OT/General Learning to be a doll artist currently on Amazon... just an FYI

Maybe I'm being a blasphemer here, but I really don't see why I would pay so much for a book when there are plenty of other helpful titles. Yoshida's guide is very informative - even when you don't know any Japanese, the pictures speak for themselves - and it won't cost you an arm and a leg.

I know having a reference book is handy (I own Yoshida's guide, even though I mainly use it to get inspired), but in the end, reading a book won't make you a one-in-a-million artist. Only practicing will. What is it about this book that makes people want to have it so badly?

 

I agree with you silk. I find it strange when the contents of the book is not a secret - it's not a magic wand that will guarantee making beautiful dolls. But maybe it's just the fact that it's been recommended by successful artists and has therefore gained kudos. But, if you are willing to do a little 'leg-work', all the information in the book can be found through other sources, including the Internet.

 

Ltbada

Learning to be a Doll Artist: an Apprenticeship with Martha Armstrong-Hand (Scott Publ., 1999) describes Martha Armstrong-Hands method of making porcelain ball-jointed dolls. She was making fully articulated ball-jointed dolls long before BJDs were a twinkle in Volks' eye. The book briefly describes every step of making a porcelain BJD, from concept to displaying the finished dolls. LTBADA is NOT a detailed step-by-step photographic tutorial like Yoshida Style BJD Making Guide is. However, Yoshida Style is about making an OOAK BJD from LaDoll air-dry clay, and it does NOT cover mold making, firing a kiln, china painting, and other things that are covered by LTBADA.

Martha Armstrong-Hand (1920-2004) used a more traditional sculpture method to make her dolls. She was apprenticed to a German wood carver in Berlin, Germany when she was 17 to 19 years old. She also attended an art academy in Berlin, and art school in Los Angeles, California after coming to the USA. In LTBADA, she says that these days, it is very difficult to get the kind of apprenticeship that she got in Berlin. So her approach is to do an apprenticeship by reading books. LTBADA has an extensive list of books to read, that supplement her book and her instructions. Read and practice. Practice and read.

Martha starts out with a notebook, that she jots down her ideas for dolls. She develops those ideas, and makes drawings. The drawings are developed into full-size working drawings, with a minimum of a front and a side view of the doll. Because porcelain shrinks, she takes the shrinkage rate of the porcelain into account when making the working drawings. Martha says that the most important two things you need to know in the beginning are the materials the doll will be made of, and the size of the finished doll. She also lists other considerations, such as gender, body type, and so forth, but materials and size are the two most important things.

Martha used the full-size working drawings to construct an armature to support her modeling clay. She recommends #2 oil-clay in LTBADA. The armature is supported by an armature stand. The armature stand she describes in LTBADA is made from standard iron pipe fittings, that can be purchased from a hardware store. The armature is attached to a modeling board.

She says that she always modeled a full figure in oil-clay, even if the doll she was making was only going to be head, arms, hands, legs and feet. She says she got a better feel for the overall proportions of the doll that way. When she had taken the oil-clay figure as far as she knew how, she would take it off the modeling stand, and cut it apart. She cut it apart in order to make plaster rough shell molds (waste molds) of the oil-clay doll, so it could be cast in carving wax.

Martha's chapters about plaster mold design, and plaster mold making are among the best descriptions of plaster mold making there are, anywhere. The principle about casting carving wax in a plaster mold is that water and wax do not mix. She pours molten carving wax into water-saturated plaster molds. The carving wax starts to thicken around the inside walls of the water-saturated plaster mold, and when it is thick enough, the excess wax is poured back into the wax pot. This leaves a hollow casting.

Martha's use of, and descriptions of working with carving wax are probably the best thing about LTBADA. Carving wax is an amazing design material. Plaster molds are made of various size balls, and carving wax balls are cast in the ball molds. The cast carving wax balls may be welded to the carving wax limbs. Carving wax may be carved, sawn, drilled, cast, welded, machined, and finished to a highly refined surface (glass smooth). An electric wax pen may be used to work the carving wax, or it may be worked with metal jeweler's or dental tools heated over an alcohol lamp. Martha learned about carving wax in the 3D design and sculpture industry in Los Angeles, as well as working as a doll designer and sculptor at Mattel for 20 years.

One other thing about carving wax that makes it such an awesome design material for making BJDs is that it is tough enough to be test strung with elastic. This is a very desirable property for designing ball joints.

Marthe used the refined carving wax doll parts as patterns to make the final plaster porcelain-slip-casting molds. The final plaster molds are air-dried so that porcelain slip may be cast into them. Martha's description of preparing the slip for pouring, as well as tips and tricks for pouring porcelain slip are very good. She also describes how to finish cast porcelain doll parts. Her descriptions of firing a kiln are fairly generic. That is because each and every kiln is different, even from the same manufacturer. Each kiln has its own personality. You just have to learn how to fire your own kiln.

Her chapter about China Painting porcelain dolls is amazing. China Painting used to be a popular hobby, but not as much, any more. As a result, the information about China Painting (especially for dolls) is hard to come by.

