BJD - SWIP (=SLOW Work in progress)

Still temporarily strung

Still working on BJD #3 - Kiara

I strung and unstrung her at least 20 times! She looks pretty good but I'm not satisfied with the knees so I decided to re-do them! She is back in pieces as I write this.
This is the never ending doll........ but I decided I won't content with an OK result. I want her to be as good as I want her to be. Luckily making dolls is not my business or I'd be starved by now! Two months after a doll? Tch!

Kiara sitting in the FL sunshine.... trying to tan her white Paperclay skin?

Ball Jointed Doll #3 - progress made!

Slowly but thoroughly getting there......... a new Paperclay body and head are done! Just a little more sanding-smoothing required. 

Note the various doll corpses lying around....... :-D

Ball Jointed Doll #3

The first BJD was a fun experiment, the second one I thought I knew more or less what I was doing and the third one.... piece of cake... right? And NOT...!!! It was (still is) hell!
I decided to "upgrade" to using polymer clay. I bought a large packet of Sculpey in skin color. Too reddish skin for me so I mixed it with translucent Fimo. I sculpted a pretty nice body. I was pleased with it until I baked it and I burned the upper back and the neck! I mean, BLACK-BURNT!! Argh!
I scraped, sanded, added, re-baked... still not perfect but better.
I made a head and took more care in baking.
Up to here it was OK, some veining and slight crackling, not easy to sand like Paperclay but I could live with it.

The problems came when I started sculpting the arms. This doll is about 12" (more or less like a Barbie) and the arms are thin and hollow. I had to sand and file for fitting the joints in and I kept breaking the joint. I added and re-baked and it looked awful. I made new arms. Cracked again and again... I lost my patience!!!
I dumped Sculpey in a drawer and went on working with Paperclay. I made a bi-color BJD doll! LOL

Over here you see just the upper body and some posing experiments. This doll has double elbow joints so her movements are very natural. This is still in prototype version and to be refined.

Here below you see the temporarily strung doll with all the extra pieces I made for her. What a headache! LOL

I don't know who gives me the patience for this. I really have NO TIME for playing.....
Anyway, now it's not done yet........ she is in pieces again and I'm sculpting her body and new head in Paperclay. I really couldn't match Sculpey and Paperclay and the difference would have always been evident.
I will test Sculpey again after I'm done with the Paperclay version so I can use her body and head that are not so bad to throw away.

(Click on photos to see a larger version if you wish)

Stay tuned for the final version..... I started making this doll on March 28th...... this gives you an idea of how little play time I have in my life!!!!

Ball Jointed Doll #2

This time I wanted a smaller and better articulated doll. Instead of sculpting over an aluminum form like I did the first time, I sculpted the legs over drinking straws so I could work in smaller scale.
She ended up being 8.5" tall. Here you see a couple WIP photos, before the many hours of sanding I did....

Here below you see Amber comfortably sitting after a first face-up session, waiting for me to finish making that mohair wig....

.... and here she is all happy with her long light blond hair.

A few more shots around the yard....

Here she is wearing a vintage doll dress I bought at a doll show. It fits her perfectly and it gives her the "little Match girl" look.....

BJD obsession..........

After briefly introducing most of my dolls, here we come to my current obsession: Ball Jointed Dolls!
I have kinda liked them for a while. Three years ago I bought one from Korea that cost me a little fortune. She was really pretty (Luts Delf Kid - Ani) but I soon got tired of her because she was soul-less........ a resin duplicate of million others. There is nothing like a OOAK (one of a kind) creation! I sold her when I started sculpting my own (normal) dollies.
Only later on I caught the BJD sculpting bug and I wished I still had her so I could understand the mechanism without breaking my little blond head!

The idea of making my own OOAK BJD came one day that I was surfing the net looking at other doll artists. I came across a website from England that showed a fabulous BJD and it said it was hand made!!! I couldn't quite believe my eyes..... I had no idea such thing was possible! LOL (obviously someone sculpts these BJD's before turning them into resin, right?)
I read the article and admired the photos, but not for a minute I thought I would ever try doing something remotely similar.
How far was I from reality.... the little bug started creeping on me and it invaded my mind and soon I found myself thinking on HOW could I do a doll with joints that I could pose to my liking.... after a lot of pondering and debating with myself (to do or not to do?) I decided I would make a doll with a simple structure and knee joints so she could sit or stand. I found a Japanese website with step photos and I got to work.
It was pretty hard.... and I did those joints a bazillion times! I'm surprised of my perseverance! I was never much of a patient soul.... and, in the end, I jointed her wrists and ankles too! Those were not in the initial idea at all but I got carried away when I started putting the pieces together.

So here she is and her name is

SAKURA

 

She has a simple body and simple sculpting but she works fine and she can even stand up on her own (with shoes). There is a photo of her dressed up in the frame of my blog. She is about 14 inches tall and all Paperclay with elastic inside.

While making her I kept cursing myself for having such a crazy idea and I kept saying it would be my first and last.........  but the virus kept spreading and I was planning my second BJD as soon as this one was over!

Stay tuned and the next post will show you my #2!

Zany cloth and clay dolls

Here's another brief phase of my life as a doll maker........ the cloth and clay experiment. I don't like sewing so I'm not sure I will do more of these but they were great fun to do and a lot easier than my other dolls.

