Large Skirmish (Dollstown Mui vs. Kanadoll Mars)

Falcon and Griffin play. Justinian never draws sword on Vallant. Vallant never hits Justinian with closed fists.


Stop-motion version

Sorry that the second GIF is so speedy. The GIF creation program I used (Clip Studio Paint) has a duration limit. It's also on my BJD blog as a video with slower framerate.






Still images





















Justinian is Dollstown Mui on 15year boy. He's completely single-jointed. He's fully sueded and wired with 12gauge steel.
Vallant is Kanadoll Mars on Doll Family-H 65cm boy with Volks SDGrB hands. He's fully sueded and wired with 14gauge aluminium.
The metal doll stands were from Bobo Doll (Taobao seller), with occasional support from the "invisible doll stand" (sold on Alice's Collections).

If pics are broken, please check out my BJD blog - more stills, and slower video of the skirmish scene.

Spoiler: Behind the scenes/my process

I took these pictures over 4 afternoons. I wasn't timing myself but think it took something like 20 minutes to do each frame: pose the dolls, then take pics. Apart from 1-2 frames, each frame was shot sequentially, to maintain flow of the action and storyboarding.

I had a rough vision in mind when I started this photoshoot, but the choreography I mostly figured out along the way. What helped me most was acting out all the poses with my own body. Sometimes I do it in front of the mirror but not always: once I feel my own body acting the poses, I usually can translate that into posing the dolls. Moving my body through the sequence also helps me make sure the dolls' movements are smooth from frame to frame, without sudden or awkward cuts in the poses.

This was really fun to shoot -- quite laborious and needed a lot of focus and energy, but it gave me a lot of pleasure and satisfaction. I hope to do more of this soon!

Thanks for viewing~

 

Thanks everyone for the kind comments!

By the way, if anyone wants to know more about the Bobo Doll stands and how to get them, feel free to contact me. Unfortunately there's no EN-facing dealer for them that I know of, but I'm happy to share as much info as I can find.

@RabbidBunnies Even these two high-energy boys will tire each other out, eventually.
I'm glad I invested in these stands. Bobo Doll make a bunch of accessories for them, including shorter rods that allow for squatting, crouching and low-to-the-ground poses. (They're indeed called "squat stands" in Chinese.)

@lutke Thanks, I had fun choreographing the scene. I'm sure Vallant will successfully sneak up on Justinian someday...

@mydaffer Thank you - at first I thought the stands might look intrusive, but I stopped noticing them after a while too.

@saraquill Thanks. It took me some time to work up to doing these pics, because I expected to commit a few days of sustained energy and time to it. But once I got into a flow state, it became enjoyable. I like handling these two dolls too, that helped. And I really wanted to tell this story, so that anticipation of editing the pics and publishing it on my blog kept me going.

 

@themonsteryoho Thanks! I'm glad that sharing my process is helping someone. I follow a few outstanding doll photographers in the Chinese BJD community who have shared some of their action posing and photography tips. I've learned a lot from them and I appreciate that they're willing to share their methods. So I'm trying to do the same for others by keeping methods visible and recording my experiences.