Hi there! So, ever since I got into Bjd's I have wanted to make my own. I tried sculpting with paperclay, but quickly found out I have zero skill at sculpting. The end result was a lot of scrapped projects and a waste of materials. I decided I wanted a more precise way of creating what I wanted, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. After a while, I came across the dolls of Silverbeam and Orange Tea Dolls. I had never thought of 3d printing dolls before! At that point I had been learning Blender for a some time, so I decided to put that knowledge to use. After several failed attempts, I started getting what I was looking for. Here are some WIP shots of my girl. She is approximately nine inches tall. I wanted a doll with some exaggerated proportions, hence the HUGE eyes and wide hips. View attachment 700 View attachment 701 View attachment 702 Currently she is nameless, but I'm thinking of waiting on naming her for the time being. All that's left to do at this point is creating the arms and the rest of the joints. I actually meant to upload some WIP shots earlier, but I got carried away a bit! Let me know what you think, and thank's for taking a look!
She looks good! What size is she gonna be? And don't feel bad about the sculpting, paperclay is hell. Stoneclay is where it's at.
Thanks Varebanos! She's gonna be tiny, so about nine inches tall. I'm keeping her small because 3d printing can be pretty expensive! maybe someday After I've taken a few classes and have more time I'll try sculpting by hand again.
Been messing around even more today, and So far I've tweaked a lot of things. I made her eye sockets waaaay smaller because she would have needed 20mm eyes! I've narrowed it down to 16mm at this point. I made some mock up eyes and set them in her head to get an idea of how they looked. View attachment 704 They look alright, so I'm leaving it at that for now. Also so far I've added some mock-up arms and I've slimmed down the legs so that she can almost get into a perfect sitting position. I'm still going to have to mess around with that, though. View attachment 705 There's still a lot of work to do, but I'm pretty happy with how this is turning out.
I love her thighs and her face is adorable. A nine inch doll should only be somewhere around 100-200$ I think?
Thanks oakBottom! I focused a lot on the thighs because I love the look of dolls with curvy, expressive legs. the face took me a thousand tries- in fact, this face was not originally intended to be the final draft. It was a practice sculpt that I liked too much to leave alone! As for print pricing, I would estimate around $100-$200, too.
Great looking BJD! Can't wait to see it printed. I have been trying to learn Blender without tons of luck. Did you teach yourself or take a class? Didn't you think it was difficult? Maybe I am just a bit slow, but I think it is so challenging.
greymalkin, I am completely self-taught at Blender. Starting out can be very difficult, but the best way to learn is by following lots of tutorials and practicing whenever you can. The first thing I ever made in Blender was a coffee mug. It took me forever, and I had to watch the tutorial video at least five times. Blender has a huge learning curve, but once you get the hang of it you run on autopilot! I have been learning Blender since last year, and I have come a long way in just a short time. If you ever need some tips or anything, just ask and I'll be happy to help! Don't be afraid to ask. Also, if you feel more comfortable sculpting, Blender has a sculpt mode where you can quickly flesh out complex shapes without modeling them traditionally. This is typically a huge part of my workflow. first I'll sculpt out the shape I'm looking for, then I'll retopologize it. I find it much easier than traditional modeling, so maybe that can be helpful to you. thank you for your compliment, and good luck learning Blender!
Alright, so progress has been a bit slower after the start of school, but now that it's the weekend I've had a lot of time to work on my girl. The biggest update is that she now has elbow joints, knee joints, hands, and feet. View attachment 706 In order to get the knee joints to work properly, I actually had to rotate the calves inward a little. I thought that that would limit her poseability a bit, but I discovered that due to the way I have already set up the legs it shouldn't matter that much. I've also tried out 18mm eyes with her head, and it looks a lot better! View attachment 707 This pic looks a little weird, but that's because my window is set to perspective/orthographic view, which sort of flattens the image a bit. I've also almost finished the head. The eye sockets are hollowed out, the neck mechanism is set up, and there is now a head cap. All that's left to do here is put in an emblem and holes for the magnets. View attachment 708 That's all I've got for now, so thanks for looking!
Finishing Touches Wow! Haven't been here in a while, but I have finished up my 3d model. The last thing I finished on her was her headcap magnets: View attachment 724 Then I laid out her parts so that she would take up as little printer space as possible. Shapeways charges per part, and they have an option to print a shell all around your model to lower that fee. I checked this option to see if it would help with cost, but it ended up making it more expensive! View attachment 725 All in all, she passed all of Shapeways' initial tests, so that's an absolute plus. She was a lot less expensive than I thought- about $130 to print. I'm hoping to get her printed soon, but I'm going to wait and cross my fingers hoping that Shapeways will have a free shipping event or something. Before I do anything else, though, I'm considering adding a logo on the inside of her headcap. I made up a vector in Inkscape that I like, but I'm debating over whether I should use it or not: View attachment 726 I'm thinking It's a little too detailed to print successfully. Thanks for taking a look!
Hello! I know it's been over a year since I have updated this thread, but I have finally printed my doll out. She's pretty kicky, but I expected that since 3d modeling doesn't let you get really precise with making perfect joints. However, it is really cool to see her in person and I'm excited to share her here! View attachment 837 View attachment 838 View attachment 839 thanks for looking!
Thanks, TheStripyCat, I think she'd look good in resin, too. It'll be a lot of work finishing her for that process, but I think it would be worth it.
