them, but I think I am getting better with practice and patience. Here are four wigs I've made for my mature tiny Myou male -- he is 28.5cm in height, so shorter than (regular) Barbie but, his head circumference is as large as Ken, with a much tinier face. The last wig is made out of brushed out yarn, I was having fun on that last photo, I made the wig so I could attempt anime style hair (my doll is based on Ken Kaneki, and anime character). I fail miserably at attempting styling hair, more so at tiny sizes, but I thought yarn would make it easier. However, even when it's fully brushed down, it still has a ton of volume.



As can be seen below, the fiber wigs don't add much bulk, he does have pretty bulbous head by default. The yarn wig is the last one in these. The second one is made from a braid-of-synthetic fiber, I believe meant for dreads. I purchase it a million years ago, and the fiber's strands are definitely thicker. The other two wigs are made out of an ideal thinner fiber, which I purchased already in wefts (but I cut), meant for making sewn doll wigs from Ali. I got some from Amzn a million years ago, the fiber feels exactly the same as this. It is heat resistant fiber and it's incredibly inexpensive because the wefts are terribly made. I was a bit sad that the Amzn listings are gone, but glad I was able to find them on another similar place, for a ridiculously similar price (a million years later).




fur wig somewhat styled:


Messier than above.


I prefer more realistic hair bulk for all my dolls, so even if I wasn't making tinier wigs, I would love to learn a way to make less bulky sewn wefts someday. I am thinking it's probably not ideal for tinier heads, but as long as it is a thing I can try and not curse, I am okay trying. I hope my ramblings help someone. (:

 

I understand perfectly well not wanting to be wasteful. I feel like I am doing that with yarn wigs, when they are not my favorite (and mine look terrible!), but I do own some dolls based on anime characters and that makes it a royal pain in the gut-hole, to recreate IRL, with synthetic fibers (at least for me). I don't like being wasteful myself, so I purchased two wefts from a seller on Ali-ex-press for under $2 USD each, because I knew that I wouldn't' be using much fiber and also that it would be a short-ish hair style for a smaller headed doll. The fibers are amazing quality, far higher quality, texture and hair-thinness than sewn-wefts I purchased over a decade ago meant for BJD wigs from a "popular" BJD-supply store. For which I paid almost what average ready-made wigs cost at the time -- now looking back, that was wasteful of me; the fiber's quality was sh*t (IMHO) and the wefts thicker than my personal preference for ready-made wefts. These newer wefts I purchased are terribly made, but I knew that already from my previous purchases on Amzn. I was only interested in the quality of the fiber and the type of hair. Which unfortunately, the sellers don't list by name, so I had to take a gamble -- I know they are all listed as heat resistant fiber, meant for BJD wigs. I have seen really inexpensive wefts on Ali, at a variety of lengths, but mine were under 2USD (plush S/H), because they were pretty short (probably 5-6" in fiber length, by 32" of sewn weft length). Good luck with all your wig-making adventures. (: