So although I've not been posting about it due to having to rework a lot of it and being very frustrated and discouraged by that, I have been working bit by bit on getting my ball joint doll project ready for print.

The big hang up has been the hands. I have decided to take a risk and attempt to make jointed, pose-able hands. At a 1/6th size, that's quite an undertaking, but I believe I have a design that Shapeways can print and that I can reproduce and cast. We shall see how right I am when everything is done.

I have also decided that other than the hands, which are simply too small to string, I am going to go with traditional strung ball joints rather than snap lock joints. Shapeways just was not up to printing accurately enough at that scale unless I wanted to spend way too much on a more expensive printing process. I just don't have that kind of money! The hands are small enough I can get away with the more expensive printings, but the rest of the doll would cost far too much to prototype.

Anyways, enough excuses. I have gotten enough sculpting done that I feel it's time to share some progress with you. So here's a screenshot from Blender, rendered with the smooth shading engine so the parts stand out from each other a little better and don't look all polygonal.

This is 24 separate pieces, on a rig for posing. So far I have only jointed it from the shoulder to the fingertips of one arm, but the other arm can be copy/mirrored to make things easier for myself.