PulkiDoll

I'm sorry, I must have missed your post! Thank you ^_^, I tried to make them realistic but still doll like, if that makes sense.

Actually, it is 9 skin tones, but the darkest is hard to see against the black background ^_^. They are just a guide, but I would really love to offer them all - it depends on a lot of more on what I am able to produce. My ultimate goal is to make a bunch of parts that people can choose from and offer them in all those 9 colors (plus maybe more fantasy colors if I am able). I don't know when I will be able to finish my sculpt, let alone if/when I will have the time and resources to actually do this, but it is what I am slowly working towards.

I ordered one of my heads (Oriana) and an eye template I made a while ago printed from shapeways. It should have arrived by now but now it looks like it will be here next week. I'm hoping my head fits well on my Feeple 65 body (or an SID/EID body if I can get my hands on one to test it out). If it does I might offer some heads for a bit to hopefully fund my body. I don't really want to release them separately, but even if I could just sell a few heads it would help a lot since I am still a starving college student (and I recently discovered nong shim gourmet spicy ramen which is over $1 each and amazing and now the normal 40 cent ramen just makes me sad now :p ). I am also looking forward to experimenting with making eyes; it is something I've wanted to do for a while.

 

I got my print of the head back. I have no good lighting and it was dark out so I had to use a horrible bright light and a flashlight... so these pics aren't too good and the lighting doesn't highlight the face very well - I will try to get better once the sun comes through my window. It is really bright white, but the lighting made it very yellow and when I adjusted it back it kept some of the color. The angles are a bit weird too but they were the only ones that turned out okay (..I don't know why I just take a bunch of pictures that are basically the same..) Click for a bit bigger/flickr.

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So yeah, overall I am very happy with it. I am worried she is a little masculine, but she does look more feminine in real life (the lighting makes it worse). I don't think my renders looked masculine so I think she will be much better with some makeup. Her head is much smaller than most dolls, but I really wanted a realistic head because I want to make an head cap with implanted hair. I will probably have to make something that allows normal wigs to fit her better. Her eyes are much smaller too (but still a bit larger than human scale). She will probably take 12mm eyes.

 

Thank you

I am just paranoid because my first faces were very masculine and it took me a while to actually "see" it.

It is shapeways white detail. When the light hits it right you can see the grain a lot more. The face was printed down so the inside is much shiner which makes the grain more visible. I used abrasive pad thingys (I forget what brand I got, but they are awesome), and some soap to get the left over wax off and it helped the finish a bit. The pads are also really great removing sanding lines or right after a final spray of primer to remove any tiny splatter bumps or roughness (soap helps prevent them from creating tiny tiny lines themselves).

The sun should be shining through my window now so I will try to get more pictures.

I really want to cast it asap but I need to fix the inner tab in the face the broke because it was too thin (I really should have known that would happen). It needs to be thicker and I need to figure out how I am going to fix it since if I don't do it virtually I will probably need to do it for each face, unless I can manage to measure everything out perfectly. I am going to see if I can print just the new latch and the thing the latch goes into and attach it to this face so it is right for future faces I print.

Edit for more pictures. I am a little too lazy atm to link each to the bigger ones - they are all here.


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[td]This is closer to what she looks like in real life. The headcap and face are different materials. I didn't sculpt the lacrimal things (I think that is what they are called - the part in the inside corner of the eye) because it seemed like a risk for chipping and it is annoying to paint perfectly, so I am hoping that using pink putty for the eyes can mimic it. If that doesn't work well I will include it in future sculpts.[/td]
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[td]Since these are all really similar I am putting small images. I tend to take a billion similar pictures and I am indecisive and can never figure out which ones to save.[/td]
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[td]I can't tell if her ear is too far back, or it is just because the jaw isn't as defined in the back as a person's would be. I made the hairline back more than it would be, so the line wouldn't be visible with a wig. For the "haircaps" I am planning, I will have a bit of lace wig on the front so line isn't visible and so the hairline is customizable to a certain degree. The headcap fits better than it looks here - I had to tape it on the inside for now so it doesn't stay in place very well[/td]
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[td]The rectangle up top is the latch that broke. I will have to make it as thick as I can without running into the name. The hole was to make it hollow so printing would be cheaper.[/td]
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[td]Comparison with Feeple 65. The face is very close in size, but obviously my head and eyes are much smaller. My neck is quite a bit bigger, but I think I can make a good attachment piece for the Feeple body. If I wanted fairlyland/iple heads on my body I would probably need a new neck designed for it though.[/td]
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If you want to see the print lines, here are some close ups:
Face 1 (Objet)
Face 2 (Objet)
Inner Piece (SLS) Sorry for the cat hair!

And here is one of me holding it for size (but the Chloe compare accomplishes that too).

I think that is it ^_^.

 

I can't believe I last posted in March (sorry I didn't respond! I will try take into account your suggestion, Mareepu, I agree that that would help).. I've been pretty busy with things and haven't had as much time to work on my dolls as I would like (what else is new). I'm still slowly working on the body, as well as some heads and character designs. I think I am going to print out a few more faces once I finish them, and focus on actually finishing some heads for a bit as I finish the body. I might print the chest piece too just to help motivate me - it is done and I have gotten the price down to only $70! Plus it would be nice to display the heads on.

