"NANA" the Lioness** Sky doll on pg 11**

Thank you!! And yea, i think im probably going to end up making a female out of it and then do anther on as a male. Definately starting with a female first though seeing as how i have no experience making a male :S

 

Thank you!! And yea, i think im probably going to end up making a female out of it and then do anther on as a male. Definately starting with a female first though seeing as how i have no experience making a male :S

 

Thanks!!
And yea,i guess the point of bjd's is that they are customizable so the owner can decide what it is.. And i was thinking the same thing, she has no mane therefore SHE is a SHE and not a he. But If i do a female type body im wondering if it will look weird. Ill post a sketch of the body that i want and maybe you guys could tell me what you think? I want to get started but i dont know what to do!! lol

 

Thanks for the ideas guys!! It'll take anything I can get at this point!!

 

*** SORRY FOR THE CRAZY HUGE PHOTO'S!!!***

Ok, so i've spent all of last night and today tweaking the head and i think it FINALLY looks like a she. Here's the process i went through, see if you can spot the subtle differences in each picture



The first thing i tried was to bulk up the cheeks. It looked pretty bad but i also wanted to do it so that i had more to work with when i started dry carving.



Then i sanded down the cheeks, didnt help much



THEN i made the ears smaller which i think helped alot.



And the nose smaller and fixed the snout..



Carved out the cheeks a little bit more..



Made the chin a little less pointy/ smaller..



Made the eye's a little bit bigger and fixed them up a tid bit.



And here's a before and after picture

DONE.

Well for now anyways. I think i like where its at for now and ill probably want to tweak it a bit later but im ready to move onto the body now. Ill keep yah posted

 

@crowtree: Thanks alot!! For a while i wasnt sure if the brows were a little much but i decided to keep it that way, i like her sad face lol!!

@Jphobia: Thanks for the tips, it really helped

 

Thank youuu!!

 

progress of sorts..

So ive started on the torso and ive hit many major problems. The first being that my styrofoam core twisted on me while i was adding the clay so now the body is slightly twisted. Also, i made it too fat (the core) so i had to shave it down with a knife ALOT. And because of that i had lots of holes that i ha to repair. And then, after i overcame all those obstacles i decided to make it a 3 part torso and now i have no clue what im doing.. Help please?



This is where it all began, everything is downhill from here.. Not enough planning on my part, thats for sure lol.



Then i cut it in half and hollowed it out, im sure you know the drill



This is after i carved some of the excess "fat" off her. You can see that i did alot to the point that i have some holes.



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And then i guess i just wanted to do something other than fill holes so i cut her into 3 peices.. I know that you're supposed to have a finished-ish torso before you make the cuts but i dont know what i was thinking. And now i dont really know what im supposed to do about it. AND i dont even really know how to make a 3 piece torso.. HELP PLEASE!!

 

Side projects..

On the birghter side, i started on 2 new heads to keep me distacted from my massive noob failures. I dont like either of them very much so i doubt they will be getting bodies any time soon..



This is my obachan. I say that because she looks like an old japanese lady to me. Kinda like my grandma actually.. lol



Its about 6cm tall so it would probably be for a 20-30 cm doll depending on what i wanted to do with it



And this is a giant cat head that i made. I wanted it to be more on the cartoon/ mineki neko side..

 

P.S what can i do if ive made the holes for the arm and hip joints too big?? And suggestions?

 

Cheshirepanda: I think im going to make it smooth, i like everything to flow like that you know? And i guess i can just press the joints into the clay but im just worried because the front of the chest is really narrow and i dont know if it looks alright.

Eldurwen: Danka!! And yea, my distraction kitty as you call it might actually get a body, someone on my blog asked if they could give it a home so we'll see..

Musicalcakes: I think it started out alot less hollow but like i said, i did alot of carving and now its really thin. I think ill take your advice though and add some more clay on the inside for some reinforcement

Jphobia: All my heads look like that!! I can make a decent head in polymer but ladoll gives me some major issues. Did you buy that book from amazon?? I'll tot's check it out, i need some serious help in that department lol.

 

Just bought it

 

More prorogress of sorts

I think i've kinda figured out the torso joints but i just put them together so i still have alot of work to do on them. My next feat to conquer are the arms and legs... Boo.

