Tutorial Quick Duct Tape Dress Form

Very cool!

 

Haha....I just made one for myself not too long ago!!! I shall try to do this for my doll whenever I finally get her!

 

Awesome tutorial. I will be sure to make one when my girl arrives!

 

Wow that's an awesome idea! I'll definitely be trying this with Nancy tomorrow xx thanks very much for the share

 

Awesome!!! Finally an excuse to use my hello kitty duct tape.... /evillaugh
Now I just need to get a doll! XD

 

I finally tried this last night! I wanted to make one to give to my friend today so that she would be able to make clothes for Nancy and it turned out great! The sleeves were more difficult than expected but I got there in the end, though a word to the wise, I underestimated how many cotton wool balls you need by faaaaar! Those things really compress!

 

What a brilliant idea! Must make one of those! Thanks for posting a great tutorial.

 

WOW! Awesome tutorial, I guess I should try to make one, thanks for sharing

 

That's genius! I can't believe I never thought of that myself!! Good show!

 

How do you keep it from stretching out of shape? I made one following the instructions, but when it was stuffed the duct tape stretched slightly so that the dress form is not slightly larger than the doll. It's okay for some things, but no good for making form-fitting stuff like corsets and what-not.

 

Thank you for this tutorial)

 

oh my goodness yes! I must get some ductape and try this at once! (my dolls are difficult to sew for) do you know if I say added a clay or something to the center if it would be better than trying to work with a 'hollow' doll-form?

 

I know a ton of people have already said this, but this is a great idea! And hugely helpful. Your instructions are very easy to follow. Thanks!

 

This was an incredible idea! Thank you for the tutorial! I already tried making one of my MSD, and it's turning out nicely... I might try making one for my other dolls, too! XD

 

Doing it tomorrow!

 

This is AMAZING! sooooooooo helpful!
I am def. going to make my dolls some dress form!

Thanks tons!

 

Thank you very much for the wonderful tutorial, be sure to afford such a dummy)). it quickly, simply and clearly.

 

You are ingenious

 

Thank you for this wonderful tutorial!
I could practice sewing without pinning my dolls.
Also if I commission clothing and they need the size, I can ship them a dress form!
In theory anyway...
I'm probably going to do this one day!

 

I failed with the plastic bag too,so I used a paper towel instead and it turned out great.

 

Fantastic tutorial! I will certainly try this.
Thank you!

 

This...is...AWESOME! I'm going to try this as soon as I go out to buy duct tape!

 

This is awesome! Im going to do this! oh and how do you cut it without cutting your doll? because even with the scissors you used i would be terrified of hurting one of my girls xP

 

I never thought of this wow. This is going to make things so much easier!

 

Thank you for this tutorial! I'm sure I'll be making one with the hot pink duct tape I have.

 

Very useful! Thanx!

 

I read through all 11 pages of comments to make sure nobody has suggested this... but what about using expanding foam to fill the dressform with!?
You could leave it as is then, and pin to the duct tape as usual - OR what I would do is then remove the duct tape and in theory your foam model would be the exact identical size/shape as your doll. No 1cm too large issue that some have posted about.

You may need to wrap the duct tape a few extra layers for strength (or maybe use longer strips), because the foam will try to push against everything when it's expanding. But if you don't use too much of the expanding foam, it should fill it just right. That's also a caution - don't use too much of it! It expands a lot and it would distort your duct tape "mold" if you tried to fill it even halfway before it expands. But a bead or 2 along the inside might just fill it all up real nice

And you can set up a dowel in the middle while you're at it and the foam will form around that too. Built-in stand

Then just cut off the excess foam that oozed out of the arms/neck/leg areas after it's hardened and dry. I don't know if it would be better or worse for pinning? In theory it should be great, but eventually your going to have tons of pin holes.

If you cut the duct tape off carefully, in theory you could make an army of foam dressforms with it too - depending on if the plastic stays intact inside the duct tape. It'd be like a nice little mold you just need to cut and re-tape each time.

I'd try this, but I have ZERO sewing skills, so it would go unused and a waste of materials for me.
Please post if someone else tries this. It could work well, or could be a huge flop - depending on how you do it.

