(way more than) 30 day tiny? - new faceplate

It's been forever since I had time to sculpt...

I'm trying to challenge myself to sculpt every day and sculpt a tiny BJD. My concept is to make a doll for a doll... so if she comes out, I will be casting her in resin to give to one of my dolls. Her finished size will be about 7.5" tall, making her about 1/3 scale to a 1/3 doll.

I did a little prep work on her before January, but mostly started in earnest yesterday. :dead

Here is Day 1:



I'm going to do a faceplate system because otherwise I think it would be too difficult to position her eyes...

Here is Day 2, today!

 

I'm sorry, I should have said in the OP - it's nothing exciting, it's just natural-colored Apoxie Sculpt. Apoxie is old news at this point! I'm making styrofoam armatures, then removing them and cleaning up the insides with a dremel and xacto knife after the Apoxie hardens.

Apoxie is pretty economical, really... I buy the 5 pound tubs for around $40 and they really last. Unlike jeweler's wax, though, you definitely need an armature and it's not as easy to work once it hardens. However, I have strong man-hands, so I like things that I can't crush or crumble as easily... and Apoxie is great because it can really be tooled and sanded.

 

I mix with gloves, but I don't wear them to sculpt... I've been fine thus far. Some people have sensitivity to it (like patl), but I'm fine. It's non-toxic.

 

Today's progress:

I cleaned up the back of the faceplate, then stuffed the head full of Blue Tac and formed an armature with it. I schlicked the back of the faceplate with petroleum jelly (well, okay, some nasty lip gloss goo because I didn't have any Vaseline), then sculpted over it with Apoxie.




After I pull it apart, I need to fill in the back of the forehead, then I can start making the forehead more... forehead shaped. Right now it's very vertical, rather square at the top. I'll also make the back of the head fit more normally... should be fun, right? Neck is also too long.




I started roughing in one of the thighs because I had mixed too much Apoxie, then I rolled out the tubes for the arms. Last, I added a bit to her lower lip to even it out.



After I get the pieces of the head worked out, I'll smooth them most of the way, then add the ears to the faceplate. Just little human ones.

My roommate put her hand in this pic for me... I think it looks like my sculpt's hand is in about the same proportion to the CP hand as the CP hand is to my friend's hand.

 

aneemal - it starts out soft like bread dough (too soft, really, for sculpting but great for smearing on to fill cracks) and sets up to leather-hard in about an hour and a half, fully cured and machinable in around 24 hours. It has other stages, but I try to leave it alone in the middle.

sand - I don't know why, but having heads on sticks sitting int he brush cup is surprisingly normal around here.

I got home late last night (long day at work :dead), so I didn't do much... didn't take any pics, but I will tonight...

All I did was pull the BluTac out of the back of the head (didn't come out as cleanly as I'd have liked - should have used kneaded eraser), then filled it in a bit and formed the area where the magnet will sit. The shell of the headback was actually very thin!

I'm not sure how much I want to take the back of the head down... as it is now, the head fits puki wigs rather well. I am trying to be mindful of making the doll fit things that are mass produced - the plan is that she'll wear puki-sized wigs and Volks 2cm Dollfie-sized shoes. I don't want to end up with a doll I can't dress! So I think I'll need to see how I can shape the cranium so that it doesn't look weird bald, but can still wear standard-sized wigs.

Oh, adventure! :

patl - Tonight I want to form the other thigh and start doing the ball at the top of the one I roughed in already. I don't want to do the hip piece until I have thighs made. I might also start burring out the shoulder sockets, but I am wondering if I should rough in the arms first. I'm just not sure the best way to go about making the joints. It seems better to make the balls first, then use them to form the sockets... but I don't know if it's actually best.

 

Headback...



Roughed in the other thigh:


The part of my brain that makes symmetry happen wasn't really working tonight... the new thigh is way off! I'll have to fix it up tomorrow. Started the ball at the top of the other thigh, but will need to clean it up a bunch tomorrow. It isn't very round!

Also decided to make the lower torso piece taller for proportion reasons...

 

Tired today.... just worked on existing pieces rather than attempting to move forward. Posting here because it keeps me accountable.

Tinydoll had some shaping tonight… I took down the back of her head a bit and defined her neckhole… and shaped her thighs and thigh-ball. I added the ball to the other thigh, but it smooshed a bit and I didn’t really feel like fixing it. It’s easier to just carve it back and add on more. I also added to the inside of the faceplate so I can shave back the forehead tomorrow….


