I love how many possibilities and different techniques there are for sculpting with air-dry clay. Over the years of sculpting dolls, I feel like I’ve figured out this material pretty much completely. I enjoy detailing intricate bodies and faces, in my opinion, good quality air-dry clay is one of the easiest materials to work with. Today I want to share some observations and techniques about carving and sanding air-dry clay. Using them, you can achieve a satin-smooth finish for your dolls and carve out even the tiniest details like fingers and toes!

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After sculpting and painting the doll, most of us, doll makers, proceed to attach the hair and create intricate hairstyles for our dolls. I’ve already covered how to create a simple wig for your doll, so today I want to explore different options of fiber and how to prepare it for wig making.

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At the end of November, I’m always feeling like an elf or a Santa’s helper, haha. In my Etsy shop, which consists mostly of plush dolls, it’s the busiest season of the whole year. Squishy and fluffy dolls can become wonderful stocking stuffers, little gifts for grandma or even tree ornaments. From sparkly angels to festive snowmen - created to spread the Christmas cheer. Over the years, I’ve shared a few tutorials and techniques to help you create a plush doll for yourself. In this article, I want to put all of them together and bring you the ultimate guide on how to create a Christmas plushie for yourself!

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Detailing and embellishing costumes is one of my favourite parts of creating dolls. I could sit for hours and embroider tiny ornaments, attach beads and sparkly elements to the dapper dresses. Embroidery can elevate your creations to the next level since you’re creating one-of-a-kind garments for your dolls. Sure, you can purchase pre-embroidered fabrics but nothing enhances the doll as custom embellishments made just for that particular creation. So today I want to talk about my favourite embroidery stitches and share some tutorials so you could easily apply them to your dolls!

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For the last year or two, I’ve been fascinated by sculpting tiny hands and feet, trying to achieve a realistic look of them. It wasn’t always like this, my preferences changed over the years and my dolls changed as well. There have been a lot of different stages, from creepy dolls to melancholic slender creatures. At this point, I’m exploring how detailing can change the character of the doll. So in this article, I want to delve into the topic of detailing, sculpting at a very small scale and how to achieve that realistic look when creating art dolls.

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Doll making is such an incredible craft where so many different skills and art forms meet to become something extraordinary. It’s definitely a highlight of my path as a doll artist, that I get to sculpt, paint, design costumes and create characters in one object! Some of this work can be invisible for the viewer of the finished piece and that’s a shame. So today I want to raise the curtain and talk about each step that goes into creating an art doll.

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After a year of work, I’ve finally finished my second ball jointed doll. It’s a new prototype that will be used for casting porcelain dolls. To be honest, I wasn’t working on it every day for the whole year, I had some significant breaks along the way when sculpting was put aside for a month or two. Nevertheless, it’s a long and excruciating process, especially when you don’t have serious experience in this realm. I’ve only sculpted one ball-jointed doll before, but it was more than enough to know what I want to do differently this time. So, let’s talk about some lessons I’ve learned since sculpting my first and now second BJD!

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Today I want to delve into the topic of sculpting hands. It's one of the hardest things to get it right when making dolls. And I completely understand why! I've sculpted dozens of hands and just about a year ago I finally got it right. So don't beat yourself up if they don’t turn out perfect every time. It's so common! In this article, we will talk about how the right materials will help to get better results and look into my favourite sculpting techniques. Let’s sculpt some hands!

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I’ve been sculpting with air-dry clays for the past five years, during all this time I’ve accumulated a few tips and tricks to make the process easier and more enjoyable. I’m pretty convinced that air-dry clays are very friendly to beginners and can be pretty magical in the experienced hands. But there’re a few tricks to make it work better. So keep on reading and learn what you can do to get the best results when sculpting with air-dry clays!

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Human body proportions is a hot topic in all visual art genres. Historically through all ages, artists and observers tried to canonise ideal standards on how human body should be portrayed. I don’t think we have to chase ideals as we all have different bodies and figures. Despite that, with all of our differences we still can fit in a few proportional rules that we’ll talk about today. In my opinion, you don’t have to create by these rules, especially when sculpting dolls, but it’s good to know them so your interpretation of human body wouldn’t be accidental but rather deliberate.

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It doesn't matter if you're just starting out with air-dry clays or have been sculpting for years, you probably encountered the nightmare of fluff. What I call fluff is the tiny fibres that are in the composition of clay. When the clay is wet, those tiny fibres are not very visible, but when the clay starts drying and when you start sanding, the fluffy particles reveal themselves in all the glory, haha. So today I'm going to share a few steps that I take to give my dolls the satin smooth finish. It took me years of experimentation to find what works so I hope you'll find it helpful!

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