Poochbot's BJD Compendium ***image heavy***

Hi everyone im new to the site and figured a good way to start would be to share something that i'm currently working on at the moment. I've been trying to sculpt the "perfect" tiny 1/6th ball jointed doll for such a long time now (since 2006 actually) but i tell you its HARD! Anyway i got fed up with the whole thing and as practice and just a way to cool things off a bit o started sculpting Briole (which i will share in the pics below) and her male counter part Brioche (who isn't pictured yet.) This doll was a challenge. I challenged myself to finish sculpting it in 2 days (lol she still isn't complete) mistakes and all in the hopes that she gets me of this perfectionist mentality i have. When i try to "prefect" a sculpt it only ends up getting messed up anyway so i used this to kinda kick that habit. In terms of joint reference i relied heavily on my Yoshida BJD book. It might be in japanese but there is a wealth of knowledge in studying just the pictures alone.

She was inspired by the Gorillaz (specifically noodle) Hence her all black eyes.


and monster high dolls. I know they aren't the type of ball jointed dolls normally posted in this forum but i love them too.


This is the initial sketch. For my doll. The little notes in the corner basically refer to what i plan to do with her. I would like to make 2 sets of hands and feet for her and possibly 3 different bust sizes. i'm probably just going to go ahead and make different body types for her. The bust pictured is the medium sized bust. The sculpt itself is about 12'' so i'm guessing she's going to be about 10'' or 11'' inches after she is cast in resin.


This is a shot of the entire sculpt (except her hands) next to a ruler. She doesn't have hands yet because i suck so bad at sculpting hands lol. Especially at such a small size i really should have started on a larger scale but i love tinies so much so...



Close up of her face


Head cap and such. I love this type of face plate so thats the route i took when sculpting Brioles head. I dont know what it is about the seams being so close to the forehead that bothers me but meah, yeah.
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I actually tried to make a junk mold of this but things went horribly wrong so i'm in the process or raising the funds to get more supplies. Also working on her hands and trying to refine her joints some more. And her thighs are so weird at the moment.

Either way crits on how i can improve this sculpt are welcome and highly appreciated.

//so i've decided that rather than creating new threads for new projects i will just keep posting in this thread//

 

@glimmer & Cerchio Fatato; :XD thanks.

@Anastasios; Thanks actually i didn't even notice the nose and boobs till you said something so you were definitely a lot of help. LOL i would have been so mad if i succeeded in making the molds and noticed the problem in every cast. I will take more pictures when i get back home so that way i can also examine her face and boobs properly. LOL its so funny how easy it is to miss small mistakes when looking at the actual sculpt.

@Ktewinc; I tend to mess up a lot when i try to sculpt the body parts hollow, walls might be too thin or on even. theres nothing worse than having a nice sculpt that disintegrates when you test string it, so i just sculpt em whole and drill the holes in with a tiny drill bit small drill bit and the slowest setting of my dremel. Or if i sculpted it with an armature (a majority of the time i use foil. paper or taped up paper towel pieces) i just did the bulk of the stuff out. Also because i use sculpey if i make a mistake i just rub some vaseline on the baked piece stick some raw clay on it and re-bake it.

 

@Twigling Thanks. I havent seen any head caps designed this way yet so i dont have any references for it but seeing as how it has been in the far corners of my mind for such a long time i'm sure this head cap style already exists and i had to have seen it somewhere.

I like this style too because i personally think Bald dolls look a hell of a lot better without the forehead seam.

 

@Anasthasia; thanks

I meant to post update pics up sooner but i've been pretty preoccupied with school work. Either way i did a test stringing of the doll the other day and noticed quite a few things wrong with the piece . They weren't major issues but still... LOL i really like the overall design but i'm not too fond of the ball joints so i'm going to rework the whole thing while i re-sculpt her arms and legs :XD i have a lot of work ahead of me. The hands i used to test string her are actually obitsu hands. I havent sculpted mine yet.

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So looking at the head its a little lopsided i havent really sanded it at all though so im hoping that i'll be able to fix it while sanding. Also noticed the nose needed to be a little more centered so i cut that off and re sculpted it. Made it more "nose like" lol not sure about how i feel about the change yet. He chin is also slightly off on the left side so i'll fix that while sanding too. Sculpey sands down pretty quickly so i think it can be done without carving away at anything. Eye sockets need some more work too. Right now shes wearing 8mm eyes when shes cast in resin that will shrink though so im not sure what size eyes she'll end up with.