 

This wonderful tutorial has inspired me to make one for my Iplehouse KID Lonnie I have adapted frmo the original quite a bit, and made a lengthy post/walkthrough of my experience. I have attributed this thread as the original tutorial, but have made quite a number of changes to suit smaller dolls (mine is only 35cm tall!)!

http://clover-tea.blogspot.sg/2013/02/diy-dress-form-for-14-dolls-iplehouse.html

For those who are concerned with the cutting portion, I have used a low-adhesive tape, similar to painter's tape, and stuck it directly on the doll along the 'cut lines', before starting on the form itself. You can view the whole process on my blog link above.




This is my dress form ^ ^ had to substitute the duct tape for something smaller, and used clingfilm instead, to reduce bulk.

 

This is awesome I need to make this for my future bjds one day soon~

 

this is so great! I found this idea for making 'personal' (as in for my body) dress forms. I wondered if it would work for dolls too... now I know... it also solved the problem of what to cover the doll with since for ppl you use tshirts and/or body type suits.... ooh i could use a spare pair of hose for legs and arms (the cost of a wrecked pair would be worth it! soooo happy now ^^.

 

SWEET a thing to link my friend.

 

I cautioned about too much foam in the post where I brought up the idea. I still believe that even with a little bit of extra reinforcement, you could succeed in making a foam copy if you used just the right amount of foam (i.e. very little!)

If you do it correctly and with enough care - that's the important part though.

I've worked with the stuff quite a bit and have filled delicate areas carefully without damage or deforming before. There are also several different types of foam out there with different expansion characteristics to keep in mind, depending on the project.

In fact, if someone really wanted to get clever, and possibly even make them in mass quantities - it would take very little time and effort to reinforce the tape mold with strips of fiberglass mat and resin/epoxy on the outside. The result would be extremely strong and reusable. The only concern for reuse would be the the plastic/tape inside and how well it holds up. But you could simply make a new mold out of the first foam dressform to have a full fiberglass mold. Cut it in half (hinge it on one side if you'd like) and you'd have a wonderful mold that could produce a hundred foam dressforms.

 

A note on the expanding foam AND tape type... these dress form methods were initially made for "human" scale. Which means more tape is used (thickness ends up greater) and is thus more sturdy to withstand expanding foam... also expanding foam is not the 'only' stuffing... it is usually used in combination with some kind of other space taking filler. The foam should be what is between the inner layer of the tapeform and the main filler as it fills the nooks and crannys left by the other filler... Also duct tape is the tape of choice for its flexability and it is something that stands up well (it better if it is used to seal up flashings for pipes in house construction type deals) In this way I would think it would be better than standard tapes that often have glue that can loose it's 'sticky' factor. This is just my obsevations made from looking at various tutorials and 'reader' comments ^^. The only dress form I have is one I asked to have made for a doll body I do not own... That form is stuffed with plastic bags and is really VERY sturdy and the shape is holding well and does not look like it will deform any time soon ^^. Just my 2 cents worth.

Another idea for anyone wanting to go more like the human scale version and doesn't mind trashing dollie cloths... humans use a 't-shirt to tape over. When I get my dolls I plan on the expence of one othe the body suit/protector things to use as the 't-shirt' to get a nice smooth no lumps layer to tape onto ^^.

 

Great tutorial. I just started sewing for my dolls recently, and I needed something like this to test patterns. Thanks for sharing!

 

;-; omg, I've tried making 3 of these and each time it comes out awkardly fat and lumpy .n.


Is there a secret tip to making the final product not suck!?

I'm trying to do this on a souldoll NL which has a VERY large bust. I've having a hard time getting the tape precisely wrapped around :/

 

have you watched some other ductape bustform tutorials? Ones for real humans... that is where its taken from really and there are techniques for working with breasts (getting the shape right) that can be more easily seen on those videos. it may require making super narrow tape strips (as in maybe only 2-4 milimeters wide) in order to achive this... i dont have girls to try this on but the theory should be right LOL. also how thik is the tape? I have been finding thinner and thinner types of late. as for the other tutorials... just google duct tape dressforms and browse the videos ans see what shows you what you want to know?

