Button Box Dolls

A few days ago I received an Impldoll Idol 68 Female body. Perfect in every way for my Iplehouse Freezia… save for the neck length….

It was just a hair too long for my taste. I’ve had to modify a few of the crew’s necks because most are hybrids. So let’s begin our adventure for the evening.

when you get the cyber goth doll itch again and out pops a cyber goth Mara Pinkerton

im super happy with how she turned out, exactly what i envisioned

bonus blacklight!

@look-back-month-challenge 27. Toy that surprised you.

In January of 2019 I was walking around Target and got blindsided by the Glitter Girls Sweet Shop just sitting on a shelf. I didn't know anything really about the dolls or sets like this. Never in my wildest imagination did this exist, and suddenly there I was staring at this perfect little fantasy of a thing, in a brick n mortar in a suburb.

The details! The colors!! The quantity and quality!

I just had this like, full body emotional reaction to it. I loved it.

So the price was a shock at first but the set has been more than worth the cost.

The hair will come apart in two pieces (front and back) and is only pressure fit together. It may be tight if it's been on the head for a while - focus on pulling the front half off if you're nervous.

Then if you flip the doll over you will see the traditional S-hook that holds the tension on the body elastic.

You can then remove the front face plate by sliding it off the neck peice. If you are replacing the head with another from the same series of dolls you can use same neck piece to slip on the new face and hair.

If you want to remove the neck piece and put on a different BJD head, pull the elastic taught, remove the S hook, and un-thread the neck piece. I would recommend using a loop of wire to hold the elastic in tension while slipping off the neck piece so it dosen't fall into the body and you don't have to re-string the doll.

look back month challenge, day 6: any you're thinking of getting rid of?

i have several old customs that i don't vibe with. for some reason two of the worst offenders are both white-and-blue sea creatures. there's nothing exactly wrong with either of them, i just think the interaction of the design and the monster high anatomy/facial features does not spark joy in these cases.

this is the main reason i started making my dolls from scratch. i wanted to be able to chase the vibes & ideas that i had as far as they would go, instead of having to project them onto dolls with fixed, limited shapes. i have made some kind of bjd iterations of both of these creatures, here and here.

As far as sculpting goes, my main focus so far as been on object heads with only very very recently branching out into a tail (which looks pretty good imo for a first pass lol). I am hoping to eventually model my own body to go with my object heads, though, and have a doll that is 100% my own. Right now I print a lot of Kabbits cause I love them - they're made by AelithArt, who also has shared quite a few tutorials.

Some of Aelith's tutorials are linked below (he uses zbrush, which is a paid subscription. I've heard zbrush mini is free, though) (also hopefully these links will take you to the respective playlists):

If you don't like Zbrush or are having trouble getting Zbrush Mini to download or something, Blender is also popular and it's a free to use program. It's definitely got a learning curve but there are tons of tutorials on YouTube. I don't have any I specifically use, unfortunately, as the most I've used it for so far is for smoothing and a friend showed me how to do that over Discord.

Another friend has suggested just studying the joints and such of doll artists you admire and seeing how they built their dolls (one of my favorite parts of the Kabbits is the knees, personally)

I also got this on Etsy - https://www.etsy.com/listing/594358549/online-video-class-how-to-design-a-bjd?ref=hp_active-mission-recs-rv-1-1

Which is another Youtube course about designing a BJD pattern, essentially designing your doll. You can actually find a lot of classes like this through Etsy that may come as PDFs or special Youtube links. Those ones tend to cost money, though. I believe the one I got was about 15-16 US dollars. Not bad, but it's the very beginning of the process and does not get into the actual modeling aspect; it's just the planning stage. That seller DOES have more tutorials available that get into the modeling stage, but they're much more expensive and I believe she focuses on actual sculpting and casting in resin. I still use resin, but I 3D print my stuff.

If you can find a good, active discord community, that's also great, honestly. I'm really glad I joined Aelith's cause it's been a pretty positive experience and there's quite a few knowledgeable people in there who have all been very supportive.

Since Narinder has gotten lots of attention, I thought I'd share in a little more detail what specific parts from AelithArt's wide catalog he's made from, cause he's a little mix and match + a custom, remixed head.

Head: The head is a remix of one of Aelith's DIY pieces, made by FrozenOverStudio. She hasn't posted it on Etsy or Cults yet, but the STL file IS available for purchase and you can reach out to her at [email protected] if you'd like to purchase it. It comes with eyes chips. You can also reach out to her on instagram at @ frozenoverstudiosllc

Chest/Paws/Feet/Lower Torso: Wolfy

Thighs/Knees/Shins/Shoulders/Elbows: Original Kabbit

Forearms: You only need the one piece from this, unfortunately, if you want the bony look on his forearms, but it's the Zombie. This piece is a little tricky to use because 1. the bone forearm is only on one side, so you have to mirror it before printing, and 2. it's so freaking narrow! It's really hard to get the knot of your string through the channel. I eventually gave up, made my string a little shorter, and set it in such a way that the knot is actually still chilling near his wrist.

Tail: Additional Head and Ears set, which is also great if you wanna make a yellow cat~

I printed him on an Elegoo Saturn 2 in grey (cause black was being stupid and wouldn't cure)

A lot of the below comes in bulk - I tend to print multiple dolls to bring to conventions but just keep it in mind for yourself; at the very least it'll give you an idea of size.

The magnets in his head are 8x2mm magnets (no link but you can generally find these pretty easily online and in craft stores)

Magnets for tail are 5x2mm (not sure why this was smaller? But my other magnets didn't fit. If I'd noticed BEFORE painting, I could have dremelled it...wasn't willing to do it by that point.)

2mm elastic string

S-hook in neck

S-hook in wrists and ankles - It turned out these were a SMIDGE small for the ankles so I needed to use a set of pliers to widen them a little. So far, they're holding fine.

Altogether, this does seem like quite the investment, but I got a lot of these sets either over a period of time or after I joined Aelith's patreon. For $10 a month, he releases new parts or fully dolls that are available to you. He also does months where you can pick a sculpt so if there's a sculpt you want but it was released before you became a member, you can request it.

I hope that covers about everything? I'm not really aiming for like, a full tutorial, but I at least wanted to share everything that went into putting him together.

I can't wait to get his robes.

Kokoya continuing the tradition of beautiful, but very fragile, with these 1/12 scale blind box BJDs. They were $20 each when I pre-ordered; now they're down to $18 each. (Don't forget to use code "back" to get an additional 10% off.)

IS SO CUTE.

Leetle hands.

Each comes with a spare blank face-plate - and yes! Inset eyes!

Little magnets on the bottoms of the shoes!

The heads come apart and reassemble very easily, and the dolls stand very nicely on their own. However, those pigtails in pic 1 are super fragile. They're attached with just the tiniest bit of plastic. I was taking the head apart and was terrified I might have pushed too hard. Fortunately, I didn't.

But yeah. Absolutely stinking adorable.