Tiny sculpts are so much more instant gratification than big sculpts…






The lower torso piece looks so weird... it's nothing like what it will look like once I put the hip sockets on. The hips will be much broader.

 

DeaDLiKe - You should sculpt one! Ours could be friends.

sand3 - I am hoping to get the thighs evened out so that I can shape the hips out.... I'd like to see how they go too! I'd really like to get all the pieces roughed in by mid-next week so I can spend the rest of the month cleaning everything up and making the joints work well.


Reduced the forehead, shaped the cranium more… I think I’m okay with the shape of the head now, so I will start cleaning it up inside and start tidying up the features and sanding a bit. Then I can really make the front and back meet perfectly… then I will add EARS!
I worked on her little hand… and it was going well, then I broke two of her fingers. They’re just so damn small. T_T I glued one back on and will resculpt the other afresh tomorrow. (Resculpting the index finger on that hand went much better than cleaning it up would have).

I evened out her lower lip too.
Also shortened the neck… it’s a good length now…. evened one side of the trapezius…
I added a bit to the one weird-shaped thigh… both are a bit thunderriffic now… need to slim those suckers down. Of course, it’s also hard to look at it because the hip piece isn’t even close to shaped right. I want to get the thighs evened out this week.

 

I mostly refined the thigh... viewer's left. I marked the other, but didn't actually get to shaping. I like the left thigh so far. It's very shapely.


It also occurs to me that I haven't had any pics that just show the drawing. I drew it at work... and then used the photocopier to make a few copies. This copy I marked the shapes of the armatures, though I didn't follow it as closely as I'd planned. I seem to have mislaid the ones that had notes about the stringing channels and other things. Already she's a bit different... as you can see by the drawing, I'm making her torso piece longer, which will put her more toward 7.25-7.5" tall... I think it suits her to be longer. When I was looking at the pieces sitting on the drawing, I realized that it would look a bit squat with the torso as short as I drew it.



Didn't really draw much in the face... I figured that I can't really plan how the face is going to come out, so why stress? She'll look how she looks, I guess.


She's a little like a Dollfie Dream in the hips... but I loooove the lines of the DD.

 

LOL, Maggs... I'd say this doll is pretty much 99% determination and 1% apoxie. I want so badly to get all the pieces roughed in by Wednesday or Thursday so I can really focus the next couple weeks on jointing and surface finishing.

I think that tomorrow I can do the hip sockets… yay. Today I thinned the pointy part of her lower torso piece… the legs aren’t positioned right; they’re too high and the pointed part will end up being closer to the top of the socket. It works in my head, I’ll see tomorrow if it works on the doll.
I also roughed in the other calf and lengthened the one I started yesterday. They look like crap. I will need to pull out my big book o’ anatomy and make sure I get the muscles right. I have a hard time with calves, even in 2d. 3d will be a bitch.
Also started on the upper arms. Started = stuck some Apoxie onto the top to harden where the shoulder joints will be. They’re shaped totally wrong, but when this sets up I can go in and fix it. I am trying to keep the openings open.

When I laid her out, she seemed kinda big… so I put a Volks 1/6 dollfie next to her to see.
She’s small, guess I am just losing track of scale. -_-;

I’d planned to make the feet the size of the Volks 1/6th smaller feet… but I don’t know if I like it. I tend to prefer bigger hands and feet (this is noticeable in my drawings too, I guess)… so I may make them between the big and small Volks foot size… she should still be able to wear Volks 1/6th shoes.
Was working on the hands and decided to break off a few more of the fingers and redo them. Faaaaaat thuuuuumb. T_T

Doofy pics. I was checking scale to see if it still looked like it was BJD size to a BJD.
Her head with SDF Karis….

Her head in CP girl hand, Karis head in my hand. (Yes, taking this pic was awkward.)

I think the scale is good!

 

DeaDliKe, do you have a thread for your 1/3 that I just missed? You should do a tiny... it's superfun. We could trade casts!

aneemal - thanks for the good wishes. It helps to keep going.

Tinydoll didn’t get much attention today. I feel like I’m coming down with something. -_-;


I shaped one of her calves a bit and started to put the ball on top. Had to take some away and then add on a bit higher on the calf. Calves are freaking hard. Also added a bit to the shoulder ball… so tomorrow I can start working on the upper arms, maybe…







I also realized that I had nothing to actually attach the ears to on the faceplate…. so I carved out little notches from the backpiece and added on nubs to the faceplate… after that sets, I can sculpt ears onto the nubs. I’m going to sand the face though before I add the ears… I think it’ll make adding the ears earlier if the head is fairly finished first. Yay. This basically means I’m not touching the head for a few days…. no sanding until I have all the pieces roughed in.


