I'm starting a new venture and attempting to make porcelain BJD's. I am new here and don't know if there is already a good thread on plaster mold making. Could anyone direct me or at least tell me where I can find a great tutorial on this subject? THANKS MUCH!!!
I don't know of any online tutorials on the subject, but you can find books on it. I'd recomend checking with your local library system and, if they don't have anything useful, look through the books MiniWorld has. I'm planning to work with plaster molds too for my current doll, but I'm casting in composition slip. Porcelain is really heavy to make a BJD out of, it'll work for a tiny, but if you're going for larger scale dolls, it's really just too heavy.
Thanks, well I'm going for barbie type-size dolls about 12-13". I don't plan to make the shell majorly thick. Thanks again!
Make sure to pad the joints with moleskin or suede unless you want a nice nails-on-chalkboard sound when posing.
Oh yes, there is that. Porcelain joints will grind terribly if their naked, and also be very difficult to pose or move. Most posable porcelain dolls have a cloth or leather body with porcelain limbs and head because porcelain on porcelain is not a happy thing. At the 1/6 scale, it should be posable enough, so that's fine, just make sure to pad all the joints (for one that small, suede is probably a bit too thick, moleskin like Kasa said or suede-cloth is probably the way to go) and good luck!
So I just got a book that I've been trying to find for a while, for about a year when I was checking Amazon it was always in the $80 range but last week when I went on there were copies for $14. It's out of print, but it's damn good for explaining (with lots of pictures) plaster mold-making for porcelain dolls. It's 'Mold Making for the Original Doll: The Blue Frogg Method' and it's really great because it assumes you know nothing and starts from how to make a box to pour the mold into.
I've had Martha Armstrong-Hand's book - Learning to be a Doll Artist recommended to me as one of the best jointed porcelain doll books there are.... I haven't been able to find it anywhere (it is out of stock at miniworld and amazon) - but a friend who makes amazing dolls has it. We are both considering branching into porcelain so this is a question that is near and dear to our hearts... by the way - do you know Marina Bychcova's mini sized porcelain bjds? she has a doll making forum that I recognize some users on.... http://www.biscuitshouse.com/Enchanted/forumdisplay.php?f=18
I too am interested in whether a doll like I am making can be cast in porcelaine, so will watch this thread with interest.
by the way - do you know Marina Bychcova's mini sized porcelain bjds? she has a doll making forum that I recognize some users on.... http://www.biscuitshouse.com/Enchanted/forumdisplay.php?f=18[/QUOTE] Thank soooo much for the link on Marina's forum I finally found a good tutorial for casting in Plaster. THANKS!!