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Made a few changes to the dolls torso too. The upper torso has so many issues i didn't notice until i took a shot from the top view. The neck is so weird at the moment either way i changed that a bit. Her shoulders are weird too. :dead she needs a lot of work.

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@Mothi & turtlemoon thanks


So i was studying this doll and realized that if i wanted my final cast to be this size when im then i made a horrible mistake . This is just the base sculpt then i was going to cast int in either bondo or casteline wax then refine that before making my final molds. Between all the molding and remolding i realize now that this doll would be ultra tiny and that isnt what i'm looking for There fore i have to start over i dont regret making it this size in the first place cause I really leaned a lot sculpting this Heres hoping it carries over to the next.

 

LMAO past failed attempts

Ive been attempting to make a doll on and off for a good while now so i have lots of failed attempts. LOL i figured i'd share some of them here. We all learn from mistakes these are just a few of mine.

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I ended up throwing a lot of these away because the sculpey would crack and sometimes break off. Starting to work with apoxie sculpt now because i hear its a lot stronger.

 

oops double post

 

@kwmelvin; Thanks. lol they were taken in different sections of my room and now my apartment. Basically just where i settle down to work.

So this is basically the straw that broke the camels back this was supposed to be a ooak bjd sculpting challenge. I gave myself 8hrs to complete the base sculpt before i cleaned it up and such. Actually finished it and drilled the holes. Process of test stringing her to see if shed work before sanding when her legs snapped off at the ankles lol:dead. Super sculpey is sooooo brittle. lol i've had better luck with fimo in the past but i think in terms of dolls and such i am so done with polymer clays​

LOL looking through my old galleries :XD i have so much stuff in there. This was my corset girl circa 2007 i think.










I posted her earlier but not from these angles.

Some of these sculpts are gone because i needed to make space but i will most definitely revisit some of my old ideas.

 

Briole

So finals are over :dead and i can pick up sculpting again. I always wanted to re-sculpt this doll because i realized that the original sculpt i had was much too skinny in terms of the limbs and such. I mean with shrinkage and all it would have been smaller than i would have liked. Either way this is what i have so far. I put the rough sculpt next to a monster high doll just to compare the sizing. At the end of the day she's probably going to be bigger though. LOL i originally wanted to make her slightly pear shaped but im not so sure anymore.

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I really like the grooves the straw had so i'm trying to integrate that into my sculpt. LOL maybe i might not even have to suede the leg joint. lol we'll see might be a bad idea cause i will be using a pressure pot and i hear straws tend to buckle under pressure

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Also working on another sculpt in grey apoxie sculpt Its turning out quite good so i'll post pictures when everything is cleaned up. Still getting used to working with it.

 

Ok working my way from the top of the doll (its head) downwards. This is what i have of her head so far. Theres still so much that needs to be done to this. I'm using La doll clay and creative paper clay. I bought these a while back but never got around to using them because air dry clays hate me and waiting on the clay to dry up kills me. I know they say you can just stick it in the oven or whatev but i'm using styrofoam cores so that isnt an option. Either way... fun times.

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Fleshing out the dolls body as i go as well. I havent even touched the legs yet and i'm in dire need of some sand paper but i'm really excited to see where this goes. Right now for me the head cap is the most fun. I have a pretty cool idea of where i want to take it so i'm pretty anxious to get started in terms of sculpting, carving and what not. I' m actually learning a bit about airdry clay's as i get more practice in so hopefullly pretty soon we stop hating each other quite as much. lol and i guess at this point anything is better than super sculpey.

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Progress shot. Its just a tiny bit bigger than the sculpt i had before but i think its big enough that the shrinking wont be too bad. She still has the original shape as the drawing cause i'm using those wooden balls so i'm just going to leave em as is.

 

Double post

 

The face is almost done now. I already cut the legs apart. I have a little more understanding of how air dry clay works so i kinda like it now. Its between paper clay/ la doll and apoxie sculpt now. Dont get me wrong i will still use sculpey for little sculpts and stuff but in terms of dolls and toys i really like paper clay/ la doll and apoxie sculpt

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Other things on my work bench

@Mutsu; thanks.

So this is what i have so far of my briole sculpt. The face needs to be changed quite a bit because i love her wide smile and square-ish chin better. However im going to make a mold of this face before i make any changes to it because i absolutely adore it and would love to work with it in future. LOL i know its wrong for an artist to fall in love with his or her pieces but i'm sorry :XD i just cant help myself.

