Sculpting Material

It's entirely up to what you like to work with! Some people use air-dry paper clay or stone clay, others use polymer clay (which is oven baked), or apoxie (which is a two part clay that cures in about a day, with an hour or so of working time). I'm doing my sculpting digitally, but I tried out paperclay and absolutely hated the feel of it. I've done some modding with apoxie and I really like that.

 

I use polymer clay for most of my doll sculpting.

I primarily use Super Sculpey but I use other brands, too. Cernit and Fimo to name a few. Those are all polymer clays and need to be baked to harden. Time and temperature depends on the thickness of the piece and what clay (or mix of clays) that was used.
Polymer clay can be carved and sanded once baked. If additions need to be made you just stick the new clay on, sculpt the shape you want and rebake.
As long as you pay close attention and don't overbake, this can be done many times. I fact, it's often neccesary to work in layers as it is difficult to bake thick pieces properly and very thin pieces burn easily and can often benefit fron being added late in the process.

 

Heyo! I saw some youtube videos where most of the artists used air dry clay, and i also currently use it and I' m really satisfied with it (the best brand is "DAS paperclay" I think)
But it' s completely up to you!

 

If you are familiar with polymer already you will probably have good luck!

I like air dry clay personally (I like Activa LaDoll and Premier), because I always squish polymer clay before I bake it. And also sometimes it warps when I bake it too, so that's why I like air dry. :3

 

I kinda hate air dry clay after a bad experience.
Whether I did it from or something, it stayed sorta soft and would rip really easily. Plus the cracks OH THE CRACKS
XD that's just me tho I prefer sculpey, but a lot of bjd artists swear by air dry

Also u stole my username Fenrir!!

 

Ooh, how do you find ladoll clay? I guess that's a bit of a redundant question as you said you like it. (is it hard, soft, medium?) XD I have been eyeing it on amazon, but of course it's a bit pricey to import to the UK. I have some air dry fimo (can't get air dry sculpy for love nor money here) and some das clay to try, but I'm always interested in hearing about experiences with other clays. This is probably off topic because I want to sculpt little cute figures by hand instead of bjds.

I have a similar issue with polymer, but it might be because nowadays polymer is softer than it used to be. I remember being a kid and squishing it super hard to try and knead it back to life! I wonder if the old style hard clay would be less prone to squishing? Although, I find it hard to keep the dust off it too. O_O; Even with a clean workspace, the dust always finds me.

For the original poster... I know someone who made a bjd with polymer clay. It was small and cool, and very heavy! But pretty awesome. Good luck! Cheering you on to make cute/cool dolls!

 

@bentosmile

I think it is very nice; very soft and smooth, with very few big chunks. I like to use water to smooth it sometimes, and it does get sticky/slimy if it is too wet, but otherwise I love it!

 

If you work it too much it will get super soft, also if it is too warm. Sculpey starts off nice and hard. Also for the dust, rubbing alcohol works miracles on polymer clay. Air dry clay tends to pick dust up as well.

 

I actually made a 1/6ish bjd from polymer clay that i wanted to reproduce. Haru was recommended to me, and I was VERY happy with using them; however they did not like polymer clay for the original. I can't remember exactly why right now, but they seemed to prefer paper clay. They were wonderful to work with though.

 

A little late to this, but ladoll/premier paperclay is always my go-to!! It can be rough to work with sometimes, but it sands and carves beautifully and you can do some really neat stuff with it. I have a hard time working with polymer clay honestly.

 

I haven't personally worked with paperclay (yet) but I've been looking into it and it's benefits and have found that you can re-wet parts of it once it has dried and still have some workability to you. Obviously you won't be able to rework a full face but you can carve into it and make some adjustments when wet without it cracking or breaking away! I like working with polymer and epoxy but they both have there limits as well.