At first I thought an elbow joint would be quite difficult to do, I wanted her to move just like a human and to do this I sketched a few ways out and finally decided that she would need two ‘balls’ to move properly. When I sketched this out I had no knowledge of Bjd or how anybody else had made them and was quite surprised to see later that so many people had had the same idea, although it does make perfect sense when you think about it. So when I came to making it I broke it down into shapes, a bit like you would when drawing and it's actually the easiest mold to do and only takes 30 minutes. It’s also my smallest mold at an inch big. Which is a good thing to talk about. All the measurements I say are for my own doll that I am making into Porcelain so I’ve taking into account the shrinkage rate of Porcelain, which is about 10- 15% (and I went for the middle and calculated everything at 13%) If you’re just using Super sculpey (or any other material that doesn’t shrink) then you don’t have to worry about this. But if you’re making a bigger or smaller doll don’t forget to adjust the sizes. It may sound silly but I forgot to take into account the shrinkage rate of Porcelain the first time I tried to make the molds and only realized half way through so I had to start all over again. I have the pictures of those molds somewhere… Anyway, here is my way of making the mold.
So step 1. Roll out two balls these will go inside the arm molds. Mine are 1 cm big, for both the molds. Tip. Put them in the oven to harden them, this will mean they keep the perfect round shape. I didn’t and kind of wish I had. Then make a small square about 3mm thick and about 1cm in size. Sandwich the square carefully between the two ball joints. It should look something like this…
It remindes me of a divide sign...
2. Next roll out a thin strip of super sculpey. You want it to be about 1cm wide and a few mm thick. The length doesn’t matter because we’ll cut it to size. Place the strip of sculpey roughly in the middle of the 'divide sign sculpey' and press firmly. Now wrap it around till it’s halfway around the ball joints. Trim any excess off. It should look a bit like this.
Gently squeeze in the middle so it's the same width as the arms and trim any sculpey that isn't needed.
3.
You'll notice if you tried to move the joints, that it gets caught on the sculpey at the sides. Trim little triangles out of all 4 corners and try moving it again. You'll find it works. If it doesn’t', you haven’t trimmed enough. Also in the picture above the elbow doesn't quite meet up, gently smooth the sculpey till the elbow joint touches the arm joints. If you want the arm to move like a humans arm, cheek that there is enough space between the two joints (the square) If not gently pull the balls away from the middle and add more sculpey if needed. A humans arm doesn’t lay completely flat so neither should your dolls.
4.This is the time to smooth everything out and make sure all the sculpey is firmly together. You also want to cheek that the centre of the ball joints, where the screw will go, is visible. I indented my sculpey just to make sure. It should start to look like the finished thing. To finish the Elbow gently but firmly pinch the back of the sculpey to make two indents. It should now look finished... And like this...
There we are. I hope I explained that well and its usefull to you. You can also use the same technique for the knee jonts, you just have to make it bigger. And as I've said this is just my way of doing it and yours does not have to be the same.
And just to keep you updated I have changed the nose and the lips of my doll, she looks much more oriental now and I will post some more pictures after she has been baked.
