40–49cm Dolls Sculpting my first dolls

So, I have no idea what I’m really doing, but I saw a doll friend was using the Nomad sculpting app on her iPad to make dolls, and I have an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil that I haven’t been using much recently, so I decided to give making my own BJD head a whirl. (Thinking about making working joints scares me, so putting that completely off the table for now. lol) I. Just doing this for fun anyways, so I’m not looking to stress myself too much with it.

I’ve never digitally sculpted before, and haven’t watched any tutorials yet, but this is what she’s looking like so far:

Potat 12/12/21 by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

and here are some of her progress shots from along the way:

Spoiler: Potat progress

Making Potat by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Making Potat by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Making Potat by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Making Potat by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Making Potat by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Making Potat by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Making Potat by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

not really looking for criticism… just wanted to share my journey. But tips are always appreciated.

 

So I hit a standstill working on Potat and was kind of bored with what I was doing, so I created a new file in Nomad, using Potat as my base, and began a new sculpt, who I affectionately named Bae. I got much further with Bae than I did with Potat, and this what she’s currently looking like:

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

and this her body:

Spoiler: Bae’s Body

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

After I got to this point I was very intimidated to work on her hands and feet, and ultimately her jointing. My friend sugar_pineapple on Instagram, who has also been using Nomad to sculpt recently, posted on Instagram that she was going to start taking commissions for 3D work. I asked her if she would be willing to collaborate with me, and take what I already had, and add a jointing system and feet and hands for me. She agreed, so she is currently working on that for me, and I should have more to share soon…

I also wanted to share some in-progress pictures I took here, but you can see even more if you go to my Instagram dxgirly_likes_bjds and look at my highlight titled “Bae”

Spoiler: progress pics of Bae

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

 

I hit the image limit, so here are more in progress pictures under the spoiler:

Spoiler: more pics of Bae’s progress

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

[/spolier]

 

And sorry, one more. I know now I need to update this thread more frequently, so I don’t mass photo-dump like this.

Spoiler: Bae’s progress

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

some of the links seem to not be loading properly, but I think you can still click them.

 

An updated progress picture of Bae now that all her joints are done. At this point in the project, I’m going to see if I can try to get her printed, so that I can make further adjustments from there.

Progress on Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

 

After several suggestions, I decided to make her torso longer, and resculpt her belly a bit, along with smoothing out the rough edges on her parts. This is the finalized first draft that will printed by my friend, Pablo, who was kind enough to offer to do it for for just the price of the resin and the shipping cost from Spain to the US. So next time I post I should have pics of Bae in physical form to share!


Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

 

I’m not sure why none of my images are working anymore, but wanted to update Bae’s progress. My friend Pablo is in the process of printing her and sent me these pics of what is done so far.

Bae WIP by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

 

yeah it was just being weird on my iPad when I posted. It’s fine now. Haha. And thank you!

 

So her belly part has been printed. I guess it took a whopping 36 hours to do it. I’m just glad she hasn’t had any misprints yet *knock on wood*

so after her lower torso printed, my friend let me know that the parts aren’t quite fitting together right. So I’m guessing when my other friend designed her joints, she made them a little bit too tight of a fit. That’s okay, though, because I should be able to fix that with some extra sanding when I get her in.

Here’s some pics with the belly piece. I love how it turned out!

Bae WIP by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

 

Time for an update on Bae! I received her 3D printed resin parts in the mail on Valentine’s Day, and it was such a nice surprise, as tracking hadn’t even shown it entering my country yet.

Seeing her in person and putting her parts together myself, I can definitely see that her body needs a lot of work. I’m going to buy a pen dremel and other sanding materials and protective gear next month, once my dolly funds refresh.

In the meantime, I decided to do a faceup on her, because her headcap connection only needs very minor work. And then I stuck her head on a Doll Leaves dream body for some photos.

I discovered I need to work on her head’s neck hole a bit, because she has straight forward, and upper movement, but literally no movement when trying pose her face downward. If anyone has advice as to how I can modify the neck to do that, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

anyways, this is what she’s looking like with a faceup.

she’s looking a bit more cartoony than I was intending, so I will go with smaller eyes on my next sculpt, just because it’s what I prefer in my own collection.

Anyways, hope you like her so far. I’ll post my next update once I start working on her body next month.

