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Life sized

Mar 19, 2012

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    1. I won a scholarship to visit Penland School of Craft this Summer in North Carolina (penland.org) the focus of the session will be on assembling large figurative sculpture and I am planning on building a life-sized ball joint doll. So far I have been stringing my 20" boys with strong sewing elastic from the local hobby store. As the life sized is also going to be hand built (so heavier than slip cast) I need some suggestions on what to use for the elastic.
       
      #1 Angelender, Mar 19, 2012
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    2. You might be able to find more heavy duty cord at a harware store like Lowes or Home Depot. I'm thinking the cord used for bungee cords might be just the thing.
       
      #2 Yukiru, Mar 19, 2012
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    3. NICE! That's probably going to be the perfect thing, prolly rigg it like a spring doll but with bungee cords. Thanks Ill talk to my local hardware guys.
       
      #3 Angelender, Mar 19, 2012
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    4. With life sized sculpture, I think you also have to worry about whether the friction between the surfaces is enough to hold a pose....no?
       
      #4 penguu, Mar 19, 2012
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    5. I've never tried before, part of the reason I want to give it a go under the supervision of a master sculptor. If worse comes to worse I could stand the center body with a steel rod and the only the arms would be movable.
      I tend to go for seated poses in my work. I've never actually experienced the kind of ball joint doll that stands up on its own so I have a hard time conceptualizing it, and the clay body is a lot heavier from being hand built.
       
      #5 Angelender, Mar 20, 2012
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    6. I think for life sized work, it's going to be a lot more complicated than stringing a regular BJD. If you scale up the tension required to make a doll posable, it will more than likely shatter just about any sculptign material. You may want to consider a system that uses multiple elastics instead of just one. Foot to calf, calf to thigh, thigh to hip, hip to tummy, tummy to chest, chest to head. Instead of just foot all the way up to head. Does this make sense to you? The stringing will be shorter and you can calibrate every connection to have just enough tension to pose well.
       
      #6 Miss_Pygmalion, Mar 20, 2012
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