All the folks who have bought their dolls have a place to gang together over the pain of waiting, but what about us folks making our own!? I thought it might be fun to start up a support thread for those of us desperate to dress our new pals, but who still only have a pile of lumpy body parts.
So desperate to hold my doll, but at the moment I just have un-attached parts being carefully sanded I hope to have finished the sanding by next weekend.
Ha Maybe someday I'll finish Leo. The poor guy is still just a head and a poorly made torso. I'm still excited to see how Copellia looks in resin. Its hard for me to imagine a doll's actual appearance when they're Sculpey. Sculpey just doesn't have that lovely, clear, skinlike look. I have discovered, though, that mixing a lump of "Flesh" and a lump of "Transluscent" sculpey makes a lovely skin tone if you're not planning to make them into resin.
I kinda lost inspiration after sculpting the first thigh piece I'll have to force myself to get started again >_< I'm afraid this one won't be able to stand either. It'd be cool if I didn't need to paint my doll, but I don't think I could keep the sculpey from getting streaky and full of moonies...
I just started working on my first a few days ago and I am so anxious to see her finished! Every time I hit a set back, it feels like when I was waiting and waiting and waiting for shipping information for Riku... x.x
Don't give up! Every problem has a way around it, if you keep trying I'm sure you'll be able to make your perfect doll!
Aww poor Leo! I've been anding and gesso priming Coppellia, and you can see what she looks like so much better now. She kinda looks a bit chalky, but the even tone has been a big help picking out the flaws i have to still work on.
Argh, I've just realized the width of dowel I used for the removable core of Robin's shin is too wide... So now I'm trying to pour slip around a new one... I don't even know if paper clay will work as good slip for pouring like that... it's damn hard to get the consistency to begin with (I’m thinking about value villaging up an old food processor for it). *sigh* and if this doesn't work, my plans for making the ball joints in a plaster slip-mold will be somewhat dashed... Fortunately the good news is that for two-piece molding plaster, the barrier is nice, cheep vaseline... Now I've come up to my computer because all the pieces are currently drying and I find nothing on my workbench that I can poke at any more until they've dried... The waiting turns out to be far more frustrating than any of the actual doing... Hm, next quest, to find out how much one would need to be purchasing to buy wholesale from Alumilite...
I just finished the head minus the ears and I'm excited to get on with the rest of her body... however I have a feeling its not going to be as easy as the head >_>
It's the waist/hips that are the hardest part mechanically, I think... I'm having a hell of a time there... The knees and elbows are pretty straight forward, the shoulders take a lot of pickiness to get them nice and round, but on the lower torso you have to not only make the bottom fit the top beautifully with just that little bit of sway, you also have to figure out how the heck the hip joints and bottom fit into all of it... I think I'm going to do a suply run today, most of Robin is currently just a little too damp to work on. I need to get some fine sand paper anyway... Maybe a trip down to the hobby shop is in order, that model sand paper does sound pretty sweet...
Everything is sculpted and 80% of the sanding is done... soon I'll be ready to cast him! (And the wonderful thing is that the local art store carries silicone and resin at reasonable prices, and I get a 30% discount because my sister used to take painting classes there!) It's taken me a long time to get around to finishing him, because I strung the pieces together to check the fit and stability (which were good) but then... I didn't want to take the little guy apart... lol... he's already been to a meetup and everything despite being zombie white and not having any hair.
So Alumilite doesn't do wholesale, apparently the stores they're selling through are not doing standard retail but rather Alumilite is just renting the privilage to sell inside their stores... So 10 pounds of silicon rubber would cost me about $160. Irksome. Should ten pounds be enough to make a 60cm doll with? I suppose I'll do the old put all the pieces in a bucket of water routine to figure out how much resin I"m going to need... Could I possibly have chosen a more expensive hobby... sky-diving, maybe...
Wah me too! I've been sanding all yesterday, thankyfully my boyfriend stepped in for a bit to help. But AUGH, the pain you have to go through to get your doll all nice and smooth.
I invested in a dremel...cost way more than I'd hoped 'cause I had to get a clamp to hold the bead(or whatever) and special pieces for drilling. I hope this works out...
