BJDs as artist reference?

I'm inclined to agree with Rosslyn here--BJDs aren't art mannequins, nor are they humans. If it's humans one is trying to draw, then it's humans one should use as references, not resin dolls, albeit lovely ones with human features.

 

The Original Poster has already said they have no intention to:

- Use in place of more realistic sources.
- Use in place of practice.
- Copy full-stop a company's doll and pass it off as their own work.
- Rely on it as a crutch.​

Though I understand everyone's concern, being an artist who has had her works stolen from her and passed off as someone else's (both traced and stolen outright)... And I'm also an artist who highly recommends artists (even those who like to draw in comic or manga or some other stylized style) learn from real life as much as they can...

...Why is everyone piling on here, warning and re-warning about relying too heavily on the dolls? I think that the point has been perfectly made.

 

Here's the OP--

I think people are answering the question: Does anyone else do this? and How well does it work? and some are saying that they don't find them that useful and why... I don't see it as piling on at all. People seem quite civil about it, and they seem to want to be informative... although... I do agree that some are straying from what the OP wanted to know. (and all the fuss about copyrights is a bit much when someone is just using dolls for reference.)

I'm in the "No, I don't use BJDs as reference like a mannequin." camp. And for the same reasons--they aren't life-like enough for reference unless I'm actually trying to draw/paint a BJD. For drawing practice of a still-life (of a BJD), they are perfect, of course!

Actually, as ref for clothing folds, they might not be bad... although I haven't tried that.

 

I have a head, and it's pretty fabulous for learning shadows. I also plan on using my soon-to-arrive body for things like basic anatomy perspective and whatnot, though it'd be utterly useless for drawing realistic joints.

It would be impossible to use a BJD as a verbatim model, though. While I would indeed use one as a model and it was in the plan from the beginning, I would never draw exactly what I saw. I'm mainly using it for shadows. I can learn drapery just by looking at myself in the mirror, but it would be way more convenient to have a humanesque thing to pose any way I want. Those little wooden model dolls you see suck. They can barely move at all!

 

I think that using BJDs in place of human models can be extremely damaging artistically. Each sculptor takes anatomical liberties in sculpting a doll, and by using it as your model, you're going to reinforce all the inaccuracies inherent in the doll. It's definitely better to draw from the source: real people. Even drawing from slightly more accurate digital models like those on Posemaniacs, which is only really useful as a gesture drawing tool, is going to be a much preferable to the dolls if your interest is improving your understanding of the human body. And the digital models are just as easily accessible; they're free to use and online, after all.

That said, they're not bad to observing how clothing interacts with a general human form.

 

My partner got her first doll just for drawing purposes. While there are some things it doesn't do as well as a human (not quite as bendy, for one), it has the advantage of being able to hold a pose longer than a human. And she can leave it and come back to it and it has stayed in the same place. She finds it very useful to practice drawing her Jessica.

 

I'll prob find my doll some sort of use with art. XD
When i bought him , i never thought of using him for stuff like that..until my friend pointed it out xD
I draw a near anime/manga art style, so the balljointed dolls anatomy works well xD
I free hand more than use references so i tend to force my own non-realistic anatomy onto whatever i might be reference-ing 8)
A good artist can use a references and still be able to freehand to fix their mistakes
Although....
My main goal with this doll, was to recreate my own original character i designed xD
In the end, I find i never need references...been drawing since i was 2 and i have the imagination to create things people ust don't expect xD
I guess it depends what kind of artist you are XP

 

BJDs are unfortunately still pretty sub par for the uses you describe, due again to the proportions throwing off things like head shadows and foreshortening. Realistic anatomy affects those things drastically, and there just isn't a good substitute for a real human body. I do have a solution you can try... What I do for those situations myself is go find the biggest mirror I can and use myself, or grab an innocent bystander and ask them to stand still for a few seconds while I check something.

 

Drawing anything and everything is good. If you want to draw a doll and use your dolls to see what sort of perspective a doll will give you in terms of hands and arms, then that's fine. And you'll end up with a drawing of a doll.