I have 6 heads mostly done right now (since I've been working on them for years :-/) and a handful more that are close but I still need to figure out. I will probably just joint about 3 of them and print them asap. I've finally gotten some motivation back so hopefully I can actually get some things done.

Here are some renders I put together to get a slightly better idea of what I was going for with my characters (I posted most of them a while ago but I know not many people look at my blog): All the accessories are daz products. The renders are just a rough idea of the final products I see in my head.

Oriana


Ngaire


Oriana and Ngarie are going to be my first dolls. They go together - their outfits will have some similar characteristic. Oriana is going to have lots of white and gold, while Ngarie is going to have lots of black and silver.

Mara


She still needs a name.. I can't think of one. I threw her together quickly and ended up really liking her, and I think the zombie pin up thing suits her. The actualy zombie version will have zombie details. I would love to have her released for next Halloween.

Thaleia


Narissa


Thaleia and Narissa are also a pair. Thaleia is going to be a mermaid and Narissa an octopus lady (I forget the term for that..). Yeah I know, totally unique idea... They will be a bit more "adult" then you typical mermaid stuff. I like David Delamare's version of mermaids so they will probably be kind of close to that. I am hoping the octopus will be epic. Hopefully by the time I make them I will have the skills to execute the vision in my head.

Not Named Yet..


I thought I had a character for her that I thought up years ago, but most of my ideas from that long ago I don't like anymore. I can't think of a name until I have a character either. I spent the least amount of time on this render since I don't have a character in mind for her yet.​

This is the face I am working on now. I just used Oriana's setup and didn't spend any more time on the render (hair takes a while), but to get a quick idea:

I have a ton of work to do on her.. she has tons of flaws that I am aware of, but it is a start. I had Jasmine from Aladdin in mind when I was making her. There are some cool "real" Disney princess images floating around - I forget the artist - but that inspired me a bit.

Oh, and since I love doing this kind of stuff, I have been working on a box design (though I don't know how feasible it is, since it might be expensive to get made).

I want it to be a drawer style box, since getting the lids off normal boxes is such a pain. I figure this would be a great way to store them since you could stack them up and just pull them out. I also have plans for the inside to make it functional and pretty. I want the box to be made of plike (that nice, matte, almost rubbery feeling paper) with silver foil for the lettering and a subtle, shiny black for the logo. I might change the inside color based on the collection set, and have lace little pockets lining it for extra stuff. The doll will be held in with ribbon if I can make sure it is safe enough (foam will be all around). Again, I don't know if I could actually do this, but I like to think of these things.

That's it for now I think..

 

I do not use Interpro anymore. I was going to print a head with them and they quoted me like $600... where before it was closer to $100 (I calculated it and my volume for the material I got, they were actually cheaper than Shapeways). I think the sales guy I talked to was promoted so it was a different person. I am sad because the guys that helped me out before were really nice. They even called me a year later to ask how things were going. Now I use Shapeways. I looked into Ponoko but was having trouble uploading my model. Things that were approved (meaning it was printable) on Shapeways were not approved on Ponoko. Interpro was much faster, but that is to be expected.

3ds Max is really expensive ($3675) if you have to buy it retail. There is a free trial though. If you are a student you can get it for free for 3 years: Autodesk Education. It is a shame because most of the great features in 3ds that makes it so expensive you would probably never even think about for doll design, like features for animation and rendering. But, I love the interface and there are features that are really helpful for me. I would never pay $3675 for it just to do doll though. You could also look into Blender - tons of people that can't spend $1000+ on a piece of software use Blender. I actually liked Wings 3D better, but it has been probably 6 or 7 years since I've used either so I have no clue what they are like now. I don't remember why I liked it more - back then I was just trying to make stuff for The Sims....

My blog is at www.pulkidoll.com/blog. I really need to finish designing and coding it - it pains me to have something up that is buggy and incomplete, but since I do not get much traffic (yet!!) I haven't bothered - I have way too many other things I should be doing with me time. I don't even know if it works in IE..

I really want to make some video tutorials. Since I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning, I have had to come up with a lot of creative solutions to certain tasks. It has been such a gradual learning process over the years that I did not realize until I was doing some work yesterday and actuallythought about it that I do some interesting, complicated things that many people might benefit from learning. I need to get my new computer first since I am pretty much out of hard drive space on my laptop and there isn't much left for me to clean up.

 

I am trying to be good and put more stuff on my blog - I really want it to show the process but it is hard for me to document because when I work I get into a zone and just go - it is hard for me to break my concentration. So many times I've started working at night around 9 or 10 to find myself still working at 5 in the morning only to realize I am exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and really have to go to the bathroom :P.

I put my first "tutorial" up, but it isn't really a tutorial. It is half way between tutorial and me just showing my process on jointing a face. Right now I show how I take a head from a full body mesh and joint the bottom of it to fit a neck. Next I will cut the face and last I will show how I add text/logos/whatever to fit the mesh. This is just stuff I figured out on my own throughout the years, so there could be better ways to do things.

Here is the Tutorial​

And I keep saying it but I do apologize for my blog being buggy and unfinished - I really need to finish it but I haven't had the time and should probably put more of my free time into actually getting my doll done.

On another note, I have the chest ready to print, along with Ngaire's face. I am going to wait until Black Friday or Cyber Monday to see if there is a discount. Shapeways has a NY office so I have to pay $20 extra in tax so I might just send it to my parents in PA and pick it up when I am home for Christmas, though I don't want to wait that long.

