It has been almost three months since the last article about my ball-jointed doll journey. I didn't expect that Christmas madness will creep on my Etsy shop so hard, haha. I'm very happy about it, though. So all the exciting process of sculpting my first BJD doll was postponed until now.

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Making my first ball jointed doll - detailing | by Adele Po.

Oh, guys, it's so thrilling to see that she's finally coming together. For the past few weeks, I've been detailing the body and making sure that her joints are moving properly. I really hope to finish the prototype until February and start making molds soon because I have a bad feeling that it will be even harder than sculpting this girl. So here's what happened since you last saw her.

Progress update

At this moment I have all the parts roughly sculpted and most of them are in the detailing process, which is my favorite! Well, except sanding maybe. I've always had a love-hate relationship with sanding, haha. I absolutely enjoy working on those tiny details with "La Doll" clay. It's invariably a safe choice for me.

I'm truly happy I managed to maintain that thin and long-limbed style that my art dolls have. I feel that it almost become my signature look while creating dolls.

If you're wondering what's that gray stuff on the doll's face, it's the sprayed primer which fills in small imperfections and flattens out the microscopic fibers that air dry clays tend to have. I'm using the one I found at my local hardware store, but there's something similar available online too. For example, Mr. Surfacer 1000 that many doll artists use.

The biggest challenges

Actually, the challenges stayed almost the same: knee joints and symmetry. I made a mistake by sculpting all pieces for the legs separately, so all of them ended up slightly different which caused problems in the movements and aesthetic appearance of the doll. At first, I've tried to fix them by sanding, carving, sculpting and constantly comparing the two pieces together. But it was so exhausting and time-consuming that finally, I gave up and redid the legs completely. This time I've sculpted them in one piece to make it as identical as I possibly could. When I was happy with the result I cut the legs and inserted the knee joints. I've found the video that explains it pretty good.

I hope to catch up with you next month with my first BJD doll prototype finished!