And the journey begins...

I'm finally beginning work on creating my very own ball-jointed doll! I will be using this blog to document my journey so everyone can see this come to fruition with me. It all starts with an idea, which then takes it's shape on paper. I'm both excited and scared. I had started once before with a design but faltered and now I'm picking up the reigns again. I've decided my first doll will have the facial sculpt of Leia Organa from Star Wars. I realized that she was probably the first character I knew in my Life, having first seen her even before I started school as a child. All I know is as far as I can remember I've Loved her, as I Love all of my favorite characters! Anywho, her body is intended to be very natural looking. Here's some pics of my designs! I'm even more excited seeing her on paper. I did three basic images of her nude (front, profile, and rear) and one of her in the infamous slave outfit from Return of the Jedi.





Yeah, it's a tad ghetto that I had to tape paper together, haha! But I didn't have paper that was long enough. I had wanted her to be 65cm tall, but she turned out being a little over 63cm, with a head that is larger than what was aimed for. To me the head fits. I did three test runs with one being 1cm over the size it was supposed to be (too small), then one that was 1.5cm bigger (too big) and finally settled with the head that stretches only an extra centimeter. As it is, from what I counted in photos of Carrie Fisher, she's only 6 or 6.5 heads tall! It's believed that typically (in figure drawing) people are 7.5 heads tall. I think she turned out how fate intended ^_^

I'm currently working on designing the joints by analyzing other dolls out there online and my Sideshow collectables Leia doll to see how to work out maximum posability while keeping the figure smooth and as realistic as possible, which is a challenge but every road has it's bumps. I've rather gotten ahead of myself though by designing other costumes, hairstyles, etc for Leia. She really deserved to be as ornate as her mother in her attire. I just couldn't help it, especially after being enveloped in the hard to find "Dressing a Galaxy: the costumes of Star Wars." That book alone is what sparked my feeling the need to really do this. The amount of effort and detail that went into the thousands of costumes in Star Wars is just awe-inspiring and every time I open that book (which is usually daily) I think to myself "I've gotta do this! I've gotta work at creating beauty at such a high quality." This also comes after the idea that, while I'm only 24, I don't want to waste my Life on meaningless things when I could be creating so much. So here's to the journey and I thank anyone who is joining me! This must be what becoming a mother feels like; Bringing creation into the world and loving every minute of it.

Reading materials:
-"Yoshida Style Ball Jointed Doll Making Guide" by Ryo Yoshida
- "How to Make a Sphere Joint Doll for Beginner" http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkclub.or.jp%2F~oshizaka%2Fdoll%2Fhowto%2Findex.html&lp=ja_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

The second, which is a website of course, is poorly translated but contains *excellent* imagery and in my opinion is even more detailed than Yoshida's guide.