I have a plan to get everything done in time to have Oriana and Ngaire released in August. I've had these plans before, but for the first time I actually see it as something I can get done. My only obstacle right now is that stupid hip joint. I just can't get it working to my satisfaction. Once that is done there really isn't too much - the knees/elbows shouldn't be too bad. So, hopefully come August I will finally have something to show.

 

So I think I finally figured out what I am doing for the hip joint. It is late so I am not going to explain in detail, but it basically combines the two types of hip joint - with the ball on the leg and the leg inside the hip, and the ball on the hip. The leg goes inside the hip, but goes over around the butt to the front of her crotch. There will be a "shim" type thing for the front, and for the back of the leg. Since the ball part only rotates (it doesn't move around) it should be very stable. I still have a lot to do to make it all fit together the best it can and make sure it works for the whole range of movement, not just back and forth, but it is looking pretty good so far. I think I have an idea how to make the shims work, but I can't be sure until I actually model the inner working.

I was also thinking about adding another (maybe optional) waist joint. I don't want to cut the body in half, but it opens up a really nice range of movement.

My progress is very rough! Parts have no thickness (they are just planes, not solid objects). All the lumpiness and jagged edges will be smooth out. Nothing fits perfectly yet either:

Front Standing and 45 degrees(I know the cut lines aren't ideal.. I'll have to see how it looks all together. Right now they are where they need to be to make the leg move right)


Standing, 30, 55, 75, 90, and -20 degrees (it won't look that bad when it is done, I promise!)

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Ugg, and I see my post a few above has broken images.. the links still work though. I have no idea why the images still don't work..

 

Small update.

(it is animated - if it doesn't work you can open it in a new tab and it should)


I'm still working on the same part (didn't get to work on it much until recently). The shim in the front isn't shown. I have from -15 degrees back to 90 degrees forward (but 80 seems pretty parallel to the ground thanks to the shape of the leg). I am thinking about getting the rest of the movement with the waist but I'll have to see. I know there are some gaps, but I was mainly concerned with bulges that look bad even with clothes on.

It is hard because the inner piece that covers up the gap needs to fit over the hip and inside the leg as close as it can to the edges at all angles. So, I copy it into all of the positions (I did 10 degree increments), adjust the position/rotation of all of them, and adjust the shape. Each time I adjust the shape I have to redo the position/rotation, adjust the shape again, etc. until it has the best shape as possible (and fluid movement). I still have to smooth out the parts a bit but I think I have it as close as possible. I also have to do the rest of the movement like moving the leg out and such.

I think I have an idea of how to keep the piece in the proper place, but I can't be sure it is going to work until I have it in my hand. I do have a back up plan that won't be as good but I am more confident that will work.

I've been distracted remaking my site (again - but my newest design is much much better). I'm trying to resist coding it and actually finish my doll since I am behind the deadline I set for myself. I am still hoping to have my first order period this August *fingers crossed*.

 

I really want my own 3D printer. But, ones that produce high quality prints are still going to be at least $3000 and I just don't have that much to spend on something I don't need. It also isn't going to be as good a what I can get from a company with the machines that cost 10's of $1000. The one printer I want was $2000ish for a kickstarter but I found out about it just when it ended - that I might have actually done. Now it is $3300. It also isn't simply pushing a button. You have to calibrate it right and have it running for a long time to get high quality prints.

Luckily there are many more options and information for companies that do it for you than there was when I first started. I think I can get the body under $1000 by using a cheaper material for the less detailed parts and hollowing it out. If I manage to sell a lot of dolls I will buy a good printer if I calculate it to be worth it (and because it would make me super cool among my crowd of people :P).

Also to clarify, since some people misunderstand, only the master will be printed. The actual dolls are still made with molds so except for more faces and body parts, it is a one time fee.

And yes, I just didn't make the part to cover the gap yet, since that part can be "easily" made after the rest of the leg is almost done.

Sorry I type so much!! I don't mean to write walls of text . If you ever need clarification feel free to ask.

Thanks It was my first idea a long time ago but I couldn't get it working right so I am happy I think I finally have it. It isn't perfect but I think it is the best out of all the bazillion things I have tried.

Those image are just screen grabs with the default lighting (I am using the newest version, it has since really nice view options. Yay free student edition!). Lighting confuses me in max a bit. For my portraits I use daz - I find it much easier with lighting. I have done some nice renders with vray and some free samples from Aversis , using the lighting setup included. But I can only get it looking really good for shiny, reflective things. I've done okayish renders without vray. I can send you some files. I probably took the lights off of something else (or possibly from a tutorial, I forget).

 

Yeah, I have friends that did a project with a cheap printer. I think theirs was $300 and the prints were really rough. Even my university's printer wouldn't be good enough for what I need (though my school is really theory oriented so we don't have the best equipment - one of my professors was talking about trying to get a nicer one, which would be super since I could probably get them to let me use it).

This is how I made the inner parts:

The colors are the different angles. The balls helped me create a relatively fluid movement by helping me see if it was following a smooth path with evenish rotation between each angle. You can also see the lines of colors inside the part were it lines up right against the piece (that was the goal, plus the same with the inside of the leg). The parts are all instances of each other, which means if one is edited they all change together. It is super useful to see how changing it in one spot affects all the angles.

