Tiny nameless lady in progress

Project has been revived! New posts from post #18 and on.

Hello everyone.
This is my first post here. I've been lurking for a couple of days and I love to look att all wonderful dolls. So I'd like to show off my own current project.

This is a little lady I've been working on, on and off for quite some time now. She is about 23 cm tall and I sculpt her in super sculpey with wooden balls for the joints.

The pictures were taken last time I stung her and since I've done some work on the hip joints and I have made her a new pair of (slightly larger) hands. I have also been playing around with other heads, so hopefully I will update here soon with new pictures.



Thank you for looking. Critique is welcome.

 

I put her back together again today and here is the result.




I am fairly happy with the posing and the overall look and proportions.
I am not happy with the look of the knee joints, but they work pretty well, so I'm not sure how to change them. I think I'm kind of stuck on that.
The feet will probably be redone. They are left over from another project and are just placeholders.

The new thighs work well and she can stand all right in spite of the light elastic tension she has here.

 

Thank you both very much!
The image where she stands up has a problem with the perspective. I did not trust her enough to stand on her own to move out of reach with the camera. The other pictures show the hand scale better. Especially the one where she is touching her head. I think the hand size is good compared to the head.

Still, the head is disproportionally large for the body (compared to an adult human) and that is on purpose, so... Hmmm... I'll have to think on that one.
Dolls hands are traditionally made very small too, so most people are used to that look. I guess I could simply make a couple of pairs in different sizes and simply play with them until I find something I like. If nothing else it would probably be good practice and I can always use that.

Knees are hard, aren’t they? These have decent stability and mobility, but look like... eh well... not very good. But I'm terrified that if I start reshape them I will never get them to work again. Which is kind of silly, if I've done it once I should be able to do it again, right?
I have looked at all sorts of joints on other modern ball jointed dolls, on their antique counterparts, on marionettes and pretty much everything else I can think of, but this type seem to be the best one for this project. It's the execution that lacks.
I want to be able to cast the doll myself when the time comes as well, so that limits what I can do slightly.

Anyway, thank you for your input. I will certainly take it into consideration.

 

Test stringing again today.

The knees look better but have lost some mobility, so there is a lot of work left to do on those.
She's got new feet and a new pair of temporary hands and I have corrected a minor infinity of asymmetry issues and, I’m sure, I have about as many still to do.
But this is how she looks right now.

Again, any kind of critique or comments is welcome.

 

Thank you!

You are probably right about the thighs. I might have added a few millimeters when I made the new hips. Or I messed up with the knee, somehow. With a doll this small that's really all it takes. I didn't see it myself, but now that you've pointed it out I think you are right.
*adds it to the list of things to do*

I can't tell you how valuable it is to have other people who understand dolls comment on this. So, thank you, everyone here.
I think I love this forum! =)

 

I'm not sure I understand how you mean. Adding material very rarely give additional mobility, it's usually the other way around.
Do you mean adding to the front of the leg? That won’t affect mobility at all, but doing so at the front of the knee would give a larger gap towards the joint part when the knee is bent. The only way that might work is if I moved the channels forward as well and thinned out the sockets from the inside towards the front. I don't think it would do a lot of difference for range of motion, though, because it would basically be the same joint just slightly further to the front.
But I may have misunderstood.
The main reason the knee has less mobility compared to before is that I shortened the knee part to give it a nicer line when bent and that makes the back of the leg parts hit each other much sooner than before when bending. Some creative sculpting may help, there, though. Still working on that. I don't want the legs to just be straight tubes either, so I try to find a good balance between looks and function.

A more pronounced knee bump sounds like a good thing for aesthetic reasons, though.

 

English is not my first language, so any misunderstandings are likely my fault. But I think I understand you now. Thank you for clarifying.

What you suggest may very well give a nicer shape, but I still don't understand how you mean it would give a larger range of motion.

 

Well. I have done some more work on the knees and I think they are more or less as good as I can make them at my current skill.

The line is better and she stands better than ever. The range of motion is smaller than it was from the beginning, but it's not too bad.

I am considering starting to cast at least some of the parts soon. It might be a bit premature, but I happen to have some silicone and some resin left over from other projects, that needs to be used before it gets too old anyway. So it won't really cost me more than my time if it doesn't work out. And it would be nice to have something to play around with that can take tighter elastic.

What do you guys think?

 

Small uppdate.
Priming, sanding, priming, sanding...

She stands better than ever. =)

 

Thank you both!

 

Many years have passed since the lats post in this thread as well as many other projects. This little lady never did get finished, or cast.
A lot has happened since I started this project. Back then I worked in a corner of the kitchen in a tiny apartment, with very limited space, funds and experience.
Now I have a proper work room, a lot more experience and even if money is still very much a limited resource, Im not doing too bad.
Experience-wise I have finished and home cast a MSD-sized body and finished and had professionally cast a MSD-sized head. I have learned a lot from those projects. One thing I learned is that smaller pieces are a LOT easier to get good results on when casting without the proper equipment.
So I dug this old project back out and have worked on her a bit on and off for the last couple of months.

