Learning to make doll heads

[stratzilla setz]

I want to learn to make beautiful doll heads.

I started by trying to sculpt them. But instead of the regular clay, I tried plasticine since it seemed to never dry and be reusable.
Being too soft, it was fragile and hard to work with for fine details as well as being able to smooth it out.

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Also sculpting is hard enough on its own without having to worry about material that is unpredictable.
Leaving the head over night, the weight of the clay actually changed the appearance. Plasticine is maybe too unreliable, it smells funny, and I got it in my finger nails.

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Okay, I figured I’ll come back to that later. Actually I want to make a nice head, and if it’s good, I would make a mold for casting one out of silicone or something. So let’s see if that whole process even works. Tifa from Final Fantasy is really nice, and you can get the 3D model for her, so I started there.

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I have a cheap EasyThreed X1 3D printer with a small print bed. Only 100^3 mm. So I had to print the head in less than ideal sized parts. The result is this.

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It took 20 hours, and the mouth was too small, so I resized, recut, and resliced everything again according to the size of these 32mm doll eyes.
I wanted eyes with a bigger iris, but it’s surprisingly hard to find any doll eyes to buy. Even the seller I got these from didn’t ship the ones I wanted. Totally scammed. It took 50 hours to print these two pieces. I mirrored it for effect.

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This is where I’m currently at. It will take about a week or two to complete a full head. My plan is to combine the pieces, fill, sand, prime, and then detail the head for a mold. I’ve conceptualized a painting scheme and look for the head below. I will also have to maybe design and 3D print a core/skull with a base that is compatible with your typical doll. I actually have no idea where to find this info though about how heads attach, what angle they sit at, etc…

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When all this ground work is done, the fun part will be making one out of silicone. Maybe with a moveable jaw, and useful orifices. I want to eventually make a button on the back of the skull that triggers internals to do blow job lips, when I have more working knowledge of how this works.

Anyways, Happy Holidays everyone.

[gogodolls]

Very interesting project! I will follow !

For sculpting you should try "Monster Clay"...it's so much easier to work with! https://www.sial-canada.com/en/monster- ... own-ammcsd

This synthetic clay is completely reusable and has the same hardness as candle wax and allows you to sculpt tiny details. And if you put it in the microwave for a few seconds, it becomes as soft as regular modeling clay! (...or melt it to a liquid state for pouring into a mould!) It's a bit more expensive but definitely worth it!
Good work! Cheers!

[Sir Olius]

I think i can help you with this, currently im with family, but pm me if you are interested about mine. Its 3d printed and casted, but have a skeleton too, so bit different then most of the doll heads.

[stratzilla setz]

For sculpting you should try "Monster Clay"...it's so much easier to work with! https://www.sial-canada.com/en/monster- ... own-ammcsd

This definitely looks better than the stuff I already have and I guess the price is okay. I’ll probably grab 10 pounds of it.

I think i can help you with this, currently im with family, but pm me if you are interested about mine. Its 3d printed and casted, but have a skeleton too, so bit different then most of the doll heads.

I actually skimmed through your thread last night and it was super cool! It has a lot of useful info about the silicone as well. I may take you up on that. My 3D printer is maybe too cheap and it’s currently printing mirrored parts with distortions, so I’m resigned to focus on just using it to help make base molds and stuff.

If I transition into building the body (and I probably will), I don’t know that I will go for a plastic skeleton as any plastic skeleton I’ve used so far for my cloth dolls has snapped or broken on me under normal use. But for a skull or core, or other random pieces, who knows.

I’m going to check out some of the robot threads too - I want to get some kind of neck thrusting action.

[stratzilla setz]

Slowly printing up the pieces, gluing them, and resanding.

I noticed my 3D printer sometimes warps print. Identical mirrored pieces have different heights and slopes. Off by at least 5mm.

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The head looks alright so far. I noticed other Tifa dollmakers have inaccurate eyes, noses, mouths, and face shapes. Since this is straight from the game, it is as close as it can be aside from warping.

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I will probably use the finished head to cast a mould that I will carve finer details into, and then cast again for the silicone one.

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[stratzilla setz]

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.

[CF]

This is amazing work. Keep going, you have real talent!

[MX-V]

This is very cool.
Love seeing your progress.
In art school, we used Bondo, an automobile dent filler for making sculptures.
It's like epoxy. Which is also a great product. You'll need a respirator if you use it.
Either might be good for welding the pieces together.

Best of luck to you!

[gogodolls]

Beautifully done! BRAVO!
Cheers!

[stratzilla setz]

I was thinking about the appearance of skin and how in silicone, you can really have that subsurface light penetration that is so much more convincing.

Then I thought about blushing and how that might be done.
In silicone, coloring seems to be done by pigments or suspending the colors in the silicone.

So we have these Thermochromic powder pigments which change color or become transparent with heat.

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The ones I’ve seen in a quick search look like they work in the reverse method (colored when cool, transparent when warm) It would be nice to be able to paint on a layer of Thermochromic silicone that gets red in certain areas as the doll gets warmed up, or smacked.
You could have an internal warming mechanism, or it may even react to just touch or warm human breath.

It could be worth a test.

[RevJack]

Stratzilla,
If you just want to cast a monster clay positive, and you want to save money, you can consider making an alginate negative from the printed face and cast the monster clay into the alginate. Then you only use your silicone for the tweaked final negative.

Reverend Jack

[stratzilla setz]

Stratzilla,
If you just want to cast a monster clay positive, and you want to save money, you can consider making an alginate negative from the printed face and cast the monster clay into the alginate. Then you only use your silicone for the tweaked final negative.

Reverend Jack

Thank you, very helpful

[TheDudeAbides]

Interesting thread and project. I found this and thought it might help you achieve the realistic skin tones you’re seeking. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LwmkRpCEvlc Good luck and I look forward to seeing your progress.

[stratzilla setz]

Interesting thread and project. I found this and thought it might help you achieve the realistic skin tones you’re seeking. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LwmkRpCEvlc Good luck and I look forward to seeing your progress.

Thanks, I’ll be experimenting a lot when I get into the silicone painting part.

I recently got an airbrush to start practicing on. All I did so far was start spraying on red, and it really helped. Wish I had started with this tool rather than a brush and paper towl to dab.

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[stratzilla setz]

The X-axis motor broke on my 3d printer about two weeks ago so I was waiting on a replacement to continue the 3D printing.

In the meanwhile, I got some circle lenses, but they’re actually not bigger than the IRIS already on the 32mm eyes. I decided to airbrush them on to Tifa-accurate size and then place a portion of the circle lens over the painted area for the gloss effect. I think I need to coat it again with a gloss coat of some type. Maybe UV resin. These are just placeholders for now, but I think I really will have to make my own eyes.

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Also I think this doll, if the full body was made, would be 5’5” to 5’7” — For now I’m going to try to give the head a standard M16 connector, and build a shoulder-up-to-neck base as a stand.