Now I am working on moving the leg out (then I will try to get all the angles in between, in increments of 10). This won't take as long since I won't be changing the shape, just trying to get it to fit the best it can as it is. I figure moving the leg up and down is priority so I want that as perfect as possible, and this motion will be as close as it can without interfering with the up and down. I am going to shoot for 60 degrees out like so:

I was originally going for 70, since that is where the ball for the leg cuts into the side of the hip anyway, but I have a problem with some overlap:

I could just cut it away but it will cause an ugly gap - I'll have to see how it looks though, it might not be too bad. You'd be able to see it when the leg is at about 30 degrees to 90, so at least it will be covered when standing. If it does look really bad I may have to limit it to 50 degrees. I wouldn't want to limit it any more though.

The inside doesn't look too great, but since this is sort of a "bonus" movement it hope it is okay. The ball will also have a cut in it for the elastic/inner workings, which might have to be pretty large, so it will look even worse :-/. As least there are no big bulges, so it should look okay under tight clothes. I would have liked it to be simpler with less parts all moving around, but I really wanted everything to fit tightly with a smooth overall shape (as much as I love the big sphere hip joints, it wasn't what I was going for).

Here is 50, 60, and 70 degrees (I didn't put the "butt shim" in the 50 or 70 picture, it will be there covering that huge gap):

 

Haha, I forget when I learned about smoothing groups... it wasn't until years after I started. I know I saw them there but I never really understood their use. Probably should have just though for a second "smoothing group" is a pretty descriptive term. I forget what I did before figuring that out.. It's funny that the little things you'd never think of are what are some of the biggest obstacles. While I picked up the basics very quickly, probably in a day or two, only in the past year do I really feel like I know what I am doing and I started around 2007.

LOL no, that isn't a butthole. I just had to keep adjusting that area and it kind of warped the polygons a bit so I messily put them back, plus they all converge there so it is dense area. It is smoother than the lines make it look. Though, I am all into fighting the stigma and shame of certain body parts so maybe it would be a good idea? :p

I forget the differences between 2010 and 2013 - I think they changed selecting at some point but I forget when. Now it is ctrl always adds to the selection and alt deselects. I think it was different before because it would always drive me crazy and it makes such a huge difference in convenience now.

I could totally be wrong about printers - I do have limited experience with them and most of what I think I know was probably only true a few years ago. I am soooo mad I forgot about a big 3D printing expo in NY last year - it was on my way back home for Christmas time and I totally could have went ><. My biggest fear with the home machines isn't so much detail as accuracy, since I have a lot of tight fitting parts. I am also a bit of a perfectionist, and I really want to keep the actual work I have to do to the parts after printing to a minimum since I am much better at making things nice virtually than in real life. The print quality could be totally acceptable for me though, I don't know. I just can never make big purchases; I always back out right before I do it.

 

So I got a small spark of inspiration to work again. Most of what I have been going is the crazy inner mechanism to make the butt work that is pointless to show. It is so frustrating, but I am really close. I have to make a few decisions about the range of motion I want. I have to stop working because I have a ton of other stuff to do, but I plan to go crazy over my winter break (Dec 19th - Jan 15) to finish. If I do finish by January 15th I am going to see if I can be a vendor at Dollism (hopefully that will be motivation enough, but I don't know if that is too late to commit or if I am not special enough to be a vendor). I am sad because I am currently in Rochester, which is close to the convention, but I will probably have to move by then since I am finally graduating. I may even be on the west coast since I am a computer science major (trying for google ). Anyway, Dollism would be such a great opportunity for her debut!

So I was looking at my doll and everything was bothering me. I do this all the time.. so I decided to use http://kihaku.fi/heaven/ and make some renders so I could better judge my doll. It was actually super helpful! The things the bothered me the most were even worse on dolls that I admire.

I also have a few changes I am going to make. Her legs need to be shortened so her crotch is at 30 cm, and I think her outer calves need to be curved in a bit more so her ankles are a bit thinner. Also, her torso bothers me - mainly the half above her waist. I am going to try to make that a bit softer. It got sort of messed up when I was changing it to fit the chest. I think I modified it a while back but I like it better before.. I don't want to change the hips now though. A few smaller details need improving too, but overall I am pretty happy after looking at the renders.



Oh, and we got a printer (B9-Creator) for my club at school! I am hoping to abuse it over winter break while people aren't there. I really hope it is good enough that I can use it to print my parts. It would save so much time and frustration!

 

Thank you so much . I really admire your work. Upstate NY seems to be a great place for doll people :P.

So I have a problem... the crotch looks really odd and pointy in the lighted renders.. but I don't see the problem when I am just modeling. But either way I am worried it is too low. Maybe it looks too low because her stomach is so flat? Or maybe it is just too low.. I can't tell! If I need to fix the hips/crotch I'd have to redo that whole joint. It took a while so I'd rather not, but at least now that I really know what I am doing with it it shouldn't be so bad to redo. If it looks weird I'd rather redo it, especially since this joint really preserves the hip appearance.

Here is the difference between the render and just a screen shot (not sure where there are some weird shadow artifacts on the render). I also did some modifications (shortened the legs, made the outer thigh a big thicker/rounder, and adjusted the waist a bit).

