Learning to make doll heads
Re: Learning to make doll heads
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Re: Learning to make doll heads
For the skull, most of it will be a rough shape so that the skin isn't overly squishy in places it shouldn't be.
I'm not entirely sure I want to put too much work in the mechanism for the eyes, but I definitely want a moveable mandible with the some form of dentures.
I want the joint at the jaw to have a guide built into the jaw so it doesn't overextend, and maybe come to rest in several positions. I will need to bond the inside flesh of the mouth with the outside portion somehow, but I know that seam will happen somewhere hidden in the teeth. Maybe via 12-24 thick notches on the teeth where I weld the silicone together.
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Re: Learning to make doll heads
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Re: Learning to make doll heads
My 3D printer is no longer reliable (motor timing issues) so I went and had the head printed on a heavily modified Ender 3, which has a much bigger print bed (4x the surface area), better print quality with no warping, and requires much less seams to glue and sand together. I barely sanded it. I just sprayed primer on it and acrylic sealer so far. I think the new head looks nicer compared to the older one since the TIFA game model required textures to flesh out the details, and I modelled in the details myself here.
This is a mock-up I made on my ipad but I expect the final model to look like this before adding in proper lashes and facial hair etc… I still want to mold this head to re-cast it in Monster Clay, and perfect the details for the final cast, which I will make in silicone. I also need to design the inner core that will hold the general shape and be neck-mountable. I’d like the eyes to be movable. I originally planned to make the jaw movable but I have no idea how silicone stretches and deforms in that scenario, so I want it to be minimal instead and may just allow a little opening.
May not update this post for awhile.
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Re: Learning to make doll heads
Save the money for the Monster Clay, buy a can of Car/Autoprimer spray and cover your printed Head. Let dry-spray again-let dry-spray again. Repeat this process until the surface is smooth without sanding. Let dry for some days and than polish the surface. Remember the cast can never be better than the original sculpt.stratzilla setz wrote: ↑Sun Jan 01, 2023 9:48 am After a lot of sanding, priming, I got the welded plastic pieces to smooth enough to start making a mould.
But first I tried to get some practice with a paint brush to see what I could get done with some basic acrylic and some brushes.
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Basically I learned I will probably need an airbrush, and a lot more practice in the physical medium of painting. Also it will come in handy for when I do some silicone painting since make-up on dolls seems messy and high maintenance. In addition, I think I will have to design and create my own eyes. The regular ones have too small an iris. Even IRL girls and idols wear circle lenses, and unless I’m making my heads petite, it won’t do. Below is a minor phone app enhancement of the iris size.
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By the way… silicone seems a bit pricey. I’m planning on making a silicone rubber mold for casting a Monster Clay duplicate. I will then carve finder details on the monster clay such as wrinkles, pores, as well as smoothing the surface. After that, it will be making the final mould for a silicone head over a skull that I will have to design.