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On a side note i'm not sure about everyone else but i absolutely love working on more than one piece at at the same time. If i dont i'll bore my self to tears anyway here are a few other things i currently have on my work bench. They are mostly torsos and bodies.

This is an adult body base im working on. I need to shave the head down a bit because right now its huge. Trying out apoxie sculpt and i must say apart from the mixing and clean up (it sticks to my hands crazy ridiculously. Yes i wear gloves when i mix it) i quite like it a lot.

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Adult,Teen and kid body experimentations. the paper clay pieces are being sculpted with a product called creative paper clay i absolutely love it. I do believe i saw batchix (omg i hope i didnt just totally butcher her screen name) use it first and since her work is awesome i decided to give it a go

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Ok finally an update.

I decided to scrap a majority of the ideas i have here and start over because i learned quite a bit from the mistakes i made with these sculpts.

Apoxie sculpt... where to begin with apoxie sculpt lol. I like the fact that it doesn't need to be baked and that its so forgiving in terms of the parts dont have to be perfectly equal when mixing out bits to mix together and such. And thats pretty much where all my likes end at the moment. When i sculpt i like sculpting pieces chunky then going back to refine things by carving bits and sanding bits down but i can barely carve into it Its so HARD lol. Kinda feels like i'll cut myself before i succeed in carving anything out. I am still experimenting with apoxie sculpt though who knows, i might grow to love it one day.

Super sculpey. I dont use super sculpey anymore because the last time i used it the piece came out way too brittle. Kept breaking lol and pissing me off.

Right now i'm really in love with La Doll clays. It i dont have to bake it (though i still do cause it helps the clay get dry faster), and its so easy to carve and sand. Also if i feel some parts of the sculpt need more clay i can just wet it and add more as needed.

LOL my bendy straw ankle idea didn't quite pan out the way i planned it in my head so i had to scrap that.

In terms of the head sculpt i long since primed it and made a junk mold for it. I did this so i can always have head casts to modify and work with.

Re sculpted another base body for my main sculpt that i'm slowly working on.

lol please excuse the mess.

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When i work on my main sculpts i like having something on the side as a stress reliever so i started this sculpt. she's based on a doll i got for $6 from a store called Big lots

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A couple of years back i accidentally got a crap load of flat backed dome eyes so i finally decided to use em for something rather than have em just sitting there.

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lol her head is so HEAVY!

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@Anasthasia & cheshirepanda; Thanks

 

@Janeve; Thanks

@glimmer: Thanks to be completely honest same here lol i'm excited to see how my ideas pan out in the end.

This is my main sculpt. lol in other words i would actually be horribly heart broken if this idea doesn't work. Right now i'm having issues with her joints. Not really issues per se because i know the type of joints i want and i've drawn em out several times... i just cant seem to imagine it working at the moment. Things dont always pan out the way one plans on paper. But ah well i will try things out and update this with the results when i get the chance.

When i was separating her parts i broke the leg on the left at the knee :dead i'm currently thinking about using super glue on it but im really not sure if that wil work. LOL i have some gorilla glue. Its la doll has anyone had this issue before? And if you have what did you do to fix it?

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No hands and feet yet. those are going to be made from wooden balls, fimo and wire. I really want to move on to the junk molding by next week so impatient right now, but i want to make these as complete as possible before i even attempt making my junk molds. BOOBS ARE SO HARD TO SCULPT. lol so my first completed sculpts are going to be relatively flat chested

 

DSCN3110 by Poochbiz, on Flickr


DSCN3109 by Poochbiz, on Flickr


DSCN3106 by Poochbiz, on Flickr


DSCN3105 by Poochbiz, on Flickr


DSCN3103 by Poochbiz, on Flickr​

 

Thanks aneemal

About to embark on my hands, feet and joints journey for my main sculpt. lol this is where things generally start falling apart.

DSCN3111 by Poochbiz, on Flickr​

Test strung her late tuesday night and realized that the shins/ lower legs i sculpted were horrible so i'm resculpting those. Also need to put some details on her arms and cut those apart for the elbow joint. All in all things are coming to a head and if i dont loose momentum i will finally complete something i like. My other sculpts are coming out good too just no hands and feet for anything yet. its soo hard getting a nice hand sculpt at this size. Feet arent that bad actually but the hands... anyway sorry about the mess in the background lol and if there are typos sorry about that too. LMAO i read some of my earlier posts and they are absolutely terrible.