Here's the progress so far



The torso joints (very very rough)



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The chest, i fixed the boobage a little bit and added the clavicle area. And the neck joint of course. Still alot of tweaking to do yet tho.



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The back



Rough leg form



The thunder thighs



And the ensemble. Now i know that the legs are looking a little short and beefy but its only because the torso isint connected properly yet so it makes the proportions weird. Although, i did make the legs on the larger side. I wanted her to have strong legs like a lion would.



It ALMOST lookis like she's smiling in this picture



And this is her with some cheap cat eyes i bought at the hobby shop. I turned them sideways so it looks like she has large pupils rather than the cat like slit.

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And now for the 20 questions,

I think i already know what im going to do but i would love you guy's opinion. Do you think she should have paws and cat like feet or should i stick to an all human figure, hands and feet included?

Image wise, do you think she would look better with double jointed elbows and knees or not?

And last but not least, what do you think of the name Gliia, as in glee-ah?

Thanks guys!!

 

Ive decided that the torso joint is too long and i dont like it so im going to re-do it tonight. Im not very enthused about it

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I think i am going to do a couple of sets of hands and see what i like the best but i was originally planning on doing something along the lines of what you said (human hands with claws)

And i really like the idea of Zulu names. My friend was the one who suggested the name Gliiah and i just wanted to see what people thought of it. ( I myself am not the biggest fan. Reminds me too much of that awful J-lo movie "GILI" hahaha)

 

Thanks guys!! Although i've put her away for a little bit. I think i need to take a break.. Plus my mind has wandered to a new project ive been thinking about for a while

 

I lied..

So, funny thing happened.. You know that new project i was talking about? Well it was more of a concept than an idea which meant that i needed a doll to try it out on.

SO i set out to make a body for this doll that would be MSD size and i was quite excited about it. I decided to sculpt the whole body as one peice and then cut it up later, thinking that maybe it might help me to get the proportions right.

I spent a ton of time planning this time so i felt really good about it. Once i got the basic shape of the body done i wanted to see it with a head and i hadnt sculpted one for it yet. I put up my lioness head and...

i think i might use it for that instead now

I guess its good though because that means i can finish the lioness but im really anxious to do this other idea i had.. O well. Here are the pictures.


This is the simple body sketch i did



I used tracing paper over that to work out some kinks and add the joints.



This is my foam core. I did it a lot thinner this time so that i wont have to thicken it up later



Here's the first layer



The meat 'n bones



And here's where i stopped. I only did the front torso and the reason for that is because i realized that the whole body was tilted to the right side!! luckily, i think i can fix it (note the giant chuncks out of the neck and side)



And this is what it looks like with the head. Now the neck is obviously too long and wide and the head does look a tincy bit small but proportionately, its correct (7 1/2 heads tall)




(like the tape? hahaha)

So ive already done more to the body since i took these so ill be updating soon. Thanks for looking

 

I discovered the torso tilt from the pictures. I swear it didnt look that bad in person!! And thank you but my drawings are pretty basic. I am doing them though so i guess thats what counts

 

Troubles once again..

Thanks for the encouragement guys!!

Here's the updated body. It may not look that different but i spent alot of time tweaking it. I also got some new 16mm eyes in the mail that i tried out.













** But not all is what it seems...**



I had a bit of an accident and a piece of the neck broke off. Its fixable but its such an awful spot for that to happen because of all the tension that gets put on that spot from the stringing. Oh well, IF i decide to cast her it should'nt be too big of a problem.. i think :P

Thanks for looking!!

And once again, all critiques are welcome and appreciated

 

You guys are so sweet!! Thank you!! It really means alot to hear posotive feeback. Im sure you guys know what its like to get discouraged on a project and i've been there sooo many times on this one (this is the 3rd torso after all) So your comments help me to keep going

Thanks again!!

P.S. Any critiques before i move on to the legs?

 

More progress

Here's the lates progress



The line up.



Shortened the torso a wee bit.







These are the original legs that i made and i was just seeing if they would fit. I thought they were too short so i made another pair.



Super duper rough sculpt



Randoms..



