- Screenshot 2022-06-12 005128.jpg (90.54 KiB) Viewed 1145 times
To lift or lower a shrugging shoulder without struggling too much with tight joints, we first need to understand the skeleton structure of a doll's shoulder. Dolls with shrugging shoulders usually have 3 or 4 articulating points on each side of the shoulder. We will name these points of articulations A, B, C, and D for easier identification.
Shoulder with 3 articulations looks like this.
- FHNJo3RaMAM8bp3a.png (402.9 KiB) Viewed 1146 times
While a shoulder with 4 articulations looks like this.
- Picture6a.png (313.23 KiB) Viewed 1145 times
On some brands of dolls, the position of C and D are swapped but they perform the same movements regardless.
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A is responsible for abduction and adduction movements.
- 4-Fig-shoulder-abduction-adduction.png (1.51 MiB) Viewed 1145 times
B is responsible for flexion and extension movements.
- 6-Fig-shoulder-flecxion-extention1.png (903.92 KiB) Viewed 1145 times
C is responsible for elevation and depression movements.
- 2-Fig-shoulder-elevation_depression2.png (871.82 KiB) Viewed 1145 times
Lastly, D is responsible for protraction and retraction movements. Of course, a shrugging shoulder with only 3 articulations will not be able to do protraction and retraction movements.
- 3-Fig-shoulder-protraction-retraction2.png (536.73 KiB) Viewed 1145 times
The reason why it's not easy to move shrugging shoulders is that manufacturers tend to over-tighten the joints at C and D.
Our goal here is to reposition the arm and lock A's rotation so that by doing an abduction or adduction movement, the whole arm rotates C instead of A.
Disclaimer: Make sure your doll has shrugging shoulders and consult your doll instruction manual on the range of movement of the limbs before attempting to do these manoeuvres. I will not hold any responsibility if you break or tear your doll's shoulders and arms when performing the steps below. In addition, if there is a doll out there that does not have articulation A and B but has some kind of ball joint for moving the arm instead, the method I described below will very likely not work.
Here are the steps in detail:
1. Ready your doll in an upright neutral position with arms down.
- neutral.png (256.52 KiB) Viewed 1145 times
2. Do a flexion movement and bring the arm up parallel to the ground.
- 6-Fig-shoulder-flecxion-extention2.png (487.07 KiB) Viewed 1145 times
3. Do a horizontal abduction movement by swinging the arm out. At this point, the axis of rotation at A is changed from Z to Y-axis and thus locking A's ability to do an abduction or adduction movement.
- 5104752a.png (63.95 KiB) Viewed 1145 times
4. Now, when you grab the upper arm and lift or lower it vertically, you are in fact rotating C (shoulder's elevation and depression movements) instead of A. Since the arm is acting as a lever, you can raise or lower the shrugging shoulder this way easily without relying on brute force.
- 4-Fig-shoulder-abduction-adduction2.png (395.91 KiB) Viewed 1145 times
5. Once you have acquired the desired position of the shrugging shoulder, reverse above steps 3 and 2 to get the doll back to the neutral position.
I've seen someone make a YouTube video showing these simple steps before but for the life of me, I can't seem to find that video anymore. So, I decided to do a write-up and copypasta this to anyone who asks how to move shrugging shoulders.
I hope this will be helpful to this doll community as well.
Cheers.
Edit: updated step 5