VIOLET and MARGARET

Violet and Margaret are two English sisters. They live together in a thatched roof cottage in Norfolk where the green is greener but winters are long and windy.
One day of December Margaret (the eldest) told Violet "why don't we go spending the winter months in Florida?".
And off they went. Both had never been out of the UK and Violet (the less practical sister) didn't quite know what to pack in her suitcase but she made sure not to forget her straw hat and a sun block tucked into her tiny handbag.
So here they are, being photographed enjoying Florida's winter flowers and tepid sun.
Margaret likes to jokingly sport a daisy by her ear, forgetting that she is not in Hawaii!
*

These dolls are made with a variety of techniques. They both started with a cloth form, stuffed with polyfil and sculpted over with Paperclay.
Both have fabric legs loosely stuffed and sculpted arms with jointed elbows and wrists.
Margaret has a simple puppet style jointing while Violet has a ball jointed elbow.
Painted with acrylics.
Violet's hat is hand crocheted and coffee stained.
Margaret wears a pair of fuchsia leather shoes and hand died skirt.

How sweet to be on holiday!

December creations

December is always a creatively busy month for me. My business slows down a bit and I welcome this time when I create little personalized gifts for my friends.

In 2009 I also decided to make something for myself. A Christmas tree topper.
My Xmas tree gets all decorated with handmade ornaments. Some were not even meant to be Xmas decorations, but they look cool up on the tree. I got them from a lot of people around the world and others were made by myself. I never had a tree topper though so here's what I made (all photos are clickable for enlargement)

In this picture she is on top of an empty jar. I never took a picture on the tree although she stayed up there for at least 20 days. She is made of Paperclay and she's all hollow inside. The wings and star are collaged with vintage music paper and the skirt is a piece of old curtain :-)
Some fun recycling!
She is painted with acrylics and distressed with antiquing medium.

Introduction to my first dolls

I opened this blog months ago but I never worked on it. I have had some very busy months. 2010 started on a really fast pace and it's still running. I can't believe it's already May. It hasn't been a very productive year doll-wise...... Making dolls is only one of my many interests and a night pastime. Ball Jointed Dolls take so long to make (especially when you don't know what you are doing!) that I'm down to making less than a doll a month!

Anyway, in the first posts here I want to showcase my dolls more or less in the order I made them, until I reach our present days and I will show some Work in Progress photos of my BJD's.

THEA

The first doll I want to show you is my favourite. Her name is Thea and she is the first doll I made in this size (about 9 inches). After her, most my dolls have been between 8 and 9 inches.

She is a Paperclay hard sculpt with acrylic eyes. She was born in December 2008 and she is holding a Christmas decoration.

I like to pair her with a bigger doll that I called The Winter spirit (18 inches, Paperclay and soft body with posing arms). She is holding a dove. I sculpted her before Thea.

THE CHERRY PIE LADY

In between making these two, I made a 12 inches doll that I called the Cherry Pie lady. Those who know me outside the doll world. know that I run a rubber stamps company called Cherry Pie so it was almost a self portrait :-) She is holding a Paperclay Cherry Pie.

This doll is sold.

CANDY and ARLETTE

2009 was a very productive year for me. Unlike 2010, I was stretching time to the impossible and I made a bazillion paintings and quite a few dolls too!

The first two that came to me are CANDY COTTON and ARLETTE from Bruges.

 

Candy lives in Alaska and Arlette in Oklahoma

These two girls were born only a couple days apart. I was sculpting both at the same time (waiting for the pieces to dry).
Candy was born first, my first doll of 2009. She wears a night gown, funny pink slippers and she carries her jointed dolly (2.5 inches -removable).
Looks like she woke up after a nightmare.
Arlette is a Dutch girl, a little orphan whose only friend is her teddy bear. She wear pink clogs and raggedy dress.

SHANNA

Shanna has a strange look in her eyes because she has vintage glass eyes. A flea market find. She also wears a vintage doll dress from the early 60's that I stripped off a plastic doll. The cage is a dollhouse item and there's a little birdie inside. 8 inches doll.

MELANIE

Shelf sitter. Melanie was sculpted for holding my vintage teddy bear.
I got this teddy from my grandfather when I was 3 or 4, but I believe the teddy is a lot older than me and probably from the 20's or 30's. It's only 2.5" long and all jointed.
I wanted to give a special place to this teddy and what's best than little arms to hug him?

YUKI (Boy)

Yuki means happy or snow in Japanese. He doesn't look so happy but his hair is snow white!
I gave him a Japanese name because he reminds me of those manga characters.......
He is the only boy doll I sculpted and he wears a super cool leather jacket that I stripped off a Bratz boy.

WEDNESDAY ADDAMS

 

Sold to CA

When I make a doll I normally start with sculpting a face. I rarely know what I want to do and the doll will reveal herself to me while I sculpt her.
When I made Wednesday  I had no idea who I was sculpting but I heard her loud and clear as soon as I finished sculpting her face! She was W Addams..... no doubts about it!

She is holding a spider on a her left hand.

POPPY girl

Poppy is a little happy girl. I made her for my friend Zed. She collects poppies and dolls so I wanted to combine the two things together.

My cat Misty was particularly interested in this doll and her flower......

LYDIA

This was my first sitting doll. I made her for my friend MJ who had the original idea of a school girl reading a book. The tiny book has real turning pages with colored images.

STREGHETTA (=cute little witch)

This doll was sold. She is holding a vintage glass marble - sold

ANNIE with birdie

Sold to Germany

KIMBERLY

Another shelf-sitter - sold

ULLA

A Lappi girl - gifted to MJ


MANDY

Victorian girl - Sold to Australia

TARA

Rebel girl..... gifted to Cristina

LUCKY KEYLA

Sold to Germany. She holds a lady bug on her hand.