Simple Poseable Eye Mod!

Technician · Post by **Technician** » Sun Jan 06, 2019 10:21 pm

Forgive me if this is old news, I didn't see anything like it on the forum.

A week ago I noticed my TPE doll's acrylic eyes were much wider than her eye openings and got the idea to shave down a second set and see if I could pose them. It worked but they were not deep enough and looked sunken.

Today it dawned on me that if I simply put two modified eyes in at once the inner eye would push the outer one where it looked right and the inner one would give it something to slide on for posing.

I cut them down with sandpaper, 60 grit, then 100, then smoothed the edges with 1000 so there wouldn't be anything sharp inside her eye sockets. They actually came out smoother than factory.
The last couple I actually cut down carefully on a wire wheel before sandpaper, all 6 of the eyes I modified were marked first with a sharpie, unwanted marker marks came off easily with a quick acetone wipe. If you use acetone on plastic don't linger, prolonged exposure will eat plastic.

DexterQuest · Post by **DexterQuest** » Mon Jan 07, 2019 7:49 am

Very clever. I have one doll that has a spring in her eyeballs. I had to push in to adjust. This is slick.

Technician · Post by **Technician** » Mon Jan 07, 2019 3:47 pm

Thank you! I was a little nervous removing so much material but once I saw it was really only a mm per side because the back half of the eye doesn't follow the same curve it got exciting. I was trying to think of something to use as a hemispheric spacer behind them when it hit me.
I had to use a lot of powder in the socket to pose them easily so I figure if they drift I'll simply clean the powder out but so far so good.
Now there's one less pair of eyes to keep track of too, she stores them for me.

Maviarab · Post by **Maviarab** » Mon Jan 07, 2019 4:28 pm

There's always these:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=57400

kambui · Post by **kambui** » Mon Jan 07, 2019 4:46 pm

Badaddy266, are you placing the cut down eyes on top or the bottom the other eye?

Technician · Post by **Technician** » Tue Jan 08, 2019 1:14 am

Maviarab, I didn't read the whole thread yet but it didn't seem they were poseable looking through. I'll have to read that more thoroughly, thank you.

kambui, all the eyes are cut down. The ones in back are trimmed to 31mm too. I can swap them and put any eye in front or back. The cotton is in the same place, filling the hollow in the back of the back eye.

Maviarab · Post by **Maviarab** » Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:10 am

They are fully moveable

Technician · Post by **Technician** » Tue Jan 22, 2019 10:26 pm

I got some acrylic page seperators today, my plan is to cut two large washers and put them at her neck to make her head turn nicer. Right now I turn her head and she snaps it right back to center, lol. Also prototyped a warmer made from pvc, 4 rubber strip heaters, and three small fans. I had to series parallel the heaters for current draw and it only gets to 64*F so I'm charging a battery tonight so I can go back to a parallel connection and make some heat. It has a digital temp controller so I can stop it at whatever temp I please.
I'll post pics of both projects as they come to fruition.
I have to be careful with pictures since she's a 100cm and that's a touchy subject so they will be cropped accordingly like above.

Fantastic Plastic · Post by **Fantastic Plastic** » Tue Jan 22, 2019 11:13 pm

On one of my dolls (Maxine), I put large fake pearls from the craft store in lieu of the foam.
Worked perfectly.

Technician · Post by **Technician** » Thu Jan 24, 2019 12:40 am

Fantastic Plastic wrote:On one of my dolls (Maxine), I put large fake pearls from the craft store in lieu of the foam.
Worked perfectly.

You mean behind the eyes? So instead of the cotton balls a spherical object.

Technician · Post by **Technician** » Fri Jan 25, 2019 12:10 am

Today I chucked an X-acto knife in a compass and cut the thin acrylic washers for her neck, I left 3/16" or so all the way around so they wouldn't hang out past the skin.
Her head turns a lot easier now but it doesn't move on it's own. It doesn't work as I hoped but it's a huge improvement. About 80% of the binding from TPE on TPE is gone.
Also no problem to report after living with her poseable eyes.
The heater looks good but the battery I planning to use with it didn't hold a charge overnight. The additional available current got me 69.8*F at only 9VDC.
I got a good one charging tonight so the dolly warmer should be functional this weekend.

Fantastic Plastic · Post by **Fantastic Plastic** » Fri Jan 25, 2019 12:33 am

Technician wrote:
Fantastic Plastic wrote:On one of my dolls (Maxine), I put large fake pearls from the craft store in lieu of the foam.
Worked perfectly.
You mean behind the eyes? So instead of the cotton balls a spherical object.

Yes, different heads have different space behind the eyes so you have to experiment.
But it made it much easier to move the eyes since they now gimbal on them.

ILuvFemsNlingerie · Post by **ILuvFemsNlingerie** » Fri Jan 25, 2019 12:44 am

All you got to do is powder the neck and the head will move very easily

Technician · Post by **Technician** » Fri Jan 25, 2019 4:45 pm

Fantastic Plastic wrote:
Technician wrote:
Fantastic Plastic wrote:On one of my dolls (Maxine), I put large fake pearls from the craft store in lieu of the foam.
Worked perfectly.
You mean behind the eyes? So instead of the cotton balls a spherical object.
Yes, different heads have different space behind the eyes so you have to experiment.
But it made it much easier to move the eyes since they now gimbal on them.

Oh, you did kind of the same thing. On mine the eye socket was shaped in a way that the eye touches in the back so they needed trimmed.