I started to make the hip sockets. If you'll excuse my language, it looks like shit. But the sockets are shaped and will fit well, so once I shave back the extra it should work. Tomorrow’s pictures will be better. Except that I also need to sculpt her butt… and I am really bad at butts. Like, seriously embarrassingly bad.





Tomorrow will be better. ^_^;; I think I'll be spending most of my sculpting time tomorrow chopping back all that goo on the hip piece and getting it hip shaped. I envy the people who can just sculpt and make the shape on the first try. I find that I tend to rough it in, then carve it back, then add on a bit more to shape.... which means that I always have a "this looks like crap" phrase for every single piece.

 

I haven't had much time the last few days because I am working a lot on painting/modding commissions... so there hasn't been much progress at all. And I've been working late. Blagh!

Well... it's better than the apoxie diaper I did on Sunday night... but....



I cut down the hips and the sides of the hip piece a lot... then realized it was way too skinny... and crooked to boot. so I chopped off the top part and started to redo it.

Except that I did it without the blueprint or the thighs near me, so it's totally wrong. I think now it's too long... and definitely just not shaped right in the waist/chunky tummy and hip area. Tonight I'll try to get that under control. (And fill in the divot in the ribcage where the apoxy squished when I put the ribcage on.) Lesson learned - use the blueprint!

Aside from the hips, tonight I probably won't get much done because I have to work on commissions again. :dead

 

Nothing worked tonight for painting. Starting over on some… ._.


Tinydoll just had subtractive work done.... I'm having one of those nights where the idea of getting my hands dirty makes me edgy.


I cut her hips back down… I like the shape now, though I need to make her crotch longer. Not hugely longer, just a few millimeters. More a shape thing though. Debating on making her anatomically correct. It’s just one small difference, really….



She has a very flat ass at present… I’ll fix that soon.

It’s hard to get the pieces to stay without stringing, but her lower hip piece doesn’t have any stringing channels yet. Careful balancing… but her one leg rolled a bit out of socket for the pic.


I keep thinking that she’s too big. I put Imp (YoSD Neon) next to her tonight and confirmed that no, she’s not too big. I think she’s a good scale.

 

Frozen - LOL, that assumes I can sculpt a peach! Sculpting is really very hard for me. I'm probably the most unnatural sculptor on the planet. Thanks for the encouragement.

Maggs - Thank you! I did the faceplate system specifically because the head is so small. I had been thinking about the Naripon tinies and how hard it is to maneuver inside their heads to position the eyes. The pukipukis have similar head sizes, I think.... but the faceplate makes it really easy to position the eyes inside the head.

 

Miss Pyg - Thanks! I'm trying to kinda go steadily like the sculpting equivalent of NaNoWriMo... we'll see if it works! All forward progress!

aneemal - I haven't worked on her face in a few days... though I haven't really taken many pics of her head at all lately.

Lengthened her crotch and made her anatomically correct.
Generally shaped her lower tummy…
Started on her forearms. One of the little balls I made broke, so I had to remake it… and could only rough in one forearm.
Shaped her calf a bit more and started making the ball fit into the joint. Need to burr out the inside of the knee because it’s not shaped right in there.
Started on the feet… in a weird way. I sculpted the bottoms of the feet… and then tomorrow i can peel them off of the waxed paper and flip them over to sculpt the tops! Brilliant, right? Remains to be seen… -_-;;;;

I think I can rough in her forearms and the tops of her feet tomorrow night… so I’m on track! As of tomorrow night, I’ll have rough shapes of all of the pieces!

 

I don’t like big butts, and I cannot lie….


That said, I kind of think that the big butt sorts of suits her… so I may leave it large.


I didn’t spend much time on her tonight because I was making the little blurb video for YouTube for a Haiti fundraiser thing…. but I still roughed in the remaining pieces. I also burred out her shoulder sockets. All of her parts exist! Yay! The next two weeks are for jointing and surface work.


I think that tomorrow night I will take pictures of all of her pieces laid out… and ask critique. O_O

 

I've been working late a lot lately and had a house guest over the weekend... so I haven't sculpted much at all in a few days.