 

I totally get where youre coming from. The only difference is when i stop working on a sculpt for a while i come back only to find my faults and end up throwing the piece away. LOL i'm not giving up on my main sculpt or any of my current sculpts this time though. I feel like i've come too far to give up now and if i do i will not attempt a doll again for a LONG while. I'll keep moving on, lol though i'm really not looking forward to sculpting the hands.
On a side note, does her torso seem too short? It seems like something is off.

 

I took a look at the dolls Chateau Dolls had on their website they were soo cute and unique :XD. I cant really use them as a reference though because their designs are so far from what and sketched and what i'm looking for in my main sculpt.

IMG_20120501_143727 by Poochbiz, on Flickr​

I think the torso bits are ready to be junk molded and casted. I find that though the resin is hard to carve into it sands pretty smooth/ cleanly so i woul like to work with that as oposed to the paper clay. :dead still quite a bit of work ahead of me + she still has no hands.

 

Wow havent posted in a while. Its not that i havent been working on my dolls :dead i've just been so busy with school that i forget to take pictures sometimes. But anyways this is what i have so far.

Been working on my main sculpt more these days the head has changed A Lot since my last update.

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It took quite a bit of sanding to get it to this point but i like where its going. LOL still cant sculpt ears but i feel like with every try i get a bit closer to my goal so i'm not willing to give up.

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There are also quite a few rough patches on her face but i feel like she's getting there. i like that she looks more mature than my last head sculpt

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Her lower torso is giving me the most problems at the moment. I feel like its way too short. I dont know though...

lol and for my new stress relief sculpt i'm working on this tiny along with the other dolls i've posted in this thread.

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And thats all really. These are the only new developements on my desk at the moment. I dont think i'm going to start anything new till i finish at least 2 of the dolls i'm currently working on. :XD I like new shiny things but i kinda feel like starting a new project should be my reward for finishing older projects.

 

@ Allie; Thanks

@nu123; Thanks i hope i finish some too. I have so manny ideas i want to flesh out and it sucks leaving things incomplete for years at a time.

Ok decided to concentrate on my main sculpt for the time being. Been working on this sculpt on and off for six years lol its so embarrassing really. I get side tracked so easily and consequently pick up other projects. I was working on the prototype i posted earlier and started hating what it looked like so i shelved that design and started over. Basically redesigned the entire prototype and started over. LOL i like to believe that this isn't technically starting a new doll.

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Its looking kinda funky and i have to make some changes to make it more symmetrical but its getting there. I hope i finish this sculpt soon lol.

 

Ok so i simplified the joints... a lot. lol it has always been my dream to try double joints and one day i will but for now it just seems too sophisticated for me. Anyway heres my main sculpt. Im having issues with her legs but i'm sure i will eventually figure it out.



I took some pictures of the inside of the sculpt because its so rough in there and i was wondering how people on here go about smoothing things out :confused:.




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Somehow i always end up on my living-room floor its such a mess lol anyway spent the whole day working on this. i was originally going to give up on double joints but i think i will give it one more try. I figured out half the knee joint now i have to find a way to connect the whole thing. I'm thinking about designing a knee cap of sorts to cover up the gap. So far i like where this is going.

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I she's still floppy, in terms of not being able to hold her own weight lol i'm not sure if its because i did not string her too tightly or because she needs more work. There are lots of gaps everywhere and i need to find a large ball grinder to shave some off the inside of her head. I dont know if i mentioned this earlier but this head sculpt is made from a junk cast of an earlier head sculpt i posted in this thread.

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Thighs need to get a bit bigger and i need to do a lot of sanding but its coming along nicely.

 

@Aneemal; Thanks i'll definitely keep moving forward. lol i kinda feel like im too far in this to give up now . Looking for some ball grinders to help smooth the sockets out a bit and the inside of her head. LOL its so heavy. Throws off her balance terribly. Have no idea where to get them from though. I tried cutting appart past sculpts and things didnt go to well. lol i dont have the finesse needed to separate and join pieces together successfully.

@Cloudedmind; Thanks she's coming along nicely. I still have quite a bit of problem solving ahead of me but things are finally FINALLY coming to a close

So while i was working on double joints yesterday i figured i might as well work on her thighs too. LOL im kinda obsessed with achieving the fetal position too so thats what i concentrated on tonight.