 

So here are a few more renders/screen shots:




I think the lighting exaggerates the hard cut in her thigh right next to her crotch, and the shadow behind it makes it look even worse. It also lights up the bottom more so I think it looks more pulled forward than it actually is (I hope). But, the harder shadows at the bottom of the crotch may be helping the screenshot look better than it actually is... I can't tell. It is a pretty awkward cut line but I think it is worth the smoothness of the joint. That area has very little room to work with until I start running into the joint parts. I'm worried that I have to pull that whole area up. I am finding it hard to judge the spacing.

 

That cut for the joint was driving me crazy.. but if I move it up any more it will limit the movement. I have the leg able to move 15 degrees backwards:

If I don't allow that I could make it closer. Maybe it would be worth it. Moving the leg back also complicated some other parts. I know it isn't much but I like her being able to do that movement. The way the joint works makes it so you won't be able to move it out of joint at all. It will be locked pretty solidly in place and only allow for the movement that I put in there. So you couldn't just kind of pull it out of place a bit to get the range you want. I am trying to make up for that by giving as much range as I can. I might also do an optional thigh joint.

 

Since I love planning - possibly even a little more than working on my doll at times - this is my new plan for my future company which hopefully will exist some day (and hopefully soon since I will finally be done with school and should finally have time and money!! I am super lucky to be good at computer science, the job market is great right now. I just have to hope that my job will allow me enough free time to focus on my dolls).



So my ultimate doll dream is to have a company that is really customization and community centered. This is a creative, community driven hobby and I want to cater to that.

I plan to change up the whole collection set doll concept. I see all the time people begging to be allowed to only order some parts or change a few options. So, I want to make full sets as customizeable as I can. Obviously this will make my life harder because it eliminates any ability to plan ahead, but dolls are normally made after they are ordered anyway. I always thought it was weird how companies had all different basic dolls just to differentiate heads. I will have everything in one place. If you want just a basic doll, you pick you parts. If you want a full set, you continue on and pick the outfit.

I can still be creative and make the sets I want. I simply release them as new preset options in the create a doll. I can also have limited parts. The best thing though, is that the community can also make their own sets. The Full Sets page will show all the sets - mine and the community's. If someone orders a user made set, that user can get points (that can be used as credit).

For this to work I need a lot of options to make sets stand out and be unique. I already have about 10 faces that are ready to jointed, and I hope to have many more. I also want a relatively detailed face-up customizer, which I can do pretty easily since I have 3D models of the faces. I'd need to have a lot of different clothing pieces to put together too. I don't know how practical the face-ups and clothing is - it would depend on who I found to do that stuff for me.

I also don't know if I could do all the skin colors I have shown, but I really want to represent a full rage of skin tones as best as I can - not just light to dark but warm and cool and different saturation levels.

 

Thank you
Yes, I'd have to start small. My goals are always changing, but right now my plan is to finish the prototype during my winter break, then (since I plan on having 0 free time this spring, and I will almost definitely be moving for a job about June) just having a handful of dolls ready for Dollism. Maybe 10 dolls, with 4 different heads and in a few colors. Then I'd have to see where I can go from there. How quickly I jump into the final goal will probably depend more on manufacturing issues. My dolls will be hard to mold, but I am almost positives I can do it. But, I can't expect myself to handle everything including casting just on my own, so I'll have to see. I think when I open up the create a doll thing I will have to do capped order periods.

So I have some decisions with the leg movement. I already mentioned the 15 degrees back:


So you can see the gap in the back of the straight leg. I could remove that gap if I limit the movement. I am not sure if it is worth it. That movement also makes the inner working a little more annoying because it takes up space and everything fits closely together.

This is how the joint works:


So, what you are looking at is 2 instances of the sphere that makes up the leg. All the colorful parts are the different angles of the butt plate. The things you see will be attached to the inside of that plate. The one on the left is the movement relative to the thigh. On the right, relative to the hip. The purple sphere will be held into place inside the leg, and not move relative to the torso. The pins will be made into a smooth path. The path of the parts to the left will be cut into the inside of the leg sphere (they won't go through the outside, they are elongated so I can see them - they will be pins able to move along the length of the pin to fit the space). The right will be cut into the inner ball.

The thought is that when you move the leg, the space for those pins will move relative to each other and push the butt plate into the correct location right the correct rotation. But, if I have too mush cut out space, it isn't going to work. If all points have a gap around the path it will move out of place. This is something that will be hard to judge until I try it. Also, if you look on the right, the main peg makes an enclosed space (to allow the leg to move 30 out to the side, then up to 90 from there, so like a circular movement). That means that whole area will be removed from the inner sphere which will probably be a problem. I am going to try to cut one peg all the way through the thigh sphere so the inside of the hip joint can lock it into place as well.

What type of movement do you think is important for the hip/thigh? Obviously 0-90 degrees up. Is it more important to be flexible, or for it to look the best as it can when standing? It seems people buy dolls based on how they look while standing, and think of flexibility as a bonus.
I also have 30 degrees to the side, then up to 90 from there, then out to a full 60 from the sitting position:

0-90 looks pretty good. The rest are okay - no real bulges but some gaps.
I was also planning on a thigh joint to make up for the rigid movement in the hip.
I might have to remove the upwards movement from the 30 degrees out position. I don't know if that is a big deal or not. Most dolls don't have the range of moment mine will, but the movement is much more free - mine will be completely restricted. I like having that sort of circular movement because it feels much less limited than having linear movement along 3 different planes.

