Modification Mobility joints for all: modding my Granado crew.

I can put it off no longer. My Granado 31 Ascent arrived and it's time to get everyone moving. Literally. He's a grand poser and will show all the others (except Vigor) up, if I don't do something. (Ascent posing pix))

The big problem the Zen and Adagio have is a lack of a mobility joint. It really limits their posing. Zen is very thin and poppy, so any stress put on a joint causes him to distort. He is something of a throwaway (sorry, fella) as I got him for one specific "look" from the book. The fact that I literally hate the body as is because of its posing problems makes him the logical first victi...er...subject. Also, he needs a lot more than just a mobility joint.

The big problem is obvious when you ask him to sit:

(Advance warning: doll nudity. I decided I can either mod the pics or put up the journal. No time for both. I chose to put up the journal. )


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Three guesses which is the Zen, first two don't count. If you guessed the boobiicious one on the right, you're...not right. He's the wanton lad on the left. Now wanton is okay...sometimes. But more often then not, I want to bend the legs at the hip and have them go forward...without dislocating the joint.

Problem was (as you can see here) Crocus, the genius sculptor who gives us this wonderful variety, went for super thin, and to meet the aesthetic the hip joint is very angular. when the leg moves to perpendicular, the resin of the leg hits the pubic section of the torso and that pushes it out. What he needs is more of a peanut joint. It's hard to explain what the lines mean, but basically I'm marking where obstruction happens. I was also considering where the muscle on the top of the leg intersects the torso as it rotate out. Basically, I want movement within the joint itself and what it had was forward/rotate out only.


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Prepare yourself. I've never used a rotary tool before and, so learning curve is on display in front of god and everybody. I actually started more slowly than the pics I took suggest, sanding a bit out and testing, over and over. I found a lovely, lightweight battery operated one that I couldn't be happier with. I'm not sure how DoA feels about product links, but I got this guy from Amazon for about $25 including taxes: JEDIA Cordless Rotary Tool Kit 5-Speed Variable and USB Charging Cable Mini Power Rotary Tools, 3.7V with 45pcs Accessories for Cutting, Drilling, Etc I am very happy with it.

I used primarily, so far, the disk sander pictured and the small diamond cutter. (No, that's not the mask I used. I used an N95 and next time I'll use gloves. But it gives scale.)

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So...the first rough cuts, basically to get those legs coming to center. It ain't pretty (and isn't done. I've done some refining already and will do more.)

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Yes, I did it all with the doll put together. Because everything depends on how the elastic pulls the leg and torso together, I needed to retain the tension. Only possible, at least in my case, because of how light this rotary tool is. Anyway...there was immediate improvement.
Tada!

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It's better now, after a bit more refining, but it doesn't stop him from flashing the world, if he's so-inclined.

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I also took some off the back of his leg where the curve of his torso-rump hit the leg to basically let the leg move slightly back. It's a posture thing. It was hard to get a picture that showed this, but this one is taken directly from the side. The near leg had been modded and the far one has not. Both are back as far as the shape of the resin allows.

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This also shows the flatness of that hip joint. I rounded the front out to make it all rotate better. It's still stable, though not the super snug fit it had before. When I take him apart to sand him and finish the peanut joint, I'll get better pics of the mod.

Next up...his inflexible feet!

 

His feet had basically two positions: flat and not so flat. This is because the foot just ran into the lower leg. I started by taking a notch out::

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(Ewwwww...mutant hand!)
Anyway, then I smoothed and rounded it out and reshaped the heel (the feet on these little guys are notorious among their loving owners)
Here you have one foot (the far one) done and the other with the marking for how to mod the foot. You can see the difference in "pointability"

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And more angles

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And one final little mod...his upper torso is design to slouch, but it doesn't lock, so I put a little catch-trench

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Tomorrow...I amputate his legs. Bwahahahahahaha

 

@Cloudedmind @Tippetarius Thanks! There's a lot of cleanup to do and tomorrow is the hard part, when I create a mobility joint. Really want a rounded end on the peanut joint, as opposed to the straight tube I've seen others put in, which means cutting the leg, hollowing the leg itself and adding a rounded apoxie end to the stub! I so hope I can pull it off. I did a lot of modding to sleeping faces for my two chiclines to create a very specific look, but this is so different because it's structural.

 

@Tippetarius I'm relieved. I feared it might be too much. But I'm like you...very visual learner. This is all so new to me, I didn't dare even consider video, tho it's going more smoothly than I could have hoped. OTOH, I'd also have to take the time to figure out how to set up for video. It's so ugly right now, I hope it doesn't scare people off from trying.

