~20cm Dolls Small Fairy BJD

Hey all! I had a big thing written out then my page crashed so in summary:
My name's Hennie and I have an instagram with my partner under @/customizationcauldron, but this account is held just by me to catalog my BJDs hybrid and creation attempts since I would appreciate help & feedback!

My first foray is with this little idea of a small 7-10cm fairy type BJD with 4 joints (shoulders, hips) & magnet insets for swappable wings & antennae. Here's the refined sketch + finished design ideas


From left to right: Abeille, Papillon, & Phalène. Abeille & Papillon were the initial designs but when I showed my sister she thought a moth one would be cute too, haha. Which one's your favorite?

I'm planning on using Blender to make these (to teach myself how to use the sculpting tools) & then maybe 3D print them for fun. So far I've only modeled in Blender to block-out backgrounds for larger illustrations, but I have tried to do some sculpting tests before. I mostly anticipate my main struggle points being the joints since I have no idea how to approach those, haha.

Again I would appreciate any tips and ideas since most of the help I've seen for making BJDs digitally uses programs like Zbrush or other sculpting types. I also work a couple different freelance gigs so I work pretty slow-- However I did get around to attempting Abeille's sculpt & block out back in May so here's a teaser of that before signing off.



Wish me luck!

 

Not much on the modeling front but taking @meanae 's comment into account, I decided to take another stab at the jointing

And a rough concept of how the stringing would work

The initial drafts were to have the hands, wings, and antennae attached via magnet but a part of me wonders if its possible to treat the wings like an additional arm joint or if that would put too much strain on the string-- and also while I would like the pose-ability, I think that'd get in the way of most normal clothes. (also the bee abdomen was just me thinking on paper, its not a permanent addition, haha)
I'm also still undecided on things like just how much anatomy to define since I like the idea of them just being soft/smooth, but I do like the idea of having some cute knees and maybe a collarbone. Just simple anatomical landmarks while the rest is pretty stylized-- though ofc stylization questions matter less than what I can feasibly sculpt, haha.

On the 3D side since I'm limited to using freeware, I was also considering trying out sculptris or some other sculpting program rather than committing just to blender. Blender is currently what I have the most skills in, I'm just also not sure where the limits are since I'm still pretty new to it. I'll probably continue poking around between other projects and see how it goes

 

Hey all! it's been a bit because I actually moved and then got covid, its been a whole ride. I have a smidge of an update-- mostly just working on the face since im not actually quite sure how to proceed with the body beyond the blockout. I did try to model out the papillion face variant though. Hopefully it looks like im getting better haha!



Honestly I've been thinking about moving between digital and traditional to try and understand the physics of the thing so I might print the head & the body blockout to see what the heck i'm doing when it comes to joints and such. I'll be update this thread whenever I make any progress though (*￣▽￣)b

 

Hihi! It's been a while since I got a new job, but I did want to answer: not on this project, no. I have sculpted on other projects to mixed success (my hands are mostly good for drawing it seems) but the main hurdle to physical sculpting for me right now is space, actually! I just rent a room/garage, so I wanted to keep the debris & such as light as i could for as long as possible. I might be moving soonish though, which honestly in that case I might as well try my hand at it ¯\_( ツ )_/¯

As a general update, I unfortunately haven't gotten that much farther due to a dead computer at the beginning of the year and aforementioned new job which started in summer, but i have replaced my comp & have been practicing some simpler modeling things here and there to just get super comfortable in blender. Mostly just a lot of learning about things like multires, edgeflow, booleans, etc etc. Once I start getting some other things off my plate, I'm hoping to pick this back up again. Fingers crossed!