A Ball Jointed Doll (BJD): My way... Prt 1

As promised ladies (and gentlemen), here is how I achieved my BJD. As of right now, the sculpting and painting is done, but I have (to be brutally honest,) lost interest in the project, and I may or may not have started working on a piece for a very dear friend of mine's daughter.

Anyway, moving along.

So this is what my BJD looks like. As you can see she is still very naked and very bald, but for the time being that is how she will stay, I'm afraid.

Let's get started, shall we?

In this project I worked a little differently than in any of the other pieces that I have done. Usually I will start with the head/face, and then make a body for that particular size head. I have seen that some other artists use a head mold or the like to make all of their dolls the same size, but I don't really like the idea...

(Here is the pattern that I used and will refer to often as I take you through the process that I followed.)

• For this project I used my clay (obviously!), Sculpey's Living Doll in this case as well as all my usual sculpting tools.
• My Genesis Heat Set paints (I am SO in love with these paints and, although they were really expensive, I think that they were well worth it and some of the best paints I have come across), and an embossing gun.
• A bunch of beads, roughly the right size for the hips, knees, elbows and wrists. (Wooden beads would be the best, I, however, couldn't seem to find any.)
• I also used some jewellery making pins, with and without the little loops in the end.
• And finally, the thing that brings it all together, the elastic.

I started this project by thinking about the body first, as that would be the most challenging. This is the first time ever that I have even attempted this type of project, so I was feeling a little out of my depth at the beginning.

I used a lot of reference photos of other BJDs that I found and liked on the Internet. 

I then tired to figure out just how big I wanted her to be and drew a rough sketch to help me keep it all in proportion as I go.

The next thing I did was make some "bones" for her. I used these basically as a rough guide for when I was sculpting the individual pieces. Another great benefit of these "bones" is that they are already hollow (the upper body was done on the handle of my craft knife, and the others on two different sized paintbrushes (larger for the legs), this will later be where the elastic threads through.

I started with the lower part of the body, as it is the biggest past of this doll.

I took my "bone" piece from earlier and shaved off the front and the back of it, making it flat. It might be a good idea to make these sides of it flat before you bake the bone, but like I said, it's my first try.

Here I am just making sure that the bone is the right size and that it fits within my sketch.

Unfortunately I got so caught up in the process of adding clay and sculpting this piece that I completely forgot to take some photos (sorry!). Instead you will just have to try and follow my explanation, so here goes: I wrapped the bone in some clay and then added a second layer lower down for the hips and butt. At this point you will want to add and position the beads for the hips/thighs. It's a good idea to add some baby powder or cornstarch or something to these beads so that they don't stick later on after the body has been baked.

After all the smoothing has been done and the beads places (they only need to go into the clay about half way, any further and you won't be able to get them out or the legs in!), it is a simple matter of refining the shape and adding some finer details like the belly button and the divot for the spine etc.

And that is all there is to this piece. Time to bake.

On to the upper torso/breast. (Again very few WIP photos, sorry!) 

I started out with a bone piece, much like the first, only this one was smaller and square. 

I held this onto the top of my now baked and cooled first body part and wrapped it in clay to ensure that I had the right shape and that the two would fit together really well.

Now I really struggled with this part so I ended up baking the breast and neck at this point and adding the finer details, like the boobs and the collar bones etc. afterwards. 

Here I have added some more details to the baked square by adding more clay. Don't forget to add the beads for the shoulders! Again I would recommend some baby powder to prevent sticking...

Here is a pic of all the different bead sizes that i used. The largest is obviously for the hips, followed by the shoulders and knees, next the elbows and ankles, and finally, the wrists.

Here is a look at the hollow created by the lower half of the body.

DON'T forget about the hole! Even if it is a little small now, it can always be enlarged later.

Here I am adding some clay to the baked square, and making it look more symmetrical.

I think it turned out rather well despite my shaky start.

Time to move on to the legs.

Using the beads from before I make clay beads of the same size, or at least as close to it as I can get. I made four of the second largest ones for the knees.

