I have not posted for so long. I'm sorry. Busy with other college work but I will be remaking the doll as a project in the summer - joining it onto the end of my college project...

long time - no post?

So. It’s been ages since I last posted, I apologise for that. College and my life got in the way of my hobby, well mostly. I’m actually ill at the moment which is the only reason I haven’t started the next doll yet… In the gap I have move out of my mother’s house and into a flat , which is fun and I’ve also adopted a little kitten, who I’ve called Suki and more frequently Suki-monster seeing as she decided to pull the hair of the last doll I made. Don’t fear though, I glued it back on and put her away safely… hopefully. And I finished my college course and will be started FD illustration and print soon :D I’m looking forward to it even thought I know its hard work.

Well I figure I should tell you about my next doll. i thought for a while to just make a normal human doll and make her some clothes and other stuff… but that would just be boring wouldn’t it? What I’m actually going to do is make a mermaid. Yurp a fully-jointed mermaid. Which is the other reason for not posting anything; I’ve been designing it and doing ALOT of sketches to figure it all out. Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures up of the sketches but I don’t have a camera or a scanner so you’ll have to bear with me while I borrow one of somebody.

In the meantime here my kitty!!!

Fished First Doll - Emily.

Because I made you wait so long for the pictures after I finished, I took loads. :D Hope you like. After I've sorted out my new flat and made sure the kitten wont try and eat my sculpey, I will be making a new doll. I'm not sure however whether or not I make another human doll or try out my idea on a mermaid doll.... I'll leave that to you. And of course there will be more, meny more tutorials now I've figured it out. (however her legs do need redoing ) 

Oh and I've also changed her name to Emily she insisted I'm afraid.

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Apologies

I promise you, I am not ignoring anyone, My camera is broken so I can't take anypictures of my finished doll, or what I have been using her for in college.

:D yeh I maneged to get her into my work sneeky.

Hopefully I can get the camera fixed by the end of the day and I will show you what she looks like. Watch this space! 

The End is nigh

Ok so have have kept it a secret (mainly cos I lost the camera) but my first doll is almost done... just need to attach her legs... Actually I need to remake one I broke...

I decided that I would make a 'Test' doll instead of going straight into a material i didn't know too well so she's is supersculpy still...

Back From Holiday

If your wondering why I didn't post for two weeks - I appoligise I was in Disney World enjoying the sunshine and the insperation the parks gave me :D and appologiese for not telling you befor my internet crashed! Any way I will post you some sneek peaks of my doll tomorow but for today I leave you with a wonderfull Disney artist who mixes pop art in to the caracters.

Jenny Chung.

This one is my favourite :D and this is her blog http://najennya.blogspot.com/ if your interested  

Life Drawings

 Because I have not been doing very much of my doll work being to engrosed in my college work I have decided to show you some my life drawing drawings :D  It is extreamly relevent for making a bjd because if you don't know the body proportions or anatomy ypur going to get some really interesting dolls. And probubly should be done before you start sculpting, but if your like me you do it as you go.

So the Origanal drawing...

 To this : It looked better without the tracing paper layer on but I was experimenting.

And two more I like.

I did about 12/13 drawings in 6 hours and then spent most of the next day sat in the canteen and libary drawing tiny pictures of people. I think I might have annoyed a few, but in an art college they should be used to it. I hope these few are usefull, if not then they're an insite into my college day.

And I have decided that instead of going straight into porcelain I will test the stringing system in pollimer clay first (and post how to do it!) seeing as this is just a hobby, I'm not to fussed really. :D



Not so much progress......

Rather unfortunetly over the last week There hasn't been any progress on my doll. My college work seems to be taking over and I am quite unhappy about this..... The few molds that are sanded are looking quite nice, and I didn't realize how bad some of the others were. Hopefully though, I can start working on them again and maybe I shall show you some more things from my sketchbook later this week.

 I will however leave you with this picture.... I have plans to make her into a doll, any thoughts?

Painted Dolls Head - Nahala.

This is the latest picture of the head. I panted on the features to see what she would look like and to see if she needed any more adjustments. I think maybe the eyebrows need bringing down a little. She's also missing her freckles at this point. I think her name will be Nahala.

Please tell me what you think.

And below are my very first attempts at molds, remember I told you that I made the first set the wrong size? Well these are the molds. You can see how the proportions have changed and I'm quite glad they have. :)

Please ignore the red lines - they were helping me to work on her, or don't if you like seeing that kind of thing.

Elbow Joing Tutorial.

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.