the whole tutorial im following is by deskleaves on deviantart ( http://deskleaves.deviantart.com/art/Ball-jointed-doll-tutorial-part-1-303710466 ), though i've found that a whole bunch of videos and tutorials seem to cater towards the doll being left in clay. i dont know how to tweak any of it for casting. like hand joints. theres a wire that goes through the wrist for the elastic, but what do i do with resin? do i leave the wire in, do i take it out, what do i do???? same goes for all the joints, actually. i don't know how to translate the tutorials and i can't figure it out when i look at other dolls i hope im making sense :s
As far as I can tell, that tutorial is for sculpting a doll, not for making a doll to cast. If you are completely new to mold making and casting I would treat it like a separate craft altogether to begin with. I don't mean to scare you, but it's a BIG topic and may demand all sorts of special equipment and toxic materials, so it should not be approached too lightly. It also tends to become quite expensive. I think that is the main reason that so many artist dolls are made just as a one-off in clay. It is made for the artists own enjoyment so the clay doll is enough and casting a single doll in resin is a bit overkill. However! If you intend to sell your dolls, casting is a very good way to go, since you will only sculpt the doll once. Polyurethane (the material most BJDs are made of) is also a very strong material and can stand up to a lot of handling and modding. There are some good tutorials about mold making and casting floating around on youtube, perhaps do some research into that? That should clear up a lot of things about what level of perfection parts need to be and what shapes are possible to cast. About the wire in the wrists, well, it depends. If you intend to drill a hole to insert a metal rod for the S-hook after casting, then the wire should be taken out and the hole covered before the mold is made. If you want the S-hook to be held on a resin bar, you will need to sculpt the hand exactly like you want it to look finished. Both methods are used on professionally made BJD. Perhaps look at some existing dolls and see what kind of solutions you prefer? Most things like this are a combination of cost, amount of work and plain old preference.
yeah i've been planning this doll for 3 years, and at the moment money isn't an issue. i've already previously made moulds and casted other things before so i'm well versed in that and i've got the technicality down. i guess wanting to cast her is so she feels finished to me, plus i can get the pigment right since i don't want to/ can't consistently paint her body the skin tone. of course the dolls i look at have all the internal intricacies covered up and every video i've looked at doesn't seem to address these smaller details since it's rather super specific. there is an idea to evolve into possibly selling the dolls although currently this is a doll entirely for me. i was anxious that a resin bar in the wrists and feet wouldn't be able to hold the tension of the elastic and would end up breaking. sculpting, creating moulds and casting the doll are no issue at all. it's just the joints. i can't figure them out
Oh, ok. I see. Is the doll already sculpted or are you on the planning stage? The reason I ask is because sometimes it's easier to plan the inside before the actual sculpting is ever begun. You need some kind of core material and some way to remove the core. A doll not sculpted with that in mind can be tricky to hollow out. The inside of the parts needs to have a shape that makes it possible for the piece to be removed from the mold. Exactly what that means depends on the overall shape of the part and on what type of mold you make and the material chosen. I think most people simply make the part whatever shape it needs to be to work in the way the creator intended. If you know how the mold making process works, you should have little trouble figuring it out. If you want to look at what dolls look like on the inside, perhaps look at restringing tutorials? You can also google different doll bodies and add “inside” or “restringing” to the search the get a few other images. If you are active on Den of Angels or any other large doll forum you can probably get a few people to take photos of the inside of specific dolls if you ask nicely. What about the joints it is that causes you trouble? Resin bars are not as strong as metal rods, but they do work well most of the time. I have some doll bodies that have resin bars in the wrists and resin hooks in their feet and so far it works all right. But if you feel that is not the way to go, just use the metal rods. Once the piece is cast, drill a hole, insert the rod and secure it with glue. Some makers cover the hole with resin and sand it smooth so that the hole can barely be seen and others leave it visible. This is another matter of preference.
cores are cut, body and legs are sculpted and drying. once thats done i'll add on any alterations and start carving/sanding. head was sculpted possibly a year ago; i was thinking of starting completely fresh but the older one is better. got all my clay tools, craft knives with both serrated and regular blades. her eyes arrived today so i'll be getting a 12mm beveller to help accommodate those. the issue with the joints is basically how they work. i know how 'sculpt' them (if it even counts as sculpting) and have them hollow. i know how to cut the slits for movement and the holes for the bar. i just need to understand how the joints will function because i don't know if a bar goes through the elbows/knees etc as well as the hands and feet. so in short, hands and feet are all figured out. i just need to understand whether or not there are also bars in the other joints for the elastic to go against. i mean if nothing's in there then how is the tension maintained throughout the doll? it couldn't be done without something happening in the joints
Usually there are no bars in the other joints. Some procelain dolls that use springs instead of elastic do use bars for the springs to attach to, but the elastic don't need that. There are probably a thousand different ways to do joints and it all depends on what function you want out of the joint in question. Ball joints are the most common type for this kind of doll. They are usually made by making the ball part of the joint first and then use that part to shape the socket around it. Exactly how you do that depends on what materials you use. When it comes to elastic and channels in the joints, the trick is to keep the joint balanced. Make it so that the elastic is not forced to stretch or shrink too much when the joint is moved, or the doll will be kicky and will want to snap into certain positions. Imbalanced joint can be made on purpose, though, and are often used for thigh joints to help a doll stand more firmly. My best advice would be to read this forum. Well, perhaps not the entire thing unless you have a lot of free time on your hands, but look through some of the progress journals at the very least, as there are a LOT of talented people sharing their methods there and you can sometimes learn a bit from their experiments and failures as well. You can often get a good look at all the parts as they are being worked on and often see the inside of the joints as well as the outside. The are also external sources. Some users here have their own blogs where they show more detailed pictures and go into depth about their design and why they do things the way they do. For example; user kwmelvin has a great blog that contains a lot about joint design. He works in sculpting wax and some of his techniques are exclusive to that material, but the design itself is more or less the same, regardless. You can find it here: http://atelierpoupee.blogspot.se/ Some users also have a Deviantart page that is well worth checking out.