 

So the hip is almost done, but it is just so annoying and tedious to do the pin cutouts so I am going to finish some other joints first. Then I should be more motivated to finish the hip when it is all that is left.

I've been thinking about what I am going for for this doll, and I came up with some general rules for myself:
1. The jointed model should look as close to the unjointed model as possible in the standing position (I love stylized joints but that is not my goal for this doll).
2. The basic, expected movements should be smooth with minimal gaps and bulges. This means no hard cut joints for the basic joint (the type that look smooth standing but has a hard cut that is noticeable every other position).
3. The "extra" poses (like moving the knee more than 90° or the thigh out to the side) should be as smooth as possible but with very minimal compromises to the above 2 rules. Gaps and bulges are more acceptable, cut joints are acceptable (like the common thigh cut).
3. Bulges are generally worse than gaps, and should be avoided unless subtle and necessary.
4. Movement should be as simple as possible with even tension that mimics human movement as much as possible (even if that means more parts to cover gaps, as long as it looks smooth enough and doesn't interfere with above rules). This means that if it can use just a single pivot it should, and the parts shouldn't have to slide around to get in position. I feel like this helps with stability and just feel nicer to pose.
5. (So I don't go crazy) keep it simple. It seems people are more forgiving of less joints and movement than too many cuts that ruin the aesthetic. More joints can always be added later.

Now I am working on the knee. I think I figured out a good solution:



The knee itself will be separated and the hard edges in the back smoothed. I am pretty sure I can make the knee part move smoothly and look pretty natural (it won't have that plate look - it will look a bit like the feeple65 knees but less round and more knee shape). The whole knee part seems like it will fit inside the thigh and calf with my sketches, but I won't be sure until I try in 3D. I could have made it a little more natural by making a deeper cut in the back of the thigh, but with rule #1 in mind, I chose to have a thicker knee when bent that I'd like. Drawing it out with the knee in place doesn't seem to bad though.

The knee works using 2 pivots. The calf pivots around the thigh, then the thigh around the calf. So, the pivot points always stay the same distance apart, so I can easily put an elastic band around those points and tension will be exactly the same for the whole range of motion. The elastic won't even have to bend. I hope this will help make it very stable. The pivots are pretty close (about 16mm), so I am not sure that the band I will need can be thick/long enough to hold enough tension, or if the contact points are large enough, so that is a potential problem. I also have to worry about the part that is holding the elastic being strong enough. Maybe I can string thicker elastic through the pivots more like the way a normal doll is strung - I just like how the band would have no bending. I'll have to see.

Also, you won't be able to rotate around calf pivot before the thigh pivot (though that won't be noticeable when using it - the pivot point will just switch when it gets to 85°). With most double jointed knees, since the thigh and calf rotate independently around 2 different points of the knee, you can move one part while holding the other. So if you bend the knee 90° just using the calf, the calf part will look longer than it should. Or you could have the same 90° moving just the thigh and it will look different. With mine, every angle should be consistent.

Hoping to finish the knee tonight. Probably won't, but if the knee cap part is nice to me it is possible. Though time gets all weird when I work on this...

I've spent so much time staring at my knee bending it over and over...

 

Thanks

The knee is driving me nuts... I'm super hormonal and school starts in a week (and I have a bunch of work to make up because I got sick right at the end of the semester) so I had a breakdown today over the knee not working and knowing I won't have much time to work later. I think it was my mind making up for the fact that I didn't have any class project related breakdowns in a few week because of break :P. I really really want to sign up for dollism. I want to release my doll and be a vendor there more than anything. But, this semester is going to be insane for me because I am taking 4 really hard classes and working on a project for a big systems engineering competition and I am TAing classes and I need to find a job. I am going nuts. I'm applying to super stressful jobs like google and microsoft so that is going to take so much of my time and energy too. Interviews take so much out of me. And best case I get one of the big name jobs but then I won't have time to do doll stuff. And I'd have to move but right now I am close to the convention and it'd be great to be able to drive. But, I can't put off finding a job.. it is so much easier to get hired while still a student at these places. Blahhhh I think my head is going to explode. I'm so conflicted. I have no clue if I'd have time to work on my dolls if I go for my goal career path. I told myself that I'd only sign up if I had most of my doll done by the end of break.. at least the knees and elbows plus what I already have. But that looks like it isn't going to happen now.

Sorry, I'm getting way off topic. I had to change the knee a bit since it was just looking pretty bad fully bent. I had to minimize the angle of rotation because it just wasn't fitting together well and I am unwilling to make too big of a cut in the back.

Rough progress:

I am just trying to get the shape down so it is still rough and lumpy. I tilted the legs in a bit for the standing position because I like the way it looks, but it made the angle a bit weird when it is bent so that is something I have to fix. I am hoping that fixes the twisted look from the front. The knee part makes some parts in the thigh a bit thinner than I'd like so I have to try to fix that too... I hope I can make this work, none of my other ideas were working even this well.

Need sleep... but must finish knee!!!...

 

I think I figured the knee out!