Her body has had no major changes, just tweeks and refinement.
I have abandoned her old head and made her two new ones.

Here is some of the progress shots of a head I call Milly:

Here is a picture of the Milly head on the body as it looks now:


And finally, here is the body wearing the other head I made. I call her Betty.

 

Now I have better pictures of the heads.

Meet Betty:


And Milly:


Today I started making the molds for the body!

 

Well, she's not finished yet and the pandemic is not going to go on forever! And then you are welcome to knit for her to your heart's content. And thanks!
(For context, if anyone wonders, JennyM is my mom and a certain virus is currently keeping us from meeting and doing doll stuff IRL.)

In other news:
The molds for the body are done and the molds for the head is on the worktable right now. This means I could potentially cast the first body as soon as I work up the courage to do it. I'm in this strange limbo, when the molds are done, but I won't know if they turned out well until I've done the first cast. And right now I almost don't want to find out.
So I think I'll wait until the molds for the heads are done and can be cast at the same time.
But then again, depending on how things go, that could be as soon as tomorrow, at least for one of the heads.

 

So, the first cast has been done and over all it has been a success.
A few parts came out absolutely perfect! As in; not a single flaw, despite the lack of professional equipment. Many parts came out more in the "good enough" category. The head came out with the face perfect, but with a few tiny bubbles along the inner edge of the rim, so out of sight when the back part of the head is on. Good enough to give a basic face up and play around with.
With that said, though, there are a few parts that need some work.

Her right hand does not want to make a complete cast in the current mold so that one has to be remade. Some other parts can be cast well in the current molds, but with a few more workarounds than I'd like, so I may make new molds for those as well.

I'm absolutely in love with this size of doll right now. The parts are small enough that a failed cast or bad mold is not nearly as big a deal as it was with Basil.

This is the parts straight out of the mold and assembled.


The mold for the Milly head is not done yet.

 

No pictures right now, just an update.

The Milly head came out great!

The hands still needs work. The left hand came out fine in the original mold, but not the right. The first mold was a simple one-piece mold and the separated fingers of the right hand just wouldn't fill up properly. I made a new mold, a more elaborate two-part mold that filled from the bottom up and this worked for the fingres, but the more prominet parting line and the fact that I now had a line to clean up all around the hands instead of just where really neccesary made the final product less than satisfactory.
So, at least until I come up with a better idea, I've decided to simply sculpt a new right hand in a position that is similar to the left hands and hopefully that will make the one-part mold a viable option again.

I am also planning on making a new set of molds for all four leg parts. The old molds traps air in a few places. It can be worked around by angeling the mold while pouring, but it's a bit tedious and gets messy very easily, so I will remake the molds with the angle in the mold itself.

Right now the waether here is very hot and humid, though, so casting may have to wait.

 

Thank you very much. I have both heating and a dehumidifier in my workroom, but there is only so much it can do.

Thank you! I'm very happy to be working on her agein. It's like getting back with an old friend.

 

The new hand is coming along nicely. It still need some finishing work (I'm in the endless priming-sanding-priming-sanding-cycle) before it's ready to be cast, but I'm getting there.
Old version of the right hand (pictured on the left):


New version of the right hand (pictured on the right this time, because taking consistent pictures is not what I do best):

 

Thank you! I think the new hand will cast fine. And I can always get more creative with extra hands later. For now, I will settle for a good basic pair that I can cast nicely.

 

So, the new hand works as intended and while I still need to pay attention while casting them (or else I get air bubbles in the fingertips) they cast well enough often enough to be worth it.
Some parts still cast consitently better than others (head, feet and kneejoints are almost always good) but I'm reaching a level where I may call it good enough.
For now, the dolls are simply for me to play with and a handfull will probably be gifted to friends and such, but other than that, I think I need to move on.
I will still make additions and optional parts for this doll, but I may start new threads for those as they are mostly separate projects.

So, to end this for now, here is a picture of the Milly head, painted and wigged.
Thanks to every one who have left valuable input and have shown an interest in this doll, both at The Joint and here.

 

I use resin and silicone from a Swedish company named Kinn. I believe their supplier is in france, but I'm not sure what the name of the maker is, the packaging is very generic, allthough the name "Esprit Composite" is on some of the packaging.
Here is the specific resin, pigments and silicone I used for this doll:
Gjuta plast med flytande plast
Färg till Polyuretanharts 100 ml hos kinn.
RTV-Silikon

As for how I get it to work I'd say it's a combination of experience and using almost every workaronud it the book. The main ones are to plan the size and volume of the pieces is such a way as to maximize the probability of a good cast and for the casting itself is mostly a case of keeping a very close eye on room temperature and humidity. Mold design is also a big factor.
And I've learned to never neglect the basics. Always test materials. Pay close attention while mixing and pouring. Take notes when needed. Accept that some things are beyond my current ability.

Thank you very much for your kind words! It's a joy to have these little ladies done. I'm working on getting them ready for their pictures to the finished doll gallery.