Here are the pics from last night, Day 19.




I'm working on making the joints and sockets work together. So far the shoulders fit into the (new) shoulder sockets and the joints on the viewer's right fit together (though not well). I'll be working more on making them joints cleaner and better fitting.... and I'll probably do a test stringing at some point in the next few days. I need to find my elastic.

Her wig and eyes arrived on Monday... and both are too large. Looks like she'll need 4mm eyes! I found a bunch of places that sell them, though, so it's okay.... for the wigs, I don't know exactly what to do. I may try bulking up her cranium, but I like her head size. I was very disappointed. AND I cracked her eyelid when I was testing the eyes. :dead

Right now I'm trying to decide if I intend to sell casts or not. If I do, I'll definitely junk cast my pieces, which would mean that the final pieces would fit together better and I could go further toward perfecting the surface. If I do that, I may look into having the "real" casts done professionally so that the quality will be better. I don't know though. I need to get further on her before I can decide. I won't sell something that I can't make perfect.

Anyway, tonight I hope to even out her calves and forearms, neither of which have had all too much attention yet.

 

Tami - I haven't had dolls cast professionally before and I am still not sure if I'll do it.... It seems easier to just cast pieces myself, but I know the quality would be better if I had someone else do it. That said... I dunno if I could meet a minimum order. I guess I'll see as I go!

Jphobia - I just had my camera on a different setting... the apoxy is still the same nasty green-gray.

 

Her arms are shaped better now, so her forearms are no longer tubes of uniform thickness. Yaaaaay. I've been making small improvements to the joints and I'll need to add on to the knee joints... close up the viewer's left side of the hip joint so that the ball sits nicely.

Debating whether or not her arms are too long.


My creative output has been at a low this week... it's been a really hard week for me. Not looking for sympathy, really, more like giving excuses.


I don't think I'm going to try for getting her cast professionally.... there is a minimum order, and I don't know if I could meet it without submitting her for on-topic status on DoA. Because I'm the owner of DoA, even if the doll is legitimately ruled on-topic, people will still be nasty and say it's politics and favoritism and all that. I don't know if I feel like getting into that because when it comes down to it, I'm making this doll for myself and don't want her to be tainted by other people's drama.



I am consistently surprised by the nastiness in the doll hobby... it makes me sad.

 

Some miscellaneous pics from last night....


'

I think her knees are fitting better now, though they're still not really what I would consider "great." I am fleshing out her calves a bit because they're currently shaped a bit more like forearms... I think it's because the backs got flattened before the apoxie cured. I also like really curvy legs... so I want her to be very curvy from ribs to ankles.

I did shorten her forearms on the suggestions I got here... they are articially long right now because of her mooshy wrist sockets. I also added the balljoints for her ankles. She has no sockets for the ankles yet, but I think I will still test-string her tonight to see how she is proportioned when she has some tension in her. I think it will be easier to see if she is lopsided.

I'm definitely going to cast her on my own, I just don't know if I feel like taking it further. I'm not sure if I'll sell casts or not... it will depend on her finished quality, I can't really decide until I get there! But I'd like to buy a pressure pot, and selling a doll or two would really go a long way toward funding it. :dead I'll think about professional casting later... there are a few places that offer it. I don't want to go with Bobobie, though. TBH, I'm a little nervous about getting cast anywhere in China because I've heard so many stories about molds getting stolen or pirated copies being made from junk pieces that weren't disposed of properly.

After I finish her, I think I'm going to take a break from sculpting dolls and do some figurine-type cartoony sculpting. I was thinking last night that there's a character from an online comic that I follow that would be really fun to sculpt as practice.

 

Bah. I'd really hoped to test string yesterday and take some pictures... but I found that the pieces were too thin, so I was in danger of breaking them with the stringing tension. (I did actually break one of the thighs a bit at the edge of the socket... which was when I gave up. Super gluuuue. It's not worth breaking the master!)

This means that I need to do a junk cast before I can test out her stringing and posing. :dead Otherwise I won't be able to really work with her joints and make her pose well.

I know some people really love molding and casting... but I hate it. ;_;

I'm debating on what sort of materials I want to use for my junk molds. I need something with very, very little shrinkage, so I am considering either a platinum cure silicone (expensive), Moldmax 10 or Moldmax X-something (medium cost), or a urethane rubber (cheap but frustrating).

