Let me tell you how it all started. My Instagram and Facebook followers already saw my attempts, but it's great to have it all in one place.
Despite the fact that there are a plenty of female BJD doll bodies on the market, it's always hard to find the best body, especially when you have a certain characters in mind.
I as a hobbyist have two extremely rare bodies - i-Dollstudio from Korean artist Andro and DIM Love body from Korean company Doll In Mind, because I liked the aesthetics of those. And I purchased the exact opposite - an extremely popular EID body from Iplehouse, for sewing purposes. Each of those bodies has its advantages and disadvantages, each body can teach you something.
I love realism and am not too fond of so called ABJD aesthetics. I prefer a longer torsos, a wider hips, a hanging breasts, because some of BJD bodies are really stylized.
I started sculpting female body back in... OMG... 2016! Here is my blueprint:
I chose air dry clay as a sculpting medium, and it turned out to be very hard. It took me weeks to add clay, wait it to dry out, cut and sand it, test joints and so on... To try different joints placement you had to resculpt a whole socket. As I have a lot of experience with sculpting my Forest Dwellers dolls who are much smaller, I know it's many times easier to sculpt a BJD in a smaller size.
Here are some photos of my progress:
I've spent a lot of time on it between my numerous commissions and other projects, but it was far from completion.
In the very end of 2021 I realized that while I take huge efforts on symmetry and making the even joints, the vast majority of BJD companies make their dolls in 3D. So I decided to switch to digital sculpting as well. I chose Blender, because it was free anyway, and because it had nice tools and approaches that were similar to what I had in Corel Draw (2D vector software).
I started learning it and had a significant progress in a short time. I decided to redesign my Smuzhka Raccoon in 3D, and I'm currently doing his joints.
In the meantime I started a female body. And I should say that I absolutely love sculpting in 3D. That's the progress you can do in a SINGLE DAY - of course, if you know what you're doing...
I'll be posting my progress here, to properly document it and to share my creative journey. Stay tuned!
Go to Part 2