40–49cm Dolls Making an alien girl

So, I've been feeling really inspired lately to try making my own doll, and also to learn a 3d modeling software, and thus I decided to make my character, Nenna, a qaig(which is a race that I made up). She looks like this:

Spoiler: fullbody artwork older

I've never done anything like this before, and when I get INTO THE FLOW I tend to tunnel vision, so it didnt occur to me to share here until i was well into the sculpture. But here's what I've managed so far.

Spoiler: Head, early

Spoiler: head, ears, and torso

Spoiler: Orthographic - everything but the feet

I want to redo her hands, and also make more poses for them. they'll be magnetic, I haven't decided if the feet will be too. Obviously still need to refine the jointing, add the body joints, peanuts in her hips, knees and elbows, but I am intimidated. I'm getting a 3d printer next month which I'll use to test everything out.. Wish me luck, I suppose! I'll try to remember to keep updating this thread lol

 

Thank you. I've spent years trying to perfect the racial anatomy, so I'm glad it looks nice to other folks
The leggy thing has been my biggest obstacle from getting more dolls to shell my characters. Nobody is long enough, nor stubby in the legs enough haha.

 

Trucking along at a steady pace I guess. I modeled her tail and feet, shortened her legs, and split the head into a head back and faceplate. I may make some other faces for her too, for Extra Cute, but that'll remain to be seen. One thing at a time I suppose, it seems my ambition has no end in sight, or at least for now.

I tried to do some inferred texture, which are the little lumps on her hips.. Dont know how well it's working, but y'know, this is an experiment at it's soul. I would have liked to feather her all over, but my ipad isn't that buff. What can ya do.


I even made my logo into a little head chip for her. And for anyone I get the whim to make in the future, lol


Next will be me struggling with peanuts. Agony. Or maybe it wont be as hard as i'm working it up to be, we'll see

 

As expected, the joints were a bit of a nightmare. In the meantime, between finaggling with parts and silhouette, I sculpted out another hand pose. The thumb claw is a little wonk, but it's alright, I guess. It wasn't a total bust cause I feel like these are a big improvement on my last pair, what with nicer paw pads and more detail.



I also decided to grab a cap of the tail feathers I made cause I think they look pretty nice. It occurred to me after the fact that this tail will be fragile and prevent her from sitting nicely, so I plan to make a nub too, which I'll build another tail out of real feathers to hopefully improve how she can rest.


And finally, the, main event: joints



I'm pretty happy with the look, despite it not being th Prettiest. I think it should work, in theory. I may make her torso one more joint, like a belly ball, or hip bone pit like a littlefee has, but Im on the fence. I got my tax return the other day and so ordered my 3d printer early, which Wil arrive on Saturday, so once I get that up and running Im gonna print her out and make sure everything fits. I don't have high hopes tho, so if I end up needing to rebuild parts I may just do that by hand.

The thigh seam has a mobility joint, which was tricky, considering there wasn't tons of room to work with. If it doesn't turn out well, I may need to compromise and just make it a rotation point, but yeah, remains to be seen.
Either way, I'll be updating the outcome once I get her into the real world at last.

 

Thank you! Even though i didnt exactly make a sketch, haha... That step didnt even cross my mind. o_o;

If I ever make another one maybe I'll plan it better... Maybe. This one has been... Interesting, to say the least. A lot of back and forth and mistakes and wasted time, but if nothing else it's been a learning experience. :p

I appreciate your support. Your comments so far have bolstered my confidence

 

3d printer came yesterday, but while I was waiting, I went ahead and made two more hand poses, and fancied up the other two I made so far also.



I dunno how many more I'm gonna do, but I'm pretty stokes about the variety I'm gonna have with just the four I've done so far.
I also wanted to try out the 3 piece torso, and in doing so, decided that the chest needed to separate higher up or it wouldn't move right. In the end, I think I prefer the look of the 2 piece torso, so I'll probably go with that one for the print, just with the adjusted chest height. I also did some work on the thighs, to make the string channels a little less cavernous, and to hopefully reduce the risk of her always having to sit spread-eagle

Which ended up making the knees look uglier than they already did. Welp.

I never did really like the way they looked to begin with. That long bit on the inner leg in particular was just always super ugly, so I just decided to redo the leg jointing entirely. The result looks a lot cleaner and I'm pretty chuffed about it tbh, though it won't look as good when her legs are bent. I may revisit them yet again in the future, but for now, I'm quite pleased with the result.


I just want to add a few more feathery details around her feet and body before I persue the undertaking of printing her out. She's nearly complete, and I've impressed myself with how quickly I've been able to get her to this point with no prior experience with a 3d software. She came together in about a week, if you don't count all the time I wasn't working on her.
Of course, I fully expect to have some failures in the joints, but I'm optimistic. I thought a lot about how parts should fit together, and based on what I've been able to glean from other dolls that I own, I think my logic checks out, but of course, the real test will be the transition from a digital model to a tangible object. It's exciting.

 

Printing Nenna has been happening, very, very slowly. Work has slowed it down even more, but I made 4 extra faces over my lunch breaks at work.


The first one came out well though! I haven't printed the others yet, don't know if I will, but I got her head parts into the real world so far.

You may notice she looks a little different. That's because after I printed the head the first time, I found some problems with the sculpt that I didn't catch before, like her cheeks were sunken in and I wasn't totally happy with her LOOK, nor the faceplate mechanism. It didn't stay on and just looked sloppy. Flickr is down so I can't show pictures without tweeting them, but just take my word for it, it was pretty bad lol

Shes a lot cuter now, I'm very happy with her so far.