Sculpting I need some help in sculpting...

What sort of clay are you using? I'm having trouble figuring out the secrets of eye wells as well... it probably doesn't help that only one of my dolls has eyewells that work ANYWAY. >:/

As for the ball joints, use an actual ball. You can get wooden balls pretty cheap at craft stores... like $1 a bag usually. Even if you're not going to use the ball on the ball part of the joint, use it to press into the joint so that your joint is a perfect sphere. The smoother the ball and joint is the better he'll be able to pose.

When I sculpted the body on my boy, I made a really simple shape out of aluminum foil and then sculpted on top of that. Since I wanted him to have a torso joint, I sculpted him completely, then stuck him in the fridge for an hour. That make the Super Sculpey firm enough that I could cut away where I wanted to have the joint. Then I cut through the aluminum foil and seperated the two halfs and baked them. After they were baked I pulled the aluminum foil with a pair of tweasers, then built up the joints and baked again.

 

I second the wooden ball idea.

Here's an idea for making the eyewells BEFORE you even start sculpting:

Take your core material, and two balls in the size of the eyes you want. Decide where the eyes should be and install the balls into the core material, then sculpt over it all.

With this, you have to be careful that the balls are in the EXACT place that you want the eyes and at an even and correct depth before sculpting, or you'll have eyewells in strange places.

 

I use marbles to help me get the shape of the eye wells. ^^ I cut out roughly around inside near the eyes, and then cut out the eye holes themselves. I then stick the marbles inside and leave them in there as I shape the outside of the eye and inner eyelids. I LEAVE IT IN until after baking when I pop them out (the super sculpey kinda sticks to them a little so they won’t just fall out, but are easy to remove after baking).

I mold my heads solid and then scoop them out using a special clay too. This takes very delicate fingers though ^^; and unfortunately a lot of people can't do it without squishing the object…but it’s not hard when using a soft, but also firm clay, like super sculpey (or pro sculpt or other similar polymer clays).

I talk about it in a tutorial I made here:

http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28498

At the bottom of the top post I show how I do heads.

For joints, yea, you could definitely make the balls first (rolling the ball in your hands to get it all nice and round), bake them, and drill out where the elastic rides in them, and then put them on whatever part you need, sculpt around it, and bake the whole thing (baking the ball again is okay with polymer clays). It will not be as structurally sound, but if you plan to cast the doll in resin it's not a problem. Making the part as one unit will make it stronger in the long run if you plan to have a OOAK sculpey BJD.

I hope you get it right and good luck! It’s fun making stuff! X3

 

http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/sculpting_body_and_tools.htm
try this^^