Arrrgggh, I was spraying the pieces with Citadel spray primer (XD cheater's way of getting things extra smooth, just spray a few coats and sand) and I DROPPED ONE IN THE DIRT. Of course the dirt stuck to the wet paint... so now I have to sand off all of the gunk. At least it was only the butt piece.
Well I'm spraying it over gessoed paperclay that's already pretty smooth - the Citadel primer is thin so it won't fill in lumps, just scratches and other small marks. But it also won't ruin face details. It's made for little metal and plastic miniatures so it would probably stick to sculpey. And with light sanding and then buffing with cloth from a T-shirt, it becomes very smooth and slightly shiny. Plain gesso without spray primer on top becomes very shiny when rubbed with cloth. (I did get kind of lazy sanding the arms so I sprayed them with a fairly heavy coat of American Accents Clear Top Coat, which is a cheap and gloopy clear spray paint that happened to be in my closet, and it did fill in larger imperfections. Woo, much less sanding needed. I think I'll spray some of the Citadel stuff on top of that. Sculpey is sort of a plastic, though, and I dunno if spray paints stick to plastic well. And I definitely wouldn't use anything other than the Citadel stuff for miniatures on my doll's face. But I know there are people who use spray-on car primer on Sculpey to help smooth it.)
I'm one of the geeks that used to paint Warhammer miniatures, so I know that citadel paints and sprays are good quality, but expensive. I hated those little paint pots the paint used to come in though, they never sealed properly, and dried out. But, that aside, the miniatures are tiny, so the sprays are quite thin, but if you are heavy-handed with them, they will turn out thick. Just use short light sprays, and you'll do fine. Well, I'm dying to get an air canister for the airbrush Dad gave me for my birthday. I still need to re-do her feet, and sand the heck out of her (Not looking forward to that) before I paint her though. Pwivaran will never be able to stand: she's too top-heavy. ^^'' But that's okay, I've sort of worked it into her story that she's unable to walk, at least in her youth. :P I suppose I should try to get some gesso to smooth her out with that too, but since I just ordered my first doll, money's a bit tight. If only I had some decent sanding attatchments for our dremel-tool. Oh, and here's a question for those of you more experianced: How to you get the paint to stay on, especially on the joints? Will sealing the body with a topcoat work?
I ordered some MSD shoes over the weekend, just waiting on them to try out with my feet, if they are too small or 2 big, it's time to make new feet.
No, spray paint does not stick to plastic well unless you get the special Krylon paint, but I doubt that would stick to Sculpey, since that's pretty oily. Hey, has anybody drilled resin? Should I invest in a diamond drill bit for when I need to put a couple holes (at the shoulder and thigh joint concaves) in the set resin? I was thinking that a steel drill bit might put too much pressure on it and not work well anyway... I think I'll snap some pictures of Robin today and put them up...
I've heard of people using automotive spray primer on Sculpey, though. I hollowed out a Volks resin kit to ball-joint it and it drilled very easily with steel bits. And those are tiny dolls so the pieces are delicate. For the body I used a regular large drill instead of my Dremel because the bits weren't quite long enough, and even the regular drill was fine. Resin is pretty tough. ^_^
This is a great thread, thanks for starting it^_^ I had planned to make my first doll during Summer Holiday, but I'm still in the middle of collecting materials. I had almost everything I needed to start sculpting (some of it is still underway) and then THIS happened: http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81760 So now I'm gonna have to start looking for eyes all over, which will be hard, since my doll will have such an unusual size (24 cm, about 8 of which will be the head so she'll be wearing 22mm eyes at least). And find a way to get MSC, silicone and resin for relatively cheap and without having to worry that it will be confiscated by customs>_<. Anybody know of somewhere in the Netherlands that sells those things?
Oh you're in the Netherlands? this site might be a big help to you for eyes. They are a German company and make glass eyes up to 34mm in size and have a HUGE selection of colors and styles. The prices aren't bad either and they ship all over the EU. In fact after reading your post, this is the company that the eyes you were sent are from. I know a few Asian BJD companies sell these eyes.
How's this for luck! I was at my local hobby shop which I am in love with (it's a cute little indie run by the nicest people!) to pick up yet MORE sand paper, and they had just got in some nice Mr Super Clear Flat UV cut! I think it's a sign the I'll be able to cast soon!
My shoes arrived today! they were bigger than I had expected them to be, but the feet I made fit in quite comfortably, so now I can go ahead and make them smooth.