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this is where i left off last night. LMAO as you can see its quite ugly and elongated so tonight i shaved it down a bit while simultaneously carving out her butt from the inside. Also chopped her lower butt cheeks off to help accomodate this new part. After a bit of tweaking this is what i have.

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needless to say i'm much happier with it now. Also made some knee caps yesterday but they are shaped horribly wrong. I plan to solve this issue sometime tomorrow.

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Thanks . In my case i'm scared to cut into my sculpt or separate parts that i have sculpted as a whole. i think its best to just do it. At the end of the day even if you make a mistake you'll learn from it and sometimes mistakes help you create parts that simply work better.

 

This is basically a sculpt i've been using to kill time. Whenever i put my main sculpt in the oven i work on this. LOL i know i said i wouldn't start a new doll till i finish my main sculpt or one of my other sculpts but its so boring without new things to experiment with. anyway here are some progress pics.



I always have difficulty separating solid pieces but i find that the more i do it the more comfortable i am with taking my xacto knife to my sculpts. Not doing anything too fancy with this sculpt just simple single joints and a simple design. Not too much detail in the body either.

 

Haven't posted here in a while :XD i've been working on a lot of little sculpts and such but i find that these days i'm just too lazy to take pics, upload to photo bucket then copy and paste. Then i have crappy internet that doesn't work sometimes so that makes things a bit difficult also. Anyways this is a tiny little sculpt i came up with. It doesn't have a gender so i figured it can be either male or female. I call it bunny yum yum and since it can fit in the palm of my hand i like to think of it as a pocket sculpt.

Its actually finished (in terms of i'm done sculpting this little guy) i just need to clean it up a bit more and drill the holes in. Its really small because i wanted to work with something a bit more simple than what i normally gravitate and i just love tinies. It ended up not looking quite like the drawing (which i love) at first but now that i've changed its face i'm happy with it.

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LOL after sculpting its face (pictured above) i was a bit irritated and unhappy with how it looked because... well it was ugly to me. so i ended up carving it off

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Then i fell in love with its blank face (so cute! it kinda looks like a tooth to me) and didn't want to or was afraid to touch it anymore. Didn't want to ruin the sculpt. So i left it on my desk to stew for a bit. I also love the original drawing so i figured i'd give it one more try and ended up with this.

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In the original sketch this sculpt had a 1 part torso, but i figured it would pose better if i broke that into 2.

There are quite a few sculpts in this thread i need to re-do.

I'm also experimenting with super sculpey again i don't hate it quite as much anymore. It definitely has its pros.

 

@wilga; Thanks . :XD I plan to cast a copy of the sculpt with a face then just cut the face off again and sand it blank. Sooooo true! lol i've already imagined the blank face sculpt with a lot of silly expressions. haven't learned how to paint faces on yet though. In the first sculpt its profile looked a bit more beefy like the profile in my original sketch but it just looked ugly to me so after re sculpting its face i decided to make it a little flat so it can be closer to the silhouette i got from the blank face. This is what it currently looks like ->

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@wilga; Thanks. This is exactly why i feel like i have to learn how to do face-ups. Sculpts like this seem like they would be so much fun to paint. Ugh i need to work on that.

@EllaG; Thanks smaller sculpts really aren't so bad, in terms of sculpting. The only thing i think might be difficult is making the stringing channels big enough for the elastic without looking weird on the sculpt.

 

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Almost done with this sculpt. Currently in the process of closing up the gaps in its head cap. Haven't drilled the holes in it yet either so i haven't been able to test string it. I don't think i'm going drill the sculpey pieces though. Maybe when i can get this cast in resin or something stronger i'll drill those.The only point of interest i see at the moment is its chest. If i drill the sculpey and test string it something around that area is definitely going to break cause its relatively small lol and sculpey is definitely not my friend. its crotch might also be a problem (in sculpey that is). not that i cant fix it if it breaks or re-sculpt it if its irreparable... i just don't feel like dealing with those issues at the moment. And why kill the prototype for the sake of experimentation.

Also sanding bits here and there but other than that i can't think of anything else i'd like to add to this.

 

Playing around with my first complete junk cast. Didn't even bother cleaning it up or sanding lol i just strung it and stained it with some pastels and a colored pencil. i think its pretty cute.

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