Back into BJD?

 Never know where these little inspirations come from but I had the sudden urge to 3D print some ball-jointed dolls to turn into my characters. I have resin BJD of some of my characters from My Shining Knight. Unfortunately, none of them really have proper clothes. They're all dressed but not in the costumes I hoped to make. I have a few other dolls too that I was modifying but never finished. I could now but the ship has sailed so to speak. 

But I have a collection on Thingiverse full of doll related print files. So I've been having fun scouring for 3D models, combining a few things so I can make the characters from my visual novel. 

The Allure

I like the look of these dolls, although they also have a haunting quality to them that fashion dolls (like Monster High or Barbie) don't have. They're definitely more anime in appearance which works for a lot of my characters. 

When I was collecting, I would purchase from companies with the lower-priced dolls. However, even these would range from $200 to $800 to $1,000. I would then take my investment and start modding the ever-loving crap out of them to create more fantastical creatures. Now as you see with the centaur, they do make fantastical creature dolls, but these are significantly out of my price range. We're talking well over $1,000. Not only that they almost always must ship from Asia. The high-quality dolls come from Japan and Korea. China produces them at a somewhat lower price which to a grown-up me is a bit suspect. But the look of them is just as pretty. Most of my dolls are Chinese made with only a couple of them from Korea. 

The Drawbacks

Price is a big drawback of course which is why I never got fully into BJD dolls. All my dolls need clothes and I've had them for years now. And sadly, they've been stored away in boxes for half a decade. I just don't have a place to display them. And since they don't have nice clothes, I don't take pictures. of them. The only one I still have on display is my centaur, Charlie.

Not only are clothes expensive to buy, but the dolls need wigs and eyes to make it look like my characters. And if you're like me and get the doll with a blank face, you need to paint the facial features on. (It's called giving a 'face-up').  

BJD are also fragile in a sense. They're a bit more durable than porcelain dolls since most are made of resin. But resin fades over time (I can't tell much) and the quality of resin varies between dolls makers. 

DIY Mindset

Personally, I have a do-it-myself kind of mindset. Whether or not I have the skill or patience is another story, but I try to figure out a way. Even while I was collecting dolls, it was obvious to me that no company was going to fully realize my characters in the way I saw them. I did look into different methods of doll making. I started the planning process for a few but my limited experience with molding and casting left me with unfortunate results. To the point where I knew I could not afford to continue learning. 

Now, while working on my Prince Lotor cosplay, I started getting into animal art dolls. I've always been better at drawing animals and found that sculpting animals was also something I could do. 

Hi Kova!

It gave me confidence that I could learn to sculpt with clay and eventually make a human figure. I took an online master course for creating a BJD with lots of videos and step-by-step instructions. (Honestly, I need to revisit it.) With it, I was able to come up with plans and use my old sprites as blueprints. 

I've also looked into making wigs with mohair, yarn, and faux fur. Now that I can crochet and have made yarn tails, I feel more confident in this. Clothes I can do, I've found some free patterns. Shoes...might be a challenge. 

3D Printed Dolls

So, sculpting is messy and it's not my strong suit. My art doll project has been on the back burner for years. I have my armature sitting on the mantle waiting for me to sculpt a head and feet. These 3D models are pretty nice and fairly diverse so I can prototype things quickly. Exactly what 3D printing is good at!

The Issues

3D printed BJD do come with plenty of issues. On the plus side, the materials are pretty affordable. But even if you print with a resin printer, you get the layer lines. And if you're like me printing with PLA you're really going to have a hard time smoothing out those layer lines. Resin and ABS have some nice smoothing methods that won't cost a lot of detail, but my choices for PLA are sanding, filling the layers with filler, then sanding more. If I print with the color I want then I have no choice but to cover with clear resin to smooth things out. 

But other than that, with a bit of Blender knowledge and Cura slicer, I can add animal parts directly to the models, adjust the size of the waistlines, and tweak eye shapes. 

So I'm tweaking and printing dolls for my characters Goro and Jiro. As well as some minor characters Cherry, Lotara, and Pearl. I've got some backburner characters but these are the ones I'm troubleshooting the process with. 

Images will come soon.