I'm going to cast with Task 3, which is low viscosity (don't need pressure pot or vaccuuming to get decent casts if the mold is made correctly), low shrinkage, and very hard. I think the final doll will be cast in Task 3 as well... so this is sort of a dry run to see if I like it.

Sorry for the lack of pics... there's just nothing new to show!

I will be filling in some of the pieces and casting them solid... then drilling out the junk cast so that the stringing cannels are straight and centered. Unfortunately, if you look at some of the pieces, the stringing channel is not centered. (Pretty much everything smaller than the thigh pieces will get filled and drilled).

I'll post pics as I go... though the rest of this week (and probably part of next week) will be spent surfacing these pieces and getting them shaped as perfectly as possible before junk molding... I can't afford to order silicone and resin until payday on Friday anyway!

(Pics again soon, sorry for the text wall. Part of it is just me thinking aloud and hoping more experienced people will tell me what to do!)

 

Pat - She is thin enough that none of her pieces are thicker-walled than 1/2" so I hope Task 3 works! The only piece that is in any danger is her hip piece because of her meaty backside. I'm going to be going in and hollowing that out a bit more with my Dremel, though... so we'll see how it goes. I didn't order my silicone yet, but will soon. I'm really behind on working on her. I've been working on painting commissions a lot and I also just haven't had much get-up-and-go in me for the last week or two. Part of it is the season blahs, I'm sure!

aneemal - I just hate the feeling of silicone.... to the point where even looking at it makes me feel like I've already gotten it on myself. Is that crazy? Just that thick, heavy, sticky, non-water soluble goooooo. It grosses me out. I did buy my Klean Klay, though, so I will start claying in my pieces as I complete them.

Maggs - Thanks! I am frustrated with her though because while I feel like she's improving every day, I also see flaws that I don't feel skilled enough to fix. I've also started to lose interest in her, even as I work on her I am thinking ahead to my next project. I am making myself finish her though. I remember Twigling telling me that she was "already over" one of her sculpts by the time she was finishing up the cleanup, and I think I understand now how she feels.

Thriith - I totally recommend a tiny BJD. It's so much easier than doing a big doll. (I've started and restarted at least three 60cm boys over the last few years).


I’ve started working on her surfaces with some sandpaper and gentle shaving. I am working on evening out left and right and making things fit better. I filled in her hip sockets a bit (which is why they look mushy)… that means that I’ll be able to shave down the sides of her hips a bit more for a better line as well. I’ve got a lot done on the surface and balance of her thighs. And one forearm. I worked for a bit on her little hands too…. and I sanded her head so that the faceplate and headback are about flush.

I added a bit to her left (viewer’s right) breast to try to even out the shape… I think after I fix the outside of that breast, they’ll be even. The calves and upper arms still look like crap, but I’ll get to them as well.

I am still waiting on Mr. Almighty Clips to arrive…. they’ll REALLY help with priming.

(I love the Gunze Sanyo “Mr.” line of products. Mr. Almighty Clips is my new favorite name. Before it was Mr. Just One Push and Mr. Empty Bottle. Mr. Almighty Clips is a heavy-ish base with vertical arms with little clips at the ends... it's for holding Gundam pieces while you paint them so you don't muss your paint, but I was planning to use it to keep my pieces upright while I prime.)






A friend had been telling me that she thought Inkling was around the size of a Roxydoll Lucy. I saw a Roxydoll Lucy this weekend… and I think she's right. However, Inkling is much bulkier and more mature.... and Lucy's body drives me crazy because the limbs are really stick-like and unstable. The legs just curl right up when you try to make her stand. But the height is similar. I’d sort of like to get a Lucy head when I finish and do a hybrid because Lucy’s face is much cuter than Inkling's.

 

Maggs - When I take long breaks, I usually find that I don't finish. I have a few projects that may never get finished because I have been away from them too long. Every time I spend time away from a project, I come and I see new flaws... and then I start fixing them.... and then I get annoyed and I go away... and then I come back and see new flaws.... and then I start fixing them....

Miss Pygmalion - Thanks!

sand - lol... I'm not sure how those hand poses ended up that way, I just hope they cast well. If it's a conspiracy, then it's with Inkling and the world, and I am being totally excluded. Wonder when she'll let me sit at the cool kids table?

I had a splitting headache last night, so I just lazed around and did some sanding on the torso pieces.




I think this is as far as I'm going to go toward sanding the face until I have the junk cast. Her head is very delicate and tiny, so I am worried that I will damage or break it.