So, my first attempt had the back of the leg working well but the knee just was not working out - it looked horrible no matter what I did. I change the pivots in the last one, and while it limits the range of motion, it looks much better (I think you will be able too get more movement that I am working with, but it will be against the tension.. but there is still a chance that she can touch her foot to her butt). But the back looked horrible and it probably wouldn't work well because too much had to be cut out (and that would also limit the amount of surface contact). So, I decided to keep the new pivots, but I need another part around the pivot the calf moves around. That part will take up most of the cut out part, so it will just rotate around. There will still be some cut out in the thigh but I think it is worth the amount that is cut out.



The calf part will need to be cut again and another cylinder added, but this should have minimal visual effect.

For other people doing 3D, instances and booleans are awesome. I didn't realize that I could have an instance inside a boolean. I normally just do a boolean and convert back to a poly because complex booleans are slow and buggy, but now I am thinking it is worth it to do as much as I can inside the boolean. I can carefully change the cut plane and the joint shapes and see how it will effect everything. I can even take an instance of the whole leg and change the shape and see the effect in the jointed form. You can see my cut planes for the thigh and calf, and the one joint object. Then I subtract the planes and intersect the joint. Then I can go back and with an instance of the joint (which is a low poly cylinder that I smooth a few times) and play with it until it all looks right.

My goal is to finish the visible parts of the knee tonight. The inner parts should hopefully be pretty easy.

 

I put together similar renders of all the faces I worked on over the years. Some may go and some still need a lot of work. The texture and render doesn't look too good on some of them but I wanted something basic that I could easily change the colors with. These are all from the colors I put on my Choice Doll page.

Sorry for so many images!

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So, in order:

Alana - She is a head I made a while ago. I like her, but I think her eyes need to be pushed together. I do kind of want her eyes far apart but I think they are too far. I wanted her to look a little different. She was an experiment with me starting off making the face really weird and then trying to bring it back to something that looked good, since my faces were starting to all look too similar.
Kirah - Another old face.
Mala - I keep going back and forth between loving and hating her. I kind of modeled her after Princess Jasmine.

Mara - She is done but I am worried that people don't like open mouthed dolls. Maybe I will close her mouth.
Narissa - She works well in most skin tones:

Ngaire - Done and printed.

Oriana - Done and printed.
Thaleia - Modeled a bit after Ariel, though something about her looks boyish, but I can't place it.
Treasa - Newer face. Another picture:


Last three are unnamed.
Second to last I really don't like here. I can't get her to look the way I want her. I like her better in other renders, though something is still off (actually these are slightly different): One Two Three Four Five

My faces are so hard for me to judge so I am very open to critique or input.

 

I've started working on the elbow! Here is my progress (still rough):


I am not sure about what I have.. The parts will have to be pretty thin to look good - I was planning around 2mm but I worry about parts breaking. I also don't like the big cut I have to take out of the upper arm. And the part to cover it up adds some complexity. But, the elbow looks so much better than if I move the pivot so that I don't have to cut a big chunk out. I think I can avoid cut outs for the elastic but that also adds to the complexity.


Allie - The printed Ngaire cracked a lot along the print lines . I got a credit from shapeways but haven't reprinted her yet. I can try to take a picture when the sun comes out but the surface is weird and it is a bit warped.

And sorry, I should have made those face images smaller! They take up so much space.

 

Her arm is practically done! Just a few more inner-jointing cuts.

I've spent the last month working almost constantly, during which I've watched through all of Supernatural and Once Upon a Time, and I am almost done Buffy/Angel. I tried watching X-Files because I've never watched it all the way through, but it was harder to watch while working. Thank you Netflix!

Anyway, I spent a few weeks designing and working on web stuff. I am finally confident I can do the beautiful doll builder that I see in my head. The HTML 5 canvas is awesome. I figured out how to make it so you can hover over any part of an image I define (simply using an image mask) and it will highlight and be clickable. It doesn't sound like much, but that would have been impossible to do realistically before. I know I need to stop getting ahead of my self but I love planning and coding is way more relaxing for me. As I've said before, my dream is to have completely customizable dolls. You'd pick all the base parts, then design the faceup and outfit. The outfit would be a ton of different base items you can pick from, then for each item you could add other components and change the color of all the parts. I don't know if that would be possible to execute in reality, but at least I know the web side is! I even have the database designed.

Anyway, I just finished up her wrist:

I decided to make the wrist actually wrist-shaped and not a sphere. The main purpose of the sphere shape (besides normal wrist movement) is to make up for the fact that the forearm can't twist. I did this with a straight cut at the top of the forearm that is a perfect circle (I had to make the arm a bit thick to make it a circle, I'm probably going to smooth it out a bit more, it is a bit bulgy). This cut will also make molding much easier so I think the cut is worth it - I would have hated taking the wrist shape and making it all round.

The wrist can go 70 degrees back, 80 forward, 20 in (more is probably possible, I only planned for 20), and 30 out. I would have preferred a single joint - I had this range looking not too bad with a single joint, but this is much smoother despite the extra cut. The top forearm joint it twisted about 70 degrees in these pictures - it looks a little smoother in its default position.

(Sorry, I should have cropped these - my normal computer is dead and I have no image editing software!!).

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The elbow goes to 145 degrees which you can see. I could make the rotation joint allow a bit more bend, but it would probably be ugly. I'll make that a later priority.

Like the wrist, I didn't use a sphere for the elbow and thus had to make up the rotation. I did the same thing, by cutting the top of the arm.