@SteamWitch Hiya, oh enabler!!! If I didn't want him for skinny-Stevie, I probably wouldn't have, tho I'm learning A LOT about joints in the process. I'm not going to lie, it is not as stable nor as pretty as it started. It's not unstable, but there's not as much resin contact within the joint as it moves up and down. I'm trying not to change the torso, but I think I'd have been ahead of the game to round it out. You know how flat that joint is. It's really not meant to rotate. Same with the foot joint, but I think I am going to round that a little bit. Right now it won't tip at all and that makes balancing him in some poses tricksy.

I'm SO glad I redid the foot. He's balancing fine without that pointy heel, and it makes the foot prettier and far more accommodating to shoes! All the other lads...here I come!!!!!

 

Operation amputation successful! But I get ahead of myself. The day started with refining the channels in the thigh. He can now be totally prim:

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And do the side split (the normal split will require the mobility joint.) Since the lad's a gymnast, this kind of flexibility was kinda mandatory.

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Time to take him apart.
And lest you think it has to look pretty at this point....The front....

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And even worse...the back. Ewwwwww!!!!!

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I'm not sure at this point how much I'm going to worry about aesthetic. This doll's torso was never meant to accommodate the kind of rotation I'm asking it to do. I decided to put all the mods in the created peanut joint, and in retrospect it might have been better to round out the torso's hip joint. BUT I didn't. So...I'll just make do. I'll prettify it as much as I can, and since what this is is just the necessary gouges if you will to achieve the range of motion, much can be done with just smoothing in between the two. The unevenness is due to the way the torso's, er, butt cheeks come down and hit the leg. The difference between the two is leaning curve. I've learned a whole lot about how BJD joints work in the last 24 hours.

So...where to whack. I used little braid elastics to test different positionings. I used the very scientific method of eyeballing

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When the leg is lifted from the mobility joint, the thigh needs to clear the torso and the thigh needs to be at it's widest point so the ball of the peanut can sink into it. Those were my two variables. Then, it was close my eyes and cut....well, figuratively. speaking....I used the largest cutting wheel, and I think that was a bit of a mistake. I probably took out a bit more of the leg than I would have using the smaller one. If it wouldn't cut deeply enough, I could have finished it off with a straight blade. Aw, well...20/20...

Success! Well, at least it's done. No going back now.

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Now I need to find my eye bevelling tools. I need to go larger than 1/2 inch...so 14mm might do it, which I think I got for Wiishu. But that's for tomorrow. Thanks for "watching."

 

@Idoru Glad it helps! I haven't noticed any difference on him. I'm going to go very cautiously on my Vigor lad because I don't want to do anything to compromise his knock-it-out-of-the-park posing! But I think it should work. And if it makes getting shoes on and off easier, those do a lot for stability.

I'm actually thankful that I was so disappointed in the mobility of this particular body. It let me attack these issues with a completely clear conscience. It was either this or sell, and since I really want that mobility joint on the Adagio, too, I figured make my mistakes on one I didn't care about...and if the mobility joint works out, I've now got another body I love. Even without the mobility joint, I was so much happier with it. And if I screw up the joint, I just rejoin it with apoxie.

 

Only modding I've actually done so far was Morgaine and Vanye's heads. This is altogether different, and I'm really enjoying it! Would spend all day if I could, but books gotta get written so I can clothe the kids!

Getting rid of the involuntary man spread is actually quite easy. It's the other stuff I'm asking him to do that's doing so much to the joint.

 

Temp hold on the mods; awaiting Stuff, i.e. my eye beveler was too small and my apoxie was DOI. Sigh. I did some preliminary reaming out of the thigh piece with the little sanding bit above. This was necessary because the extant hole is off-center:

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The other was even worse. Very thin resin to work with on the back/bottom side of the leg. They now look like this:

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I should be able to get a beveler in there a make a nice even dome. I suspect I'll need to build up the thin side a bit as it goes down just to make the perfect rounded crater that will give maximum friction with the dome I'll build onto the peanut. Plan right now is to put saran wrap into the dome of the thigh and simply pack it with the apoxie, bringing the apoxie up a bit, then put a film of the apoxie onto the raw side of the peanut and smoosh that onto the thigh. Let it set and the saran wrap should let it release from the thigh and give me a good dome. I might put a thin coat of silicon glue on the inner surface of thigh. I'm open to suggestion.

Anyway...the feet continue to be a bit of an issue. Instead of a dome/crater, the connection is flattened. That means the foot moves only up and down. There's no ability to angle it sideways. I could conceivably round it out, but I fear compromising the stability of the ankle, so I probably won't. He'll just have to carry a cane or something while walking in the garden.


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So...that'll be all for a few days, tho I might attack the heels on my other two lads.