I finished the torso and baked it. .and guess what happened?? It exploded maybe because i sculpt it around styrofoam??.. but anyways I managed to piece it back together and it looks alright :T
I've got some casting questions... the nearby art store only sells Smooth-Cast 320 and Smooth-Cast 325 Colormatch. And I like the idea of supporting the local art store, lol, not just because it's about half the cost of ordering it online... The 320 is an off-white (as opposed to the equivalent Smooth-Cast 300, which is bright white) and the 325 is a clear amber. I think some people who have cast their own dolls on DOA have used bright white resins, and Alumilite's skin tone pigments are apparently made for white resin. (I wanted to use a premixed pigment rather than mixing 3 or 4 pigments because I think it would be more consistent, but I guess the pigment doesn't really matter all that much.) So my question is, how well do you think the off-white 320 resin would take that pinky Alumilite flesh color? (I wanted it a bit darker and yellower than the Alumilite samples, anyway) Or would it be better to use the clear amber 325 resin, as I hear it becomes more opaque with the addition of pigments? Would I have to add extra white pigment to the amber to make it look right? If anyone has made a cast using 320, could you photograph it next to a doll so I can get an idea of how much I'd have to tweak the color match?
I've been working on a head for quite a while too ^_^ I'm not going to make a body-going to use an Iplehouse girl body that's going to be modded to be androgynous(ie: chop the boobies off XD XD) Alizee's coming along quite nicely, I finnished his nose and lips today and am now in the process of smoothing his headcap..after that, he only needs ears and I'm going to get some of that Citadell stuff to make him smooth-that sounds like good stuff and there's a store nearby.. ^___^ I'm getting silicone and resin soon so I can make a first cast, then I'll probably have to sand some more and then make the master mold and order more resin with stuffies to colour him..eventually I'll tan both the body and the head with RIT dye, but for now I'm going to try to make him the colour of Volks normal skin resin, so he would fit on Sumiya's body for photoshoots and stuff ^_^ *has way too much fun working on this little darling* XD XD
Yes Lolipop, thank you Now I know where to get eyes (if I can't get them off Ebay), AND I finally found a Dutch store that sells silicone and resin, YAY!!
Sure It's www.polyservice.nl . I just spent some time browsing the site and made a list of what I (we) would need: -silicon rubber PS81020 (comes in 500g, 1kg and 20kg) plus hardener 81020 (comes in 50g, 250g and 1kg) - PU resin PS115 (comes in 2l and 10l) --> this will be offwhite when it's cured, so I'd also like to know how it would look with colorant. There's info about working times and mixing proportions of the various materials on the site. BTW, nice to finally meet another Dutchie who's making a doll PS: have you by any chance figured out hollow casting? I've been thinking about how to do it without any machines and such and I think I can do arms, legs, hands and feet, but head and torso pieces I haven't figured out completely. Tips are welcome
eep!! Bad fumes warning!! Styrofoam is a great armature for air-drying or curing clays, like various papier mache or apoxy sculpt. DON'T HEAT IT! (Yes, I'm shouting. I mean to--this is Important.) If you heat styrofoam much, you won't have to worry if resin is toxic. :/ Ann in CT
heh, i'm not allowed to post about my bjd cuz its a bird, but i think talking about him is allowed. Yeah, i need to do some drilling, sanding, and he'll be ready to string up ^^. And then i need to work on his shoulder balancing (cuz he sits on dollie shoulders).
I hope that I can fix the problem in the back of my doll's head with some airdry clay. That wouldn't react badly with supersculpey would it? I'd just add and cook, but he's too cooked to...Cook, anymore. I actually made some nice progress on him today, after having neglected him for weeks. Now he's a head and a jointed torso. D: But I have to hack at the thigh sockets so his legs fit in right....Wagh!
thanks for the warning i was using a site that was in japanese so i didnt know what was going on now i understand that it was meant for air dry clay omg i feel like an idiot
I use a paperclay, which a lot of the air-drys are, and it pretty much sticks to anything but if you heat it while it's wet it's going to shrink a lot.
So I started the molding process over the long weekend, and am happy to report the head mold looks to be good! Just had to wait 3 days of worrying it would be a bubble fest to find that out. Just need my order from smooth on to get her and I can do a test cast.
