40–49cm Dolls Learning to Computer Model: Amara!

Having developed hand problems, I can no longer sculpt by hand well. I was never great, but I used to have a lot of fun making wire and clay and fabric dolls. Now I'm learning to computer model instead!

Here is my very rough draft of my doll "Amara", who is a gnoll. I wanted to give her a heavyset, somewhat cartoonish proportion, but not stylized to excess. I'm still experimenting with cutting joints, and I want to give her some fluffy details once I do, plus I'm still not 100% happy with the face (although it looks better with the eyes cut and printed - I tested it at a fashion doll size).



I'm not happy yet, but getting this far has been a fun learning experience! Just gotta keep at it. I haven't decided for sure what her size will be, but I'm thinking 40-45cm; that should be large enough to sand easier, but not so large as to be unwieldy. A perk of 3D printing is that until I print, I can change it as much as I want. And there's almost no animal dolls in that size, so I think it would be fun to mix it up.

 

Thank you! I’m still learning about hollowing out dolls, but one perk of the 3D model is that I can save the non-hollowed version and re-hollow out parts if they’re hard to cast or don’t work well. It’s tricky in that I can look at how my dolls are hollowed out as reference, but none of them have similar proportions. But I’ll get it figured out!

I also want to make a set of human hands for her, so that she could use existing human heads in her scale. But that can wait until after I’ve got her working as is!

 

I've started experimenting with how to cut joints, since I think how the joints are cut will affect how I feel about her. I want to resculpt her feet, too - I may do some of the work after I print her using clay to alter her body, since that should be easier on me. Good progress so far!

I had a curious thought about printing a thin plastic "skeleton" for a BJD, then sculpting around it... It seems like it could be a good way to sculpt a doll without needing to do the finnicky joints by hand. But I can't sculpt well by hand anymore anyways

 

Got home early today and did nothing but make joints for the past couple hours. Not perfect, but it's a good first draft.

It's more difficult to make the joints on her because of her weight; her wrists and knees don't have a thinner spot. While I was at it, I altered her foot a bit and reshaped her leg to give it a little bit of a beastly feel, without being overblown. Hopefully. Kind of hard to tell.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping to cut the channels. Unfortunately, I'll have limited print time over the next few weeks, but I'm hoping to print her over the weekend, before I have to pack the printer up for the move

 

Well, I stayed up much too late, but the first draft of Amara's joints are done!

I'll hopefully get started printing her this weekend... probably not at the full 1/4 scale, though. That's a lot of printing filament and time for what will probably need significant work!

 

Part of her is done, at least! I realized I forgot one of her arm sockets, so it’s a very partial bust. I’m delighted with her posing - I want to redo her neck joint and possibly make a second version of her chest that’s more hollow (this one is mostly solid, since it’s easier to print and gives her plastic form a bit I’m more weight). Her face is much cuter in the real world than in the 3D renders!

 

Her first draft is complete!

Things that I’m not happy with:
1) Her feet need work: she can stand, but it’s kind of difficult because they’re not flat enough.
2) The hole in her neck is too small, so she can’t really look up or down much.
3) The slit in her wrists is too thin, which means I couldn’t use an appropriate thickness of elastic for her arms. Because of this, her arm posing has some issues.
4) As mentioned above, her hips are mostly solid. Not a problem printing (where you have infill), and it makes her a breeze to string, but it’ll need to be updated before she’s good to cast. I’ll probably keep a copy both ways.
5) Some of the socket edges should be smoothed

Things I’m really happy with:
1) I LOVE her knees. They’re a good balance of animal style and human style, and I think they offer a good variety of posing options.
2) Her expression is so much cuter in person; screenshots from modeling programs don’t do it justice.
3) I freaking love her proportions. She’s really out there.

Overall, I’m excited for my first 100% mine 3D printed doll! But more work is needed.

 

Draft 2 printed! No photos because it's all joint changes, so they're not really visible.

Her feet, hands, and neck pose much better now, and the former two now fit S-hooks. She can stand better due to feet updates. However, I'm still not happy with her ability to sit - it's much improved with this draft, but it needs work. I suspect I'll end up redoing the leg joints entirely. Beyond that, the only thing I want to do is either smooth out or completely remove the hip-belly joint; I like how it poses, but it's no good if it looks so bad nude.

 

Draft 3! Major changes since draft 1:
1) adjusted shape for better fit of s-hooks
2) slightly flattened the front of the legs to improve sitting
3) reshaped hip joints to improve sitting
4) smoothed torso joint for better appearance
5) improved head cap fit (still needs work)

 

Draft 4! Primary target was the hip joint. Improvements make it both much more stable and offer better poseability; in addition, the placement of the belly button has been adjusted and the hip has been retopoed to make it print better.

She stands alright right now, but not as well as I would like. The biggest issue is that her feet poseability isn’t great, but I think this has more to do with my crappy homemade s-hooks fitting poorly than anything. So on the docket, among other things, is finding correctly sized s-hooks!

 

At last... progress! Draft 5 targets the knees and elbows, with minor tweaks here and there and improved eyewells (but I don’t have the right size of eyes to test them...) Featuring a complete reprint at 95% of her original scale.

I really really like this size; I’m tempted to pursue it over an MSD, though I think most people like MSDs better. It’s a very approachable proportion!

 

After way too long, I’m back at it again! Waiting for some sun to get better pics... but she’s pretty cute!

 

Resin Amara, out in the sun! I’m getting to the point where I’m legitimately happy with her.

 

After all the work I've put into several of my other dolls, I decided I wanted to try redoing the jointing on Amara.


Printing now!

 

Trying different hosting to hopefully avoid broken images this time:



New joints are much better posers! The fit on the knees is a bit too tight, but that’s easily adjusted with sanding.

 

From nowhere, I return! Still working on Amara. She's basically done -- but I want to do a clean print, treat her with woodfill, car enamel, etc...