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I can also use this joint to give the shoulder more movement, like reaching across the chest. It is ugly, but the joint is there anywhere so why not?



Now all that is really left is the knee and ankle, and the inner jointing for the front plates for the hips and inner elbow (I hate doing parts like that that don't have a nice pivot). I am also redoing the arm holding thing to make it much simpler, but that should be quick. I may change the head cap to make it a bit easier to mold too.

I also want to make jointed hands, but that will be after I have a working doll in my hands.

I think if I work constantly I can finish this month. I know I had a lot of the knee done but I wasn't super happy with it. I know I have to let so of my perfectionism go. I have to play with my old knee tests again and see if I can work off of what I had. Hopefully I can so it doesn't take me the whole month.

My plan now is to finish by the end of the month. If I do, then I am going to try to sell in September. If I sell enough dolls so that I have hope for the future, I will continue. If all that doesn't happen, I will probably give it up and get job. I have a CS degree (finally) and would be getting a programming job, so I know I would not have enough time to do this on the side. This summer is pretty much my last chance. I think I can do it. I am also going to 3D print my mother-molds so I will have minimal clay setup, so hopefully that will increase my chances of getting the molding all done!

 

Thank you ^_^. I'm very happy with how the wrist and hand turned out - I hope the joint holds well, double joints like this can be a bit floppy. I think the breasts look odd because of the lighting. I don't have my good computer atm so I just clicked render without any lighting setup so the lighting looks horrible.

I finally learned how to do proper posing! I learned a lot of really basic stuff the other day which I really should have learned a long time ago - it would have made my life so much easier but I never even though about it. First, I learned that you can set parent-child relationships to objects, so that if say, the hand is a child of the wrist, if I rotate the wrist the hand rotates with it.

Second, I learned how to rotate things along the proper coordinate system. So, for those that don't do this stuff, each object has a pivot point. At that pivot, you have an x, y, & z axis that you use to move and rotate things. The world also has this coordinate system. If you see in the screenshot below, that little white dropdown that says "parent" at the top - well, by default it is "view." That means that no matter how the object is positioned in the world, you are always rotating it using the the word's axes. This can be really annoying if I say, the wrist is at a slightly different angle than the forearm - I couldn't rotated both properly at the same time - I just lined up the part I was working on, then dealt with re-positioning everything later. I also had to keep track of all the angles when working with double joints like the wrist. Now, changing it to parent means that if I change the orientation of say the wrist, the axes of the hand moves with it, and I can easily rotate the hand along its own axes and at the proper amount.

Anyway, I also learned how to put in limits and that fun stuff. Here are a few screenshots (sorry I can't crop them atm). There are a few more on my imgur album (since they ruined flickr) http://imgur.com/a/cvV96. Oh, and there should be a cover for the inner elbow part.

Touching her face: (sorry I didn't answer your question before, Allie - she can definitely touch her face at multiple angles)


Stretched back:


Touching back shoulder:


I also need to change one of the hands so they aren't identical.

I didn't get any work done the past two days because I actually got out and did normal people stuff :P. But now I will be back to my cave, working all day. I am a bit behind schedule - I need to get the arm 100% done in the next couple of days. I still haven't decided on how I am going to attach the hand to the arm.

 

I got the arm printed to test.

It uses to steel pins inside to hold the thing the holds up the elbow, but the holes that the pins go in didn't print on one part, and didn't print very well on the other, so I had to drill it out. Because the holes aren't right the elbow is a bit wobbly, but it should be perfect once I fix that. The elbow itself holds a pose really well, and the elbow cover part somehow works perfectly - I was worried about that. The front cover isn't working right now, mainly because of the messed up pins, but I am going to have to mess with it a bit more so that it is a little more reliable. The forearm and wrist are working perfectly, but the upper arm rotation part is a little loose since it doesn't have locks like the forearm does. The only reason it doesn't is because I made it so it can bend, and that part kind of got in the way, but I am going to adjust it a bit so it locks in place better (the ugly upper arm bend across the chest joint works well though, despite being ugly). The shoulder doesn't hold a pose well at all so that is another thing I need to fix up a bit. It may just be because the elastic I have isn't thick enough, and for some reason I made the elastic hole for the shoulder much bigger (not sure what I was doing there..), and that I cut away part of the sphere so it wasn't as bulgy. I think I can make it better...

I have one picture, but it is almost 6am and I just got the frelling thing together (I forgot to scale down one piece to account for error so it was too tight, and those pins really screwed thing up, so it took a while) so the best I can do right now is a really crappy snapshot from my webcam showing that the elbow looks relatively elbowy!!

View attachment 510
Look how pointyyyyy!! It is a little off because of the wobbly pins, the bottom of the elbow should be a tighter against the arm. I hope it isn't too mechanical looking with all the parts and the rotation cuts.

I also have the knee roughed out. Hoping to finishing that by the end of this weekend.
View attachment 511

Up next is the ankles which shouldn't take long, then I need to finish up the hips which are mostly done and that should be it. I also need to decide if I want to make the hands magnetic or not. They are pretty thin so it kind of has me worried, but it should all fit. I just can't really do the rotation lock with the magnet like fairyland does, since my wrist isn't a sphere, and I am a bit worried just having a magnet holding the hand on. I would use strong magnets so it really should be fine... but it still worries me. I do really want the hands to be easy to remove though.