AI-Genie To Be (How to create a BJD)

I started AI-Genie last year around July for October's Art festival here in Houston/Texas. First like any thing you do you want to start out with drafts, so I made a couple of concepts (I day dream a lot so I use this for inspiration.)I knew that I wanted her to be half human/alien, but I nice looking alien...nothing creepy. This is the first concept drawing and then I work from there to add more detail. She is started to look a little creepy so I clean up the idea more.

I was starting to like the direction but for some reason she wasn't "done" to me and I felt like maybe this could be the first stage of AI-Genie's birth so I decided to create one more image of her for a later time.

And this is the final sketch of her. I like this idea so much, but I had no time to create this amount of detail for my girl so I put it aside and started working on the first stage of AI-Genie. Her name was picked around casting time (for some reason I still don't like the name..) but its growing on me.

My imagination started to twirl in my head and I came up with a world just for my new girl. AI-Genie is a little alien girl that lives in a jewelry box and she loves collecting perfume. I even created a diagrams for the jewelry box/bed for her.

Finally, I felt ready and sure enough to start on her. I had left over la doll and premier clay mixed together from my last doll project (Hume). I have a hole bunch of things stashed in my game room/work station. I would tell anyone that is getting into this hobby that you can never have enough materials and supplies. Stock up on things and if your on a budget like me turn everyday items like a plastic knife into a toll for creating detail for your doll. We have all kinds of things laying around in our house, that are right under your nose (so look for those items first before shopping for things.)

The way I start my dolls is by creating a clay pancake of the doll (except for the head). so what you do is draw the doll facing forwards and sideways on a sheet of paper then place a plastic sheet on top. Because the first stage of the doll making will be done right on top of this plastic. mix equal parts of la doll clay and premier clay together (it makes the doll even stronger so when it comes time to test string her your baby wont break) then mix it with water until you get something like cake batter but not too watery you just need it to be workable.Leave the rest of your clay dry. You can also make a slip out of equal parts of la doll and premier for holes and cracks. Spread a thick layer of clay on the dolls front view, now make sure you stay in the lines because this will help tremendously with the correct width and size of the entire doll. You can then place a fan overnight close to the doll to help the drying process and cover the clay doll with plastic so it wont bend when you find it the next day (if it does then don't worry.) In the morning you will see that it may not be completely dry (if you don't have a fan) which it is fine. If your pancake doll has bent upward overnight then wet the doll then gently press her down flat (I use an old perfume bottle to spray the water on the doll). That's why you want to cover her with something that wont smash her but just keep her down.

 For the next couple of days you want to alternate working from front view to side and back view. Remember the doll may shrink a little so make sure the sides of the doll are the same as the picture. Meaning, her shoulder/hips/and legs should always be checked and corrected. when the doll starts to look like the pictured below then it is almost ready for the next stage.

When you get here, stand the doll up and check each side of her. Check her back side to make sure everything is proportion correctly. Fix any mistakes with he slip. See pictures below.

Your next step is to prepare for cutting the doll. Once you fill comfortable with the progress and how the doll looks so far then there is nothing else to do. Some things you wont be able to correct because it is time to cut the doll. Draw a line with a pencil to mark where it will be cut. after that is done then take some water and put it around the line to help loosen the clay so the doll wont break and immediately start cutting with an exacto knife (If you don't have one then use a knife, please be careful not to cut yourself.) Keep marking, spraying, and cutting until the doll is cut in proper places.

Now she is ready for the second stage of cleaning, adding, and refining. Don't be concerned with her not being hollow at this point you will get to that later. refine...refine...refine and use your pictures as references. Now that the doll is cut you can place each part on the sketch and see how good the measurements turned out. This method cuts down work and makes the sculpting faster. If you mess up then just add or sand off the clay... you can never really mess up on this.

After you are comfortable with the look of the doll now it is time to start detailing the joints to get ready for adding the balls. Before you add the balls you can now hollow out the doll. If you have a hand drill it will make the work faster so I do recommend buying one ( you will need it later when casting is done). Set it on low and grind out the center of the parts as you will see the clay is so easy to sand so please be careful. As for the balls, I don't go out a buy balls but you can do that if you want (buy a foam ball that is smaller than the size of the joint because you will need to add clay over it). What I do is build up the shape of a ball right on the dolls joint then sand it into a ball. test your joints before and after stringing and make sure to write down the amount of elastic you used for stringing up the doll for future use (trust me you will need to do this...)

As you can see my head is looking kinda weird so I made another one. (I will talk about the head sculpting later because that deserves it's own section.) After testing it with string correct the parts. Keep correcting, adding clay, sanding down clay, water parts that need correction.If you have nothing else to sand and correct on any of the pieces then that means you are done. You can now focus on something else like closing up the holes on the doll or adding you trademark.

Molding & Casting

This is the time to start cleaning up your space and getting all of your mold supplies. Now molding for me is the easiest part but it is also the second longest part of creating a bjd. Now remind you my time at this point was running out so I had to hurry. I needed my girl done before October and the month was August. After all the molds were done then it was time to start on casting. For me this part is a nightmare only because i don't have a pressure pot to eliminate air bubbles. So I had so many pieces with bubbles that it took awhile to get a full dolls body. I had some bad moments with the hands to where i had to go all the way back to sculpting "new" pairs of hands. I can't stand this part, casting can be horrible if you have tiny pieces like fingers.... ahhhhh!!!!

Finally, after I have re-sculpt and recast i finally made some good pieces. And with these pieces i was able to get two...yeah, only two dolls. For my first doll I thought of a kimono-like pattern for her tattoo. So, before I start painting my girl I always draw a sketch of how I want her to look. The hair color depends on the tones as well so that part come later.

At this point a family member became very ill so I stopped working on the doll until I could fill better. When I knew my family member was getting better that's is when I started back on painting my doll which was a month later. At this point I really didn't care about the deadline anymore, I knew that I could always attend the Art Festival and maybe in 2014 I would be able to go. I finished my first AI-Genie in February. 

Remember when I was saying to write down how much elastic you will need? After casting the doll and sanding it down smoothly string her for a test to see if she can stand and pose correctly. Make sure to un-string the doll before you add the paint. before painting the doll spray it a a sealant 2 to 3 times. After a coat of paint is done then spray 2 times. Once the doll is finished make sure to write or add your name to it. After the first AI-genie was complted this is when I decide what color hair I should use.

I know the pictures aren't that great (because I have an old camera that only takes floppy drives...so yeah its old.) But this is the finished doll without hair. I had a challenge with "how" to add the hair to my girl. first I tried making wigs but they didn't fit after they had been finished. i tried three times to create a wig for her. So, I finally just used her skull cap for the wig so now the hair is glued on her skull. I was thinking in the future that I can do it this way and also include a skull pieces with no hair on it so the customer can create their own wigs. The style is a short cut but left the lower section long and plated it then gave her a butterfly hairpin.

Although I missed my goal, I have learned so much about becoming a doll artist/creator. I fill comfortable knowing that I have something to share with people around the world. This jurney was a little tough but I can see myself doing this for a living.

I hope you enjoyed my post.

ML.