A hello from the mouth of madness

[Dirili]

Hello everyone!

Don't know if I'm going to fit in here or not... been looking for some place where I belong, but I'm just too weird apparently and can't seem to find a nice community where I can really talk.

I kind of have artistic ADD.... Always been an artist, but as long as I've been alive I've always been genre and media hopping. I go back and forth between sculpting, penciling, water color, oil paint, digital paint, digital 3D modeling, sewing and designing clothes and jewelry... just about everything but photography. Never liked photography, no idea why either.

I had been going back to oil painting and was looking for a life sized fully posable doll or mannequin model when I discovered Iple House and Lovely Dolls. I was smitten! I had seen some really beautiful dolls, but seeing Asa was my breaking point and I knew I just HAD to have her. And while the floodgates were open and I was diving into my savings account.... I ordered a Bichun and a 1/3rd silicone doll from Lovely doll.

Here's what I'm waiting on (and waiting sucks!!! How do you all do it all the time? I'm going stir crazy):
http://www.atdoll.com/product_show.asp?picid=42
http://www.iplehouse.net/shop/step1.php?number=2026
http://iplehouse.net/shop/step1.php?number=2176

So even though I had intended to get serious with improving my painting style and moving into realism and out of stylization, I ended up with this big detour... I'm totally sidetracked wanting to sew doll clothes and play around with sculpting alternate heads, casting and face-ups and body blushing... maybe even try to make my own bjd and/or silicone doll from scratch later...

I know that all may sound overly ambitious of someone new to the doll scene, but as someone very experienced with a large number of other mediums, I think I just might be able to handle it!

Here's my website, though I haven't added anything to it for quite some time...
http://www.designbyamy.net

For the last 3 years I've mostly been working on IMVU, so:
This is a cataloged page of unpainted 3D clothing and item meshes that I created for IMVU (I would sculpt the 3D form and other people would paint them):
http://www.designbyamy.net/imvu/fullmeshmenu.html

And these are painted clothing and items I've made on IMVU (some on my own 3D meshes, some not):
http://www.designbyamy.net/imvu/fulltxtmenu.html

Never did find a good model for my paintings btw... I bought an Edation Hot Stuff 1/6th silicone doll, but I can't drape cloth as nicely as I would like at that size. Plus that doll wasn't nearly as posable as she sounded :/ Then I ordered a bendable mannequin, but that was a huge failure because it wasn't nearly as flexible as the pictures on the website made it look. I need to make one, team up with someone who could make a working skeleton and I can do the sculpting ^_^

[Iwa_Hoshi]

Welcome to the board

[famedglory]

Welcome to the forum! I totally understand what you mean by media hoping. I'm a bit all over the place myself. I don't think you're being too ambitious. A lot of us got into the hobby with the expectation that we would be doing most of the work for our dolls and I went to my first doll meet because I wanted to see a bjd in person before attempting to sculpt my own at dollhouse scale. Best of luck and I can't wait to see more examples of your work.

[kiki-chan78]

For a doll that will do double duty as an artist Mannikin, I suggest Obitsu. Go with either 40cm, 45cm, 48cm or 50cm model. Those aren't resin, they are vinyl. Cared for properly, they are virtually indistinguishable from their resin counterparts. I'm being 100% serious. I've had people be totally shocked, while they are *handling* one of my vinyls, that the doll in their hands is VINYL and not resin.

Six of the larger dolls in this photo are vinyl. The rest are resin. Have fun guessing which is which.







One of the advantages to a vinyl doll over a resin one for an artist is, when you pose them, they stay put. They are built with an internal support structure like a skeleton. Resins are assembled with elastic holding them together, so when you move a limb, it changes the tension on the other side, resulting in them falling out of poses.

To see more vinyl dolls in action, I suggest checking out the MadhVinyl section of the forum. It's an ongoing photostory that just about all the forum members follow religiously. As the name suggests, the entire cast is vinyl.

Also, it's really nice to see another 3D modeler on the forum. I usually model towards printing though, which is a slightly different subset of skills.

Welcome to the forum! ^__^

<3

-Kiki-chan78.

[zirconmermaid]

HI! I think you will find lots of people who love the hobby because it promotes creativity here.

[Dirili]

Thanks for the welcomes!

famedglory, you need to get some more of your artwork up on your website too hehe. Nothing yet in your painting, watercolor and sculpture galleries. I don't know how you can work so tiny! I like working big myself, but tiny things are so cute!

Oh, I did buy my Asa and Bichun dolls with faceups though because I really like Iple House's makeup and not sure if I could do justice to such beautiful dolls for a while... although I think I could handle the body blushing. We'll see. With the silicone doll, I think she comes with a faceup too, but I didn't like their body blushing job at all, so even though silicone paints cost a bit, I wanted to give that one a shot too.

I love seeing other people's work too! I'm just an all around art addict... Even with movies, I love both CG and real effects, doesn't matter as long as the work is amazing! I tend to gravitate towards realism, but I love anime as well. Usually the darker and detailed stuff.

kiki-chan78, thanks for the advice! I had given up on the idea of dolls as models, but I hear that Obitsu can be pretty affordable? I hadn't looked too closely at them before, but after hearing your advice I think I will! Especially since they come as large as 50cm. I think clothing folds might sit well enough at that size.

Great to meet another 3D modeler here as well! Do you make things that you have to skin/physique for animation? Or do you just make solid sculptures? Ug skinning/physique is the worst. I think doing that for so many items killed my brain.

[kiki-chan78]

Actually, obitsus go up to 65cm. I just recommend the 40cm, 45cm, 48cm or 50cm models because those provide the best mobility/posing. The *larger* of the 'large' obitsus tend to have single joints, while the 'smaller' ones have double joints. The 'smaller' ones also have joints inside their shoulders allowing them to shrug. For obitsus/parabox, you're looking at something running in the neighborhood of $300.

I got STARTED in this hobby looking for a good model. Got my first doll, Omi, who originally was a three part 60cm obitsu, and modified the bejeepers out of him. There is very little left on this doll that has NOT been modified in some way. ^.~











Nah, I don't do any of the animating. I just make solid models. Working towards print brings it's own headaches. Keeping in mind different material print-tolerances. On occasion I've completely remodeled aspects of a model to make it easier to hollow the sucker out to drop the print price, and make the entire thing lighter for a doll to be able to hold.

I'm currently chomping at the bit to be able to afford to print my latest model. At nine inches long, it's the largest piece that's been added to my shapeways shop. ^___^







<3

-Kiki-chan78.

[maywong]

Hi and welcome.

[Dirili]

oooooh! THAT kind of print! I thought you meant that you rendered the models for finished images that you sold as prints.

that's so awesome! I was hoping the process would become more affordable at some point. What's the cost running these days?

And Omi is adorable! Definitely great posing. Hmm... hard to decide if I should go 50 or 65 cm...
For references lately I've been using a combination of digital models of the body that I sculpted for IMVU for the pose and then I get the mannequin in the same general pose and arrange clothes or cloth on it. But realistic cloth draping is way too time consuming to be plausible in a 3D program, so that's what I need primarily with a real life model. so I'm kind of inclined to go with the larger dolls... would be nice if I didn't need the digital model at all.

Decisions decisions... aaargh!

And thanks May

[famedglory]

Haha yeah. My site is a bit of a work in progress. I'm hoping to have actual example up in the next few weeks.