 

wow thanks so much, I never thought making a dress form for my doll would be this easy. Your tutorial has been a huge help

 

O.O how do you take the dress off the doll?Or is it something they can only wear once?

 

It is not an item of clothing.... it is a dress "form" ... like dress makers use to make clothing and fit them on. After you form it to the doll you cut it off (in a specific way so you don't ruin it). Tape it back together, stuff the inside in some way to make it solid and use it instead of the doll itself when making new clothing (as in try it on the 'dummy' not the actual doll).

a home made doll version of this:

 

Awesome! This looks really useful! Better than using my poor guinea pig doll to test my sewing again and again. Thank you!

 

This looks pretty handy! I think I might try to make one today.

 

just made one of these, thank you

 

OMG! I am new to this and was thinking that I could use a dress form. Thanks so much for your excellent instructions. I'm on it!

 

really cool ^_^ can this be cut up into pieces to form blocks for flat pattern cutting...if that makes sense?

 

I made this tonight
It came out well enough that I decided to cover it with velvet that was left over from cutting up an old night top. I added a white ribbon down the center to help with sewing kind of how real ones are lol.
The base is actually something i made a long time ago to hold spools of ribbon. I dumpped the ribbon spools into a bin and just put it up one of the legs

 

Wow! Covered in velvet makes it really look nice and I would imagine it would make it easier to get fabric to stay in place while pinning.
I read previously about using thin painter's tape to protect the doll's surface from scratching while cutting the shell off. For those who might be thinking of using "hardware store" masking tape, crafter's washi tape is the tape to use along what will be the cutting line.

Also earlier a wonderful complete washi tape form was posted. As I am not knowledgeable about the different doll sizes, how big of doll was used? It looked pretty small. I am not figuring out how to go back quote, but I believe it was post #208. I wonder if it would be strong enough to make something the size of my Dollmore kid body?

 

thanks for this, i had a lot of fun making one :P getting it our of the hand was such a hassle had to tear it with the scissors and then repair it with tape :P but it came out very nice.

Tip: do not use a shopping bag with a color logo on it, it stains the resin. it happened to me and i had to quickly use the Magic eraser :s

 

A few tips:
1- you can use saran wrap to cover the doll and protect it from the tape.
2- when cutting the tape, fold a few layer thick paper "fan" and slide it under the plastic. Insert scissors so they lay on the paper and not on the dolls surface. It's very easy to scratch a doll while cutting this off.

Extra: Dont want a dress form but do want perfect skin tight patterns? Use paper tape. Before cutting it off the doll, draw lines for where you want seams. Then cut it off with the tip 2 technique. Cut along the seam lines and flatten the pieces on a flat surface. You can either scan these in and fix them digitally or just trace them on paper so you have nice and flat laying pattern pieces.

 

This is awesome! Was starting to make new clothes for my little people and then wondered how to make clothes fit without pinning directly on them!? This really helps though has anyone tried to use the duct tape as a template to make a real fabric dress form?

 

Very helpful! I'm excited to try my hand at this, but I'm looking at maybe another year or so before I can.
Thank you!

 

This is excellent and full of good ideas. Thank you so much. Now I won't have to worry about scratching my dolls with pins!

 

The ideas posted here are fabulous, including creating a dress form with a foam block and your doll's measurements. Regarding a duct tape dress form, I had read about making a full size, human model with this caveat: they do not last forever as an accurate measure because lacking a firm structure underneath, they can shift. A much smaller, lighter version for a BJD might be useful longer.

Maybe covering the surface of a duct tape form with soft fabric would serve. Doing this would provide a non-sticky surface to attach pins to. Just remember with the fabric covering, you have added dimension to the form (creating ease - extra space - on your pattern).

 

This is a smart idea! I've been wanting one but don't want to spend a lot of money on it. Thank you so much!

 

I am so happy to find this thread! I like having different body types to sew for, but love the idea of being able to work more directly on the body itself. Sometimes the extremities of the doll just gets in the way. lol And i definitely LOVE the idea of covering the tape form with a pretty fabric!

Thank you! =D

 

I've done 2 of these. They are absolutely wonderful. thanks so much. Great tutorial

 

How cool!!

 

Can't wait to try this for myself

 

Great idea. I will do it soon by myself.