Hello everyone!! It's been a LOONG break for me but I am back While I was gone, I produced 5 new limited edition vinyl dolls and one new resin, wrote a book on sculpting (will be published before the end of the year) and in general stayed away from BJDs. Hey, when other types of dolls is that put food on the table, you can't focus on what YOU find fun lol I pulled out "Penny" from my box and remembered how I was READY to put her through to production two years ago... So I thought, I had a ready doll!! I re-strung her to check her, and discovered I no longer cared for the limbs Since I am self-taught and I sculpt directly in polymer clay, I find it hard to get the joints looking right. Part of the problem for me is scale. My dolls are very very small. I am now dipping my toes into sculpting a 12" BJD toddler which should provide me with more control over joints... but I LOVE my teenies!!! The joints that are giving me a run for my money, are the knee joints. I have gotten the shoulder and elbow and wrists to a place where I really like them. I am having huge issues with the knees ;( I do not want to go the "double joint" route. Yes it poses great but I aim for realism and to me it looks unnatural and ugly At least for the dolls I create (chubby toddlers, babies and young kids). Plus when the whole doll is 5" tall and has short limbs, there is no room for a huge double joint! I really like the classic ball and cup type of joint but when the knee bends, you can see the joint. How can I make them more invisible? Plus when I sculpt the legs, obviously they are symmetrical, then after I bake them and seperate the pieces to do the joints, I ended up with a leg much longer than the other... and I do not want to do one arm, one leg that could be either a left or a right. I like the bowed legs babies have so I must make two and they must be equal so she can stand. Any advise? Here is some of my recent work.... View attachment 228 View attachment 229 View attachment 230 The last one is Penny, the one I was going to produce in resin. I have no issues with form or detail or anatomy... but joints? Throw me in for a loop Any advice is welcome!! Thank you so much! Tina
I think at least some of the joint visibility on your dolls is using too thick a cup in comparison to the ball size. By having proportionally large edges around the ball, as soon as the joint begins to flex, you see the edges when the joint flexes and it becomes much more obvious. Try increasing your ball size and making the walls of the cup a little bit thinner (if you can with the material). But whatever you do, you're gonna see the joints - part of the beauty of ball-jointed dolls is their joints, and being able to see how they articulate as they move. Regarding the other issue, the legs going wonky... I don't know how you work, but it sounds like a matter of precision. I have a set of electronic calipers that can measure to a 10th of a centimeter, and they really help with getting things just so (and also training my eye so I can tell when things are off before I even pick up the calipers). Measure everything all around repeatedly and mark your cuts carefully, and then put in the joints just as carefully and precisely. It may still not be absolutely perfect, but, well, people aren't exactly symmetrical either.