Bae by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

 

Thank you both!

so as an update, I finally got the materials I needed to sand down Bae’s body parts to fit together, so I did that, and got her all strung up, and found that I was disappointed in her. Her joints don’t move smoothly as they do with the BJDs I have bought from other artists. She feels very… clunky…. almost machine-like? That’s the only way I can describe it

this is how she looks all put together:

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr


next to a Minifee body for size comparison’s sake

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Her thigh gap is much too gaping lol. It’s mainly the leg and hip joints that are bothering me the most.

So after much sulking that my first doll wasn’t immediately spectacular (lmao) I jumped back in and started sculpting again! I’m going to full on sculpt the doll myself this time, I’m no longer outsourcing the joints, so I’ll now have full control of that. It’s going to take a lot of trial and error for me to figure things out.

I started on a new body. This one is thinner overall, and is aiming to fit in slim-mini type clothing. I also plan to work on a chubby/fat body as my first attempt had, but had fun planning this one for now.

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

after that, I worked a bit on sculpting heads again. These are the three that I worked on:

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

 

Thank you!

currently working on two different bodies. A “thick body” and a “thin body.” It’s slow going at the moment, because I’m not super confident in making the joints. I just finished doing the legs, and next I’ll work on the arms. Hands and feet are getting left until last because I’m very much not looking forward to them. Lmao

Thick body:
Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Thin body:
Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

 

Thank you!

big update this time! I finally took the big step of getting my own 3D printer! I bought an Elegoo Mar 3 resin printer, along with a cure/wash station. And I am SO glad I did! I’m having so much fun with it!

so first I printed some of the heads I was working on, Potat and Sweet Bean. They came off the printer great, so I excitedly gave them some quick faceups. Here they are on some Minifee bodies

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

then I printed to other heads Boo (previously known as Bae 2.0) and a girl I named Pie. I haven’t painted these girls yet..

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Then I started on printing the body I had sculpted:

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

And strung her all together!

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

She needs a lot of joint refinements (especially in her legs), but she’s all together as a full doll! I did all her joints myself this time, so there’s definitely a learning curve, but she’s 100% by me! I feel accomplished! Still a long way to go, but putting her together like this was a nice boost of confidence tonight. Hope you guys like her!

 

So I have modified and resculpted several of the body’s pieces, but unfortunately I ran out of resin, and I don’t have the funds to buy anymore at the moment, so I’m currently at a standstill with that. But I did give the Pie and Boo heads faceups, tried some clothing on the body, and took a comparison pic next to the original Bae doll.

happy to say she fits in stretchy slim MSD clothing. She’d likely fit into regular MSD clothing as well, though pants may run a bit long, because she’s rather short for 1/4 scale.

anyways, here’s the pics:

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

 

Wanted to update here, I’ve been working a lot on refining the body to get the joints working really well. I also completely redesigned the knee, and now she can stand really easily. She’s getting there, slowly but surely. I also designed to more heads, who I’ve named Pumpkin and Peaches. Here’s some progress pictures I took along the way, oldest to newest:

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

next to a Minifee to show size difference:

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

Hope you liked seeing the progress!

 

Long time no post! I finalized the body, and have just been making additional headsculpts and finally got around to taking full photographs of her.

this is my sculpt Cookie on my thick body 3D printed in blue resin.

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

 

Thank you very much!

 

thank you so much!

 

Thank you very much!!

 

Oh you’re welcome! My first casted dolls should be coming in on Tuesday, funnily enough. It’s been quite the journey getting here.

 

So since I mentioned it in a reply, I thought I’d show the final results of these dolls. They body got reworked since the post, and I got some help from namihu_bjd_creatures on Instagram to rework the existing joints a bit and make them castable. My original sculpt had a lot of thin spots that the caster did not like.

this was what the reworked body looked like in the sculpting program:

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

I had a preorder for that body, which I ended up calling my “thick body” along with the Pumpkin, Peaches, Cookie, and Macaron heads I had made, last October. I got 9 full doll orders along with two heads. It took a long time for me finalize the fixed body, but I just a few weeks ago got the dolls from the caster. These are my personal dolls I had ordered. The customers dolls will begin shipping out tomorrow (I just got the last of the packaging supplies I needed in the mail today.)

Untitled by Nikki Kelly, on Flickr

(They do have hands, FDoll just sends them wearing paddles instead to avoid breaking them.)

anyway, I hope you liked following along and seeing my journey creating my first doll. I’m hoping to get approved as on-topic here. Just waiting for a reply from the moderators.

 

Thank you so much!