Martha used springs, swivels, s-hooks, and pins to tension her BJDs. Here again, her descriptions about designing a spring-tensioned porcelain BJD, as well as her tips and tricks for using springs, and so forth, is information that is hard to come by, from other sources. here again, even if you have LTBADA in your hands, you will still need to do some experimenting to get it right for YOUR doll.

Martha also goes into designing and making a wig for the BJD, clothing, and shoes, as well as accessories. Finally she describes how to display and photograph the finished BJD. Her method is quite involved, and is probably NOT for a beginning doll maker, but rather for doll makers who are already comfortable with making sculpture.

Martha's method includes:
* Ideas and planning
* Drawing
* Designing and making an Armature
* Modeling in Oil-Clay
* Designing and making plaster molds
* Casting carving wax
* Working with Carving wax
* Designing ball joints and an articulated BJD
* Tensioning the BJD with springs, etc.
* Making final production porcelain-slip-casting-molds from plaster
* Casting porcelain
* Finishing porcelain
* Firing porcelain in an electric kiln
* China painting a porcelain BJD and firing the china painted parts
* Assembling a porcelain BJD with springs, etc.
* Making wigs, clothing, shoes, and accessories for the BJD
* displaying and photographing the finished porcelain BJD as a multimedia figurative sculpture.

Martha Armstrong-Hand was a professional artist, an exquisite designer, and a skilled craftsperson. We are so fortunate that she also wrote down her method in a book. It is too bad that her book is out-of-print, for the most part, unavailable. However, most of her method can be found in available books, or from the Internet. See Martha Armstrong-Hand's Method at Woodland Earth Studio for more information.

Needless to say, I am a big fan of Martha's Method.
(^_^)

 

Ooh, I'd be very interested in your opinion once you've got the chance compare both . Yoshida's guide is lovely, even though it only explains how to sculpt a doll from clay. It's not that I used his method - I prefer figuring things out by studying different methods and finally making a compilation of what works for me - but his pictures are so inspiring!

 

Martha's Method of making porcelain BJDs more closely follows traditional figurative sculpture methods than contemporary doll making techniques. Using Martha's Method, you can take a doll up to making the final production molds. At that point, you have a full set of refined and test-strung doll parts that you know will work. The final production molds may be plaster slip-casting molds, or silicon rubber resin-casting molds.

In the book Pop Sculpture, by Tim Bruckner, is a description of modeling the figure in oil-clay over an armature, then making waste molds of the oil-clay figure in order to cast carving wax. Bruckner's waste molds are made of a combination of old, chopped-up silicon rubber molds, and fresh silicon rubber to bind the chopped-up pieces. His technique requires a pressure pot to force the fresh rubber in between the chopped-up pieces. Carving wax may be cast in a silicone rubber mold, the same way it is cast in a water-saturated plaster mold. The carving wax will start to thicken around the inside walls of the mold first, and when thick enough, the excess carving wax can be poured back into the wax pot. Bruckner's technique is much more expensive than Martha's, but both yield a mold that can be saved and used again.

My own technique utilizes Hot-Pour Moulage (reusable Alginate-family mold material) for the waste molds. The Hot-Pour Moulage can be chopped-up and reused many times. The carving wax may be cast into a Hot-Pour Moulage mold the same way as a water-saturated plaster mold, and a silicon rubber mold. The excess carving wax is poured back into the wax pot after the thickness of the casting has been obtained. Hot-Pour Moulage does not produce a waste mold that can be saved because it will dry out, and not be reusable. However, unlike plaster, it is reusable, but unlike silicon rubber, it is not as expensive, nor does it require expensive equipment.

Both Martha and Tim Bruckner use a professional waxer (wax pen) for working with carving wax. I made my own, following an Instructables tutorial, for about $13, plus a $15 soldering iron. It is still working. I must admit that my wax pen is not ON for eight hours per day, so I cannot tell you how long it would last under that kind of usage.

My favorite quote from Martha Armstrong-Hand, about working with carving wax is:

My inspiration for making and using carving wax is from member waif (here at The Joint), aka JayneM at Enchanted. JayneM lives in Australia. She posted a modified version of Martha's carving wax recipe, which I further modified for my own use. She has posted many photos at Enchanted forum about using her carving wax. If it weren't for her, I would probably not know anything about using carving wax to make a BJD. Carving wax is an awesome 3D design material.

If I am not mistakem I do believe that Australian member glimmer has also used carving wax for making a BJD?

whitewings, you may want to see if you can meetup with any of your fellow Australians to chat about Martha's Method, and LTBADA?

Another member, here at The Joint, Mothi, has used carving wax to make ball-jointed dolls. She has some excellent documentation about working with carving wax at her Just This and That blog.

Finally, I would like to point to my own thread, here at The Joint, about making a BJD using Martha's Method:
Aalish III
Even though I am working painfully slow, some people have told me that they have found some useful things at my BJD-making blog, where I am documenting my progress. I try to do a little bit of work on my doll every day. On some days, a little bit is very little indeed.

(^_^)