I got bored and drew on her face... yeaaa...

 

Yea kind of, i saw a picture of this cat that had really cut facial markings. But its not serious or anything, i was just bored and playing around :P I dont even want to begin to think about faceups when i have soooo much work to do yet :S

And thanks again!!

 

Thanks so much (

 

Sooo Frustrated!!!

I've had to re-do the leg shape about a million and one times. Being the perfectionist that i am i couldnt just leave it to be fixed later, no, i had to do it then. That resulted in an over working of the legs too many times AND some serious breakage. uuuhhhggg. I think im also in the process of getting used to my new batch of apoxie. Im not used to using the stuff and although its wonderful for certain things, i kinda miss my paper clay... Anywhoo, here's some not very "progressive" progress pictures. The legs are super lumpy because of the breaking problems, you've been warned...




The basic leg shape



With the body



With the head



And after i broke them a million and one times. I know they are really big in the thighs and super curvy but i meant for them to be that way. Of course i will make them a little thinner but im still keeping this basic shape.

OO and i fixed up the chest a little bit (added the clavicle and mad the shoulders a little wider.

Im seriously at my limits with this thing. I dont know whats going on but i've never had so much trouble with something!!

On a happier note i made a new head but i dont know what im going to do with it yet..



He's my little chubby cheetah cub. I think ive been watching too many episode's of "Big cat diaries" (damn netflix and they're stupid amount of useless shows that nobody wants to watch).

If you want to see more picutures of my WIP of this guy you can check out my blog.

Thanks for looking

 

Thanks. Ive recently started using apoxie ans that stuff is pretty tough so i think im just going to put a layer over the legs to reinforce them.. cant think of anything else at this point..

 

Hahahaha, your too kind. Thanks

 

Thank you!!

 

.. not too sure. The head turned out alot bigger than i had originally planned.

I only made a head because i wanted to try using a cardboard structure instead of styrofoam (like the bachtix tutorial). I dont really have any plans for it at this point but you never know

 

Primer questions...

So this week has been better in terms of progress. ALTHOUGH the leg did break another 2 times.. today lol.

I decided that i would sand and prime the head because i was finding it difficult to find the imperfections with the with ladoll and the super white apoxie sculpt mixed together. Plus the lighting setup in my room is absolutely horrid. Anywhoo, i had heard of people using auto primers and such so i went to the hardware store and there were only 2 options. One was WAY cheaper than the other (like a 12 dollar difference) so i obviously went with the cheaper one. Turns out, it was cheaper for a reason. The color was darker than i wanted and it was really thin. Im not sure if that's what it's supposed to be like but it wasnt covering the La doll fiber properly...

So im wondering if anybody has any advice on priming options? I ended up using some gesso i had mixed with some black indian ink to make it a grey color.

I know of MR surfacer and Tamiya but i would prefer to find something that i could buy in store. Like if there is a specific quality i should be looking for in a spray primer.

Anywhoo, here are some pic's



This is with the spray primer after 6 coats. Its crazy how fast all the flaws come out once the color is darker and uniform. Im starting to see MAJOR things.. like the eyes being off balance :P



This is after one coat of the gesso mixture. Its not that much lighter b/c i mixed in too much ink.. oh well



Quick question for yall, do you think i need to make a "neck thingy" on the head?(sorry i dont know what it would be called) You know how most of the human bjds have that little bit on the back of the head where the joint fits onto? D you think i should put one on this head to better fit on the neck? Its looking a little odd on the neck right now but technically it would be places right behind the ears/ jawline and it doesnt really apply to my doll. I dont reallly have any reference to look at which is a tuffy...



Just for fun


So i spent some time working on the right leg today. Like i said, the left leg broke again and i just fixed it so i didnt want to work on it just incase.



I also tried to fix the boobs but i didnt do a very good job. The tummy got a little bit more meat and i fixed the clavicle area a bit.



Im having a little bum trouble lol. Ive made it quite a bit smaller already but im just wondering if its still too big. Or maybe its the angles that are weird on it?





So yea, thats the progress so far. If anybody has any critique or suggestions or anything, please dont hesitate!! I would really appreciate anything you've got!!

Thanks for looking