Eyes Making custom resin eyes

I had a bunch of left over resin from making custom charms and since I recently got a BJD, I thought why not try and do eyes myself

I bought 12mm resin molds online and since I do a lot of crafts, I tried to work with things I had on hand.
Here's a list of products I used in these:
- UV resin (cheap set bought online, I think it's prone to yellowing)
- Acrylic/gouache
- Nail polish
- Craft glitter




top row is 12mm with 5mm iris, bottom row is 12mm with 6mm iris
Weirdly enough, working with the 6mm iris was a lot easier despite the size different not being much? lol

Here is how they look in my Rosette Doll Phlox






The 5mm iris looks way better in my opinion so I'll need to practice a few times to get it right (this attempt had the dome overflowing, for example). I also will be looking into working with clay to work on texturing and depth for the iris, but I'll keep doing the pupil with a black dot I think for now. I know using a rhinestone of sorts is popular but it isn't the look I'm going for.

I also didn't really care about bubbles so I poured resin every time but I need to make a habit to work slowly to avoid them

 

@captain. Yes they do! I haven't used them though since I didn't have any brush small enough to paint but I bet it can add a lot of depth and definition if used well

@Dayme It is genuinely fun, I was surprised! Adding the glitter is the most fun in my opinion, it adds a little fun detail ~
Thank you for the rec, I will be sure to watch them before trying!

@rosierjay They are random ones I bought on a taobao order but I am sure you could find some on etsy by searching "bjd eye mold"
They usually have different sizes + iris size option and outer ring options

 

@Cupkeeks I've been toying with resin a few times to find a few ways, the best option I found was gently mix resin+pigment (if going for a colored resin) and let it rest a bit for the bubbles to come up naturally. You can also drop the container a few times to force the air up (never from a great height, be careful not to spill it!)
Then I just go in with a toothpick or little spoon-type resin tool to pick up and lay a little bit of resin at a time. Then I let it rest again a little before curing

If you have one of those straight gas lighter things you can also use the heat to clean up the bubbles I don't use mine though since I keep it in storage with my camping supplies


@thedarkeststar13 The white is still giving me issues! If I mix too much then the resin behaves weirdly ^^; but I'm slowly getting there I think


I went back in with some clay sculpting for one eye and trying things out with nailpolish and resin in another. The picture is not the best unfortunately



I find the clay eye has more depth and it's also a lot of fun to just play around with sculpting. It definitely feels like there's a chance to do fun things with it -- unfortunately I am also having a skin reaction to the fimo clay so I'll have to work with gloves in the future :')
Nailpolish allows me to really pack a lot of interesting color shifts I don't have otherwise -- here I used a simple gold micro glitter over a black base but I have a few color shifting/chrome polish I think could be fun I still need to check how they behave under a layer of resin though

The other issue of nailpolish is that it's easy to muddy everything and mess up the whole thing. Clay can be taken out and you get to start over quite easily.






I'm thinking of getting little matte rhinestones to make pupils if a dotting tool can't do the trick (here, I eyeballed with a toothpick and some polish). I also really wish I could figure out a way to make a deep, dark eye but that takes in the light beautifully so I'll be working on that probably!

 

@quilleth sorry for the late reply! I am using UV resin and so far I've not had any trouble with yellowing and whatnot