More modeling chibi liani doll head and latex skin test

When you are building something, it is very important to have feedbacks. You can ask friends or else, but they are not really reliable. Because if they like you, they will probably say : "AMAZING !" and if they hate you, it will be like : "NO WAY !". Last but not least, if you have friends who hate you : "RUN, they are not your friends anymore ;)"

So here we took a really good bjd doll forum for feedbacks (google translate is your friend ;) :

http://www.materielceleste.com/t49521-liani-dolls-libre-animated-dolls

This forum is full of good advices :) so "release early, release often" ;)

So we had to improve the jaws and the quality of the picture. It seems that we have to put the camera very close to the object to improve the render. In fact, now we can see all the mistakes ;(

So here is the new chibi liani head modeling :

We tried to make a skin test. Plastiroc is often used in bjd doll prototyping but really discouraging for the beginners (hard to work, long to dry). Here to ease the process of sculpting it could be great to model in pat'plume and make a skin in latex.  

It is cheap and fast but it is not as clean as Plastiroc and surfacer.


And here is a previous latex skin test to have an idea :

The chibi liani head modeling has started too. We use blender and we have learned to use it with Neal tutorials and Angela tutorials blenderella. Don't forget to shop if you can ;)

You can improve the .blend file :)

Modeling chibi liani doll in patplume

After sketching what you planning to do. Now it is modeling time ;)

So before doing anything, you will have to learn how to model. To do that, you can use youtube or the future tutorial i will put on here ;). For this modeling, i used Berit HILDRE book, her modeling and characters are really awesome, sooo full of live. And i used sculpture techniques -miniature head sculpting of Jordu Schell from Stan Winston School too. But more and more practising are needed ;)

Which modeling materials to use ?
- un pen and a cap pen (really important)
- a knife
- color pen and water paint

Then there are all sorts of materials : clay, dollputty, plastiroc, fimo... that you have to put in oven or not, dry fast, slowly or not.  Here patplume have been used because :
- safe
- cheap
- no oven
- reusable
- paintable
- latex friendly

After hours of hard work, here is the result :

And a finger spinning doll head on Mozart (because it is great and public domain, copyrigths expired)

Birth of chibi liani dolls : design sketch

First thing first, the sketch or the idea ;)

All creation begins with a sketch. If you can't draw it, you can't build it . There is a lot of methods to learn to draw, the one used here is to take a really good tutorial from a very talented artist and training for instance (it is called learning from the masters ;) : 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTQnrRiC5lA 

You can also train with this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOcvarqm4G0

In this case, we get that :

Sorry, very lousy result but not every one can be a good craftsman ;)

So in our case, we will start with a chibi version to test if we can draw it, sculpt it and animate it ;) We will post it on dolls maker forum to see what they think about it.

It ended up with liani and her pet friend spouf  : 

For spouf preston animation book, pixar, dreamwork... is gold to create cute character.

So we will wait the forum feedback to see if it is a good idea to sculpt or not ;)

How to draw liani

THE LIANI FEELING

Drawing is about watching, if you see quite clearly, you will be able to make beauty. More and more you watch things and more you will feel the beauty of the line you draw, the shape, the eyes, the composition and the proportion. That is fascinating... A good help is book by Betty Edwards.

Like Dick Kelsey advised to Richard Williams :

"Yes, but i mean really learn to draw."

THE BEGINNING IS 2D

Liana is a doll but also a mix of how to draw bishoujo and how to draw girls.
Like a wise blenderhead once said :

all roads to hell, lead to a coin operated automate...

no that is : drawing a 2d sketch is faster than modeling one, that is not the exact statement but that is the idea.

With some work, you can make a little art :

And you can draw an idea of what, your model going to look like :

It is just a sketch so don't be too hard. That is beginner art...

MAYBE A POSSIBLE MODEL SHEET

 

What is liani dolls ?

 
The goal of liani dolls  (LIbre ANImated dolls) is to try to build libre or open hardware animated dolls with libre software programs and try to monetise it with copyleft (sound crazy no ;)

In this blog, you will find all the tools needed to create a doll :
- news about doll makers and new dolls
- the drawing skills
- the libre design files
- the modeling skills in Blender or on modeling paste
- links to books and tutorials (to make affiliate incomes ;)
- animation tests, files and stop motion tests
- some libre mechanical designs and test
- some doll history
and much more ...

Why making libre animated dolls ?

Doll making is full of skills to learn :
- drawing
- modeling
- mechanical design
- animation and stop motion
- user interaction with the doll
- programming...
- use of ponoko, thingiverse and shapeways to open up the design files

At the end, if you are able to make a doll, in fact, now you can create anything !

This blog is really a work in progress by a big beginner, so if you see any mistakes or other ways to go, you are welcome to use the comment section.

Thank you for your comprehension and your help ;0)

Let's go to the infinity and beyond...