You have to appreciate how tiny these bjd’s are. Jane has resculpted a generic eyes-shut plate to be what you see here. And, well, I just had fun with the little gargoyle or demon-kitty.
Vanye starts to acquire his ‘face-up’…and I finished the little gargoyle…
by CJ | Oct 21, 2013 | Journal | 21 comments
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And a mighty fine job you have done. 😉
Lol—thanks. You can see the difference between the unpainted faceplate and the painted one by scrolling down a bit to the ‘sweaters’ article.
Deimos turned out really cute in a fiercely gargoyle-kitty way.
He’d be great in a children’s book.
—–
Noted from Wikipedia, their events for October 22, for those interested in petal-sails and alien things and persons falling from the skies — to wit —
[quote]
October 22
1797 – Jumping from a hydrogen balloon 3,200 feet (980 m) above Paris, André-Jacques Garnerin carried out the first descent using a frameless parachute (schematic pictured).
[/quote]
Never mind he was jumping out of a perfectly good balloon. The parachute worked, which was quite a feat, or rather un fait.
.
groan …
En déscendant, il y avait tant des cris de “AAAAaaaaaa!!” et en touchant à la terre, “-Complit!!” Donc, un fait accomplit. :ririri:
😉
CJ, The latest edition of Scientific American magazine (Nov 2013) has a great article on why we prefer paper to e-readers and tablets… “Why the Brain Prefers Paper” by Ferris Jabr. The up-shoot of the article is that it is easier for people to establish a landscape of where info is stored on a page and thus easier to visualize then remember the actual content. E-readers are not as good as paper, because the e-ink is less likely to cause eyestrain, while tablets and computers are least desirable because of the back-light. That being said, some of the methodology used (using .pdf files) on the tablets makes me wonder somewhat, but all-in-all I found it fascinating. I highly recommend this article.
That is a good observation: we’re used to observing cues like ‘how thick’ and where in that folded topography the info was: we’re not used to remembering chapters or page numbers, though it’s just a different way of keeping track. In that regard, the e-book is MUCH more the way I think of my stories, because I am aware of chapters and pages, and that determines pacing…but for a reader’s self-location, indeed, it could be quite different.
As much as I like the convenience of my e-reader for carrying mass quantities of literature, I don’t like that I have to exit out of one book to go to another book as a cross-reference. I don’t have that problem with any of CJ’s books, except for Rusalka, Chernevog, Yvgenie, and Faery Moon, but it’s still inconvenient, because if I try to go by page number, it’s not always right back to the exact location I was when I left. It has a lot to do with the way the file is paged in the reader, I understand, and I accept that. I just don’t have to like it, and maybe my next reader will have a better way of handling that. Just as with computers and their associated peripherals, e-readers are getting more sophisticated.
Uhm… where can I go to get a look at basic, unadorned BJDs? I am finding this alluring.
junkyspot (a dealer) and fairyland (a manufacturer in Korea) are two of the best. Search bjds on the internet. There are, as Jane will explain, several sorts: the resin dolls, like fairyland, and there’s (I think it’s Obitsu) vinyl. Wiishu is a resin type, of the size called Little Fee, with a male body, and a faceplate called Shiwoo. He was a gift, but if she’d ordered him, he would have taken about 6-8 weeks to be cast, (you can pick color: he’s ‘natural’ but they also offer ‘beautiful white’) to have a face-up (done by a team of painters at the shop) and to get here by mail. You can order them in full dress or with no clothes. The sleeping face is usually available only as a freebie in the original order, or on ebay; the hands, as many as six sets of different positions, can be ordered any time…though you do risk getting a color variation. Castings can vary very slightly. Dolls of larger sizes have other options like feet that can wear ‘heels’ or that stand flat. Vanye and Morgaine are c-line size. There are several larger. There are also additional bodies like centaurs, and somebody (for a considerable amount of money) has done Shiva, with six arms. These additional bodies are managed by unstringing and reassembling the doll…etc. People who get deep ‘into’ these dolls online do a lot of scene-setting and costuming and photography. It’s sort of like sf costumers, only smaller. I think I’ve found a niche in this group: I like doing the animal figures, like Deimos, and I may start doing a few just for fun for me, then selling them. The demon-kitties were gifts, and those we keep; but if I get a blank and give it a full-body face-up (sort of like knitting, while I sit in the background of a meeting of doll-folk) I think I will likely sell it so I can afford another blank animal to work on. 😉 I can’t stand sitting without something for my hands to do. And despite my hand-tremor which keeps me from painting, I can handle the pastel pencils I used on Deimos.