I joined two of these together with the aid of some raw clay and, after making sure that they are both the right size, and more importantly the SAME size, I baked and cooled them.

For the hips, I made two clay beads, again as close to the same size as my template beads, and, before baking, made these cuts in it with my scalpel. I found that it is much easier to remove this wedge later if the clay is sort of 'pre-cut'. It is not, however a good idea to remove this entirely right now because the shape of the hip can be distorted during the baking process.

 After it is baked I remove that wedge. This is so that the elastic has some room to move later on. I also cut the same grooves into the backs of the knees, the shoulders and the elbows. It  just helps there to be less strain and friction on the elastic later.

 A side view. The groove on the hips extend just under half way down.

Now I add my original bone to the back of the paintbrush I used and place the finished bead on top of that. 

Time to flesh out these legs. I joined the bone and the hip by wrapping the lot in a sheet of clay making sure that there is no air trapped that can leave those dreaded *moonies we all hate.

*Moonies are white blemishes on the doll's skin after it has been baked. These are created when air bubbles are trapped in the clay. Not only do they look bad, but they weaken the clay significantly.

Before we can go much further, the knees need to be finished, because these legs need to fit together beautifully and the knee is essential to that.

So to finish that weird looking ball thing from earlier, I took a thin-ish sheet of clay and cut out a diamond like shape with rounded corners.

Something like this. This will become (hopefully) the knee cap.

 The knee cap is in place and blended in nicely. I spent quite a bit of time detailing these, defining the knee cap and refining the shape, but really the amount of detail you want on these is entirely up to you.

 Adding the two together... Just like with the upper and lower torso, I need to make sure that the knee and the thigh fit together perfectly. I wrapped another sheet of clay around the thigh and knee, creating a cavity for the knee to fit into the thigh.

The hardest part here was getting both these thighs to look the same. Just remember that because the knees will have subtle differences it is important to use the same knee to the same leg every time and not just make that cup shape using the same knee...

I made the lower leg in much the same fashion, only no bead at the top, rather just the bottom of the knees, and at the bottom of the lower leg, I simply used the ankle/elbow sized bead (covered in baby powder) to create a hollow for the ankle, much in the same way as I did for the shoulders.

I kept referring back to my drawing often to make sure that the whole thing was still in proportion. when you are working on just one part of the doll and said part is not attached to or a part of the rest of it, I found it really easy to get off track. 

 The ankle and wrists are next. Now be warned that this part can be a little tricky. I really had a hard time with these (and came up with a few new curse words in the process).

This is what you want the two pins to do in the inside of the beads that will become the wrists and ankles.

 I used my template beads and made the four beads for the joints in question. One of the things I found to be the hardest was getting the straight pin through the tine balls of clay right in the middle.
Next I cut into the soft clay, about half way down, and after removing the first pin put the loopy part of the second pin into the slit.
Another tricky bit is to next re-insert the initial pin, making sure that it goes through the loop that is inside the bead. That accomplished we can bake it.

As you can see, the hard part is not over yet.
After baking and cooling, you need to CAREFULLY! cut away enough of the clay around the slit so that the pin sticking up there has a full range of motion.

That done, I added a little extra clay in an L shape for the foot and a straight flap for the hands.
Now I can trim the pin that goes through the center of the bead. I secured mine with some TLS (Translucent Liquid Sculpey), but it is not strictly speaking necessary.

Here you can see where that slit is that I widened.

The final step in this process is to shorten the top pin and make a loop on that too. This is where the elastic for the legs will attach

And there you have it.

I'm thinking that this might be a good stopping point for now. 

I will try and get the rest of this typed up for you ASAP.

Until next time,

ACL.

PS  I have been using a new communications platform, and if you are interested in contacting me with questions and/ or comments, find me instantly (messages are sent to my phone) here:

https://reaches.me:8443/urlchat.html?guestid=6aa28459a91aad02692a9334f633919a

Its a fairly unique platform with a huge range of uses, but I like the chat. Alternatively, download it form the PlayStore. Search for chatWORLD or follow this link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.world.chatworld&hl=en