Mixis Rosa, Zica Yvonne 1/8, and a new wooden bjd project!

Funny thing is, the reason I've been nonblogging lately is I've got too much I want to write about and can't decide where to start! As usual, I've dumped all my un-blogged-about photos on Flickr, so if you follow me there you're all caught up on my doll escapades.

This got a bit long so I'm putting it behind a cut.

Dollmore 12'' Basic Gem BJD-ish ABS body (a review, kind of)

Well, I was going to post about a bunch of interesting thrift store stuff from the last two weeks or so, but then my Dollmore package arrived and sort of took precendence. This is the first strung doll I own that I haven't made myself, and one that doesn't seem to be very popular - or at least not widely blogged about in any language I read, so I thought I might as well give her a proper introduction.


So: Dollmore Neo Gem 12'' ABS fashion doll, strung and ball-jointed but ...doesn't qualify as a proper BJD according to hobby purists, apparently? Actually, I'm not even going into that discussion. For the purpose of this blog and my collection, this is a BJD - although not a very good one, that much I'll admit. We'll get there in a minute.

Dollmore free shipping February

Not sure if anyone is interested, but I just found out completely unexpectedly that Dollmore are offering free shipping this month. As you may know, ABJDs aren't my cup of tea - BUT this company also makes a relatively affordable 12'' doll in ABS plastic which has more fashion doll-like properties, except ball-jointed, and which has been on my imaginary wish list for the last year or so. I figure at some point I should probably own a proper ball-jointed doll, to see how they work and learn about stringing and things, and this one seems like a good 1/6 option.

I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to squeeze this into my doll budget (excluding pretty much everything else) before the month ends, but I hope so. You can get the body without a head too, so I'll probably do that and maybe keep an eye out for future promoes in case I decide I really want the head. Otherwise I'll try to find another head for it, although I'm not sure how the connector would work or if any of my floating heads would fit the style, not to mention the complexion. Trying to match skin tones from various photos is really frustrating, and with an investment like that I don't want to guess, so I decided to be clever and order two pairs of flat feet - which I'll need anyway - in each skin tone. Of course I'll end up with a pair of feet I don't need, but it's better than picking one blindly. Plus I ordered a bunch of tiny S-hooks which I haven't been able to find in hardware stores and which I'm certainly not going to pay x10 times their price in shipping for.

ETA: found some comparison pics of the 12'' Gem doll and Barbie. I'm not sure, but going by the outfit she comes in I think that's the doll with the darker skin tone (which is considerably lighter than most Barbies, like with Obitsu).

Orangey's wooden art doll giveaway

Believe it or not, I'm not the only one who makes jointed wooden dolls. Unlike me, Orangey has actually, well, made a few dolls. They're for sale in her etsy shop, plus right now you can enter this giveaway for a chance to win a custom doll!

Since I can't remember how to turn an image into a link, just click here instead: http://orangeyartdolls.blogspot.ca/2015/01/custom-wooden-doll-giveaway.html

I'm not sure whether I'll be able to enter myself, since the import charges + shipping might get pretty expensive, but as I think her dolls are really cute I'm happy to promote the giveaway a bit anyway!

Rules can be found in the blog post above or on her flickr. 

The Double-Jointed Wooden Knee & You

I don't remember if I mentioned, but I did try to make a double-jointed knee. This proved to be an exercize in futility, frustration and madness, and I'm not sure I'll going to attempt another one, at least not until I've gained some serious wood carving skills.

AAAAAAAAARRGGHHH!!!!

Basically, making the spheres even is super difficult - and if they (or the sockets) are asymmetrical, the joint will just stick in certain positions and be impossible to pose in any position inbetween. Super frustrating. See video for example: 

In the end I decided it wasn't worth driving myself crazy over. I haven't decided how to proceed yet, but I'll probably either go with single, Fashionista style knee joints for now, or try using wooden beads like suggested. 

I'm also thinking of carving out the hip sockets some more so the doll won't look so weird while sitting. Hopefully there's enough material for it, and it would also make the torso more proportional (right now it's a bit too exaggerated even for the bjd esthetic). 

Since I'll probably make a new pair of thighs anyway, I'll try to fit them better into the sockets so they won't be quite so wobbly. 

If there's one thing I learned in (though not necessarily from) art school, it's that you shouldn't have too much respect for your sketches and studies. Overwork them, ruin them - that's how you learn. Force yourself to not Ctrl+Z at the slightest mistake. It's something I keep having to relearn, particularly after periods of low artistic output, but it's something you absolutely have to to keep in mind in order to get anything done. So I may have to ruin this experiment, we'll see. But that's alright. I found a nearby place that sells wood. I'll just start over again. 

wooden bjd update

Slowly but surely making progress... 

First I made a pair of legs. Then I messed them up because I didn't realize you can't have hip sockets placed at the side on a strung doll, but for a short while there she could actually stand unaided!  

Then I made a double-jointed arm! Well, several actually, since it took a few tries to get it to work. The joint is still kind of ugly, but at least it bends! 

Then I decided to start over, for real this time, and made a jointed torso. 

It's slightly larger because there had to be room for several, separate holes and joint sockets in there, not to mention the tools to make them in the first place. I did buy a pin vice and some ridiculously tiny drillbits though, and that really made things a lot easier. (Before that I made the holes with a Philips screwdriver. It's possible but I don't recommend it.) It's still kind of tiny though, since I haven't found a good place to buy more basswood at yet 

It's largely modeled after the torso joint on gymnast Barbie and Galoob's body (used for Anastasia and Spice Girls among others). I realize I should have looked up some tips on how to make the hip joints, because that introduced a whole slew of design problems I wasn't prepared for, but these will have to do for now. 

Now I kind of want to make the knees double-jointed, but it's going to be a pain to carve those perfectly (ha!) shaped spheres. I might do a test run on the smaller doll first. 

Last but not least, I took a bunch of process pics and dumped them on my Flickr, here.

WIP - wooden bjd joint

Ok. So. You know how I keep going on about articulation, and how affordable playline dolls keep dissapointing me. Well, why not make my own? I've tried sculpy and similar things before, but clay just isn't my thing (you poke one side of the head and the other side sticks out, what's up with that?). I'm pretty good with wood, though, so I though I might give it a try.

This was just to see if I could make a working joint. I just used a bit of scrap wood, it's not going to be a proper doll at any point. I'm not sure how I would make the torso yet, and either way I thought it was better to have the back open so I could see what was going on. There wasn't enough material to make room for proper hip joint sockets, so I can tell already the legs are going to be ridiculous, but it's worth making them anyway for the experience. The lack of material turned out to be an issue with the shoulder joints too (both arms are a different kind of compromise to make up for it).

The red flower bead thingy is just to keep the string in place. 

No photos (yet) because the video took up the last of my diskspace.

(Forgot to mention that I looked at this tutorial to get an idea of what goes where. I just googled "bjd making tutorial" or something and found this link list on bjd-wtf.livejournal. I haven't really dug through them all yet - there's a lot of info out there, and finding the perfect tutorial would probably be a project on its own.)