Hmmm… you could probably use an airbrush then. It gives a nice, defuse, matte coloration for skin texturing. I have also used this, http://www.liquitex.com/iridescentmedium/ as a top coat after coloring to produce a look much like that of fish scales. It can also be air brushed on though, when I was doing 1 inch figurines, I used a paint brush.
BTW, thank you for the help!
@ Tommie — Because Jane and CJ and friends were having so much fun with Wiishu and crew, I got very intrigued and have started. See Jane’s blog for her crew and lively discussion. You can see my progress at: http://www.shinyfiction.com/toybox/ Toy Box Tales. There’s a link to my forum and blog there too.
You’ll find costs vary from pricey to affordable. But after seeing how much action figures and dolls at these sizes sell for now, the prices are competitive. You’ll see an anime aesthetic influence to the BJD dolls.
The BJD dolls (ball jointed dolls) are customizable, as CJ said. They are intended for collectors, adults or teens mature enough for the hobby. It’s something like model kit building or model trains, but more personalized.
I found the first I ordered led to wanting to tell stories with companions, and I’d wanted one (I thought) as an artist’s model or mannequin, to draw from poses to be sure I had the proportions and perspectives right. I haven’t “connected” yet with the first, but the second, the one I thought would be a background character, I *did* connect with. There was a “personality” there that spoke to me. The main thing was, thanks to Jane and CJ and crew, it re-sparked my creativity and renewed my sense of play. Funny how an inanimate object, a doll, is something we can imbue with a personality. Yet we do it as kids and we can do it as adults.
The Obitsu 27cm and 23cm are what I’ve started with. They’re affordable and quite posable. But Wiishu is very appealing, as are the rest of the crew, and some of the other brands are also. See what appeals to you. Note too that what shows in photos as “large” is really close up. The dolls Jane and CJ have are 12 inches and less, as are mine, at about 12 inches and 9 inches approximately, 27 cm and 23 cm. The 27cm size are similar in size to Barbie and G.I. Joe and other figures we grew up with.
One thing that did surprise me is that there are very few dark skinned choices, from a medium to a dark skin tone. Most are light or very pale. I would like to see more options there. It struck me so much that I wanted to include a black character. Dyeing didn’t work, so I’m going to try painting, when the paint I ordered comes in.
Thanks for the suggestion of that Liquitex Iridescent Medium. I’ll keep that in mind for something.
The interest in starting with BJD’s has reignited my interest in several crafts, and if I get good enough to please myself (hah) then I might try selling something. I’m going to do “faceups” for these, and I’m going to try Sculpey and paper-clay too. So it can lead to all sorts of things.
Have fun!
Fun stuff! I don’t really get into humanoid art but do enjoy playing with human body part imagery in collage/jewelry assemblages. I usually use a polymer clay or paper clay and a mold and do mostly faces and hands. One of my wish list projects is to get a Siberian husky head/face molded to do small pieces. I just bought a cat face/head mold to play with and I might be able to manipulate clay molded from that mold into a dog face. We’ll see. I haven’t played with ceramic clay enough to know how it would perform but I did recently pick up a small glaze test kiln. However, I tend to be afraid of it and it’s still in it’s box. Polymer clay is so much easier to work with. I’m ignorant about manipulating resin.
I enjoyed the koi influence on CJ’s piece. I probably would have given the critter mouth barbels and removed tail/wings….but that’s just me. I hope I don’t have to commemorate a really cool koi I’ve been living with….the Great Blue Heron came back and may have succeeded in fishing THROUGH the metal grating over the pond (sigh). He/She was a really gorgeous showa with LOTS of nice black (another sigh). About 7″ (not very large).
I have thought about adding barbels and still may.
One of the neat things about the resin dolls is that you can wipe them clean and start over, or add or subtract resin to add or remove a feature. You then repaint.
Yep, airbrushes figure in these dolls. That’s how you do the eye-sockets in the human dolls, and how I would do them in these if I had the option.
Is there are good resin workshop book/DVD/whatever you’d recommend?? This is a new medium for me. I’m better at teaching myself than taking classes. I can certainly see non-humanoid-doll focused application (wink).
There are a lot of You-tube videos. Ask Jane. She knows these things.
Oh well….one of these days I’ll have to start thinking about internet access at home. Right now I live in an internet free zone and kinda like it. Went on a search via amazon for books that might cover some of this….it’s always fun to get more art/crafty stuff. But I don’t know if any of the new reference material covers what YOU are talking about.
One of the things which I had success at was painting a gown cream, low lighting with yellow ochre wash, high lighting with white, and putting three coats of the iridescent over the top. It really does look like satin!
It’s like my go at painting old bronze: Mars Violet worked like a charm…