Oooh, congratulations! Do you have photos? I'm going to start pouring some silicone tomorrow so I hope mine goes well too...
Not yet, I have some of the silicone going in, but that's about it so far. Hope to have a cast of the head next week before I go on vacation though. Good luck with your mold pours!
*sob* I broke the shoulder! I was spraying primer onto the butt, and it slipped out of my gloved hand and landed on the inner shoulder! I think i can glue the pieces back together rather than having to build a new one, but still! Anyway, it's out drying. My silicon and resin get here on monday. Looking foreward to it.
Been productive even though I'm waiting on more silicone so I can do some more mold making waiting! Today I finished off a Gothic Lolita Bustier, and have a skirt that just needs a zipper. My girl won't have to make her debut in the nude now!
Bugger. I cast my first head, it came out ok, but a bit bubbly. Number 2 th resin went wierd and didn't set. Number 3 the resin went less weird and broke my mold. And that kinda sucks.
Good on the first, oh craps on the second. I've been working on trying to get Robin's outfit sorted. I made one version of the tunic, it turned out to be too high waisted (not really sure how i managed that, working off his torso which is already pretty much done) and i managed to get his unitard caught in the sewing machine... right, i need more seam-allowances on a streatch... My Alumilite order finally came in at the hobby shop and I went down to pick it up. Good on the silicon and the resin, but they sent the wrong color dye. For some stupid reason, Alumilite has the same item number for all the dye colors... So hopefully the right dye will be in by Friday, if not then by Monday. At least I have the silicon though, that was the big hold-up. I'm letting the scull get fully completed and demolded before I put anything else in, want to make sure it doesn't take issue with the latex varnish I have on or anything... It is setting properly (i read somebody make a comment about latex gloves screwing up silicon earlier, but the varnish has not presented a problem there) now i'm mainly concerned about whether it wants to stick to the latex a bit too tightly. The second part of the mold should be finished setting up late tonight, if it's all good then I can start up the other pieces going tomorrow and get down to business sculpting Robins face. Wish me luck.
i have all but given up on my paperclay experiment since i ordered my DZ i went to take a look at it today to give it a sand and it started to crumble i think it's something to do with the humidity when i was mashing it together. i keep hearing about this apoxy sculpt clay, is it any good? poor flutterby will never be finished at this rate.....
The skulls molding has been a great success! The rest of the body will be started in for molding tomorrow morning! So excited!
I think I found my doll a name! Yay! she will probably be Sue Ceranami what do you think of that name?
Pronunciation guide? I default to Japanese pronunciations, but then of course a C causes trouble there... I assumed it was aliterationy and an S sound... but really, I can not understand a name until I can pronounce it.
Oh, really sorry, I didn't think about that. I'm french, and the "default" prononciation of C would be S. making the name easy to pronounce hum hum prononciation guide.... well Sue shouldn't be a problem so let's go the the Ceranami Cherry in latin is "Cerasus" so let's say you say Terra, like in terra cotta, but replace the T by a S you Get the "Cera" part of the name Hanami is the "cherry-tree celebration" in Japanese so the nami part would be "Namee" so Serranamee would be the english prononciation. maybe
Well, you can never really tell with English... the way sounds are spelled has never been agreed upon, I suppose that's what happens when you make a Germanic-Latinate... OH WOE!!! In fact a gallon is not enough silicon to mold a doll, as I was told somewhere in this message board. So now I have to order more, while I'm a week and a half from returning to school... Argh... So I guess I'll get all my packing and cleaning done now and then shamble together Robin's bits in a bum-rush end of next week... argh...
heh, well, i finnished my little guy^^ i even made a tree stand for him. i have pictures of him here: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/39653310/ now all ihave to do is cast him into resin ^^
I've been doing some pre-research on the feasability of casting myself (I like to plan way-Way-WAY ahead) and I have a similar question about casting resins and flesh tone pigments as Iroha posted so nicely. I have been leaning towards the use of the Smooth-On line of products and noticed that Smooth-On has a flesh tone in their So-strong colour line which according to the site work better with the clear amber Colormatch (SC 325) than with the white SC 300 but I cannot find any examples of the use of this pigment If anyone is able give an opinion on getting good, consistant skintones on resin I would be most appreciative to hear.