As arckaya says, even things like Posemaniacs is not a substitute for life-drawing, though it's quite fun for some gesture drawings. There isn't any substitute for drawing humans... life-drawing is invaluable, backed up with an understanding of what's going on in the human body, and why. Even referencing clothing folds... cloth will drape differently on a doll... because they are not squishy like humans, etc., it will affect the cloth. Most obviously, it's not to scale... it will make a difference, like drawing from a scaled-down model of, say, Big Ben, to actually drawing Big Ben.

Humans are really quite fun to draw and pose their own challenges. Dolls will pose their own challenges too, but you will end up with a different result.

 

I gotta say, I find it odd that everyone's talking like the doll is going to drawn exactly as seen, and that the prospective artist is going for realism. Of course it wouldn't be as good as a real person, but it has its own conveniences.

Then again, I've been drawing for a long time and I've already got a grasp on anatomy, not to mention the uber-realistic style rarely looks good to me. I prefer art that's slightly stylized. It's just giving you a basic idea, not for teaching yourself actual anatomy, or to be used in lieu of a real model.

Artists use tons of different kinds of references. Like this little guy that I mentioned before. You see him all the time, but he's obviously inferior to a BJD. The most basic of references is nothing more than a ball-and-stick figure, and a step up from that is ball-and-tube, which are both tried and true anatomy perspective references that have been around forever.

I'm 100% with OP on this one. I've been drawing since I was two, and it didn't even occur to me that it wouldn't be a good idea to use a BJD as a model.

 

Something with a more defined body, not a smooth skinned bjd, would provide more shadows. You could even use action figures to get yourself started. With the life time of practice and 2 life drawing classes I've had the only time I ever used any of my toys was when I needed a strong overhead perspective on a certain pose. Learning to draw with basic shapes never clicked with me.

As for the permission to use pictures thing you'd be surprised how open many of the companies are if you ask. Some have certain ways they want the photo credited, as to what doll it is etc, and they want to see it so the know the doll is being presented in a good light but otherwise it's great advertising. The only company I never got permission from with my crew is the one who's discontinuing that line.

 

I can't wait to use my doll as a model! >3<
Not as a replacement for human models, but just as what she is~

edit: YAY I HAVE HER. She's a better model than I though. ;w; She can actually do pretty expressive poses, and the way she bends is so accurate~
Yes, definitely good for lighting and perspective. Not bad for anatomy, besides soft-tissue detail.

 

Cool post, feeling it too =P . I think sometimes people can get a little uptight about what's proper for practicing art and what's not, but then, I'm a pretty casual artist as present.



I think that using a BJD as a reference or in art is a great idea. 'Cuz using just about anything for art can be great. My 'training' in art, well, I haven't really had training in art, all self-taught and still pretty amateur-level. But from how I learned my artistic skills, I learned that there's something just as important as classical learning in realistic styles and human anatomy and such.

How much fun and interest you gain is front and center the most important thing, espeeecially when starting out. I tried getting into learning stuff like anatomy and realistic stuff and all the 'hard' learn-to-draw books as a kid... but it was so BORING and I just didn't GET IT and what was with all these weird extra lines?! I almost gave up trying to draw regularly and improve, the books were all so useless, until I crossed by a 'How to Draw Manga Style' book by Katie Coop. I've heard much later in a review site that the book was, as someone else said here, "extremely damaging artistically".

The book was simple, aimed at children, didn't teach anything like anatomy or perspective, and looking at the art in the book itself, I realize I could probably draw better than the stuff in there now and I'm not even very good. But it was fun for me, as a total amateur as a kid, to actually get that pencil onto that paper and draw something and have it turn out almost as nice as the thing in the book. I still draw mostly just in anime-style, which is a restriction, but through that long-winded path I learned for myself first-hand exactly why I need to learn classical skills like perspective and anatomy and lighting, and I've gained a strong appreciation for those skills that I couldn't even understand before I started drawing.

Learning from 'inside out' is the fast track to learning art (starting with real-life and then working out toward stylization) , but for this individual that wasn't my path. In order to learn in a way that was fun for me, I taught myself from the much more labor-intensive but still feasible 'outside in' approach (the simple stylization I admired but was a far stretch from real-life) . I don't think there's anything wrong with that path, slow as it may be.

There are plenty of things, yes even about anatomy and posing the human figure and proportions, that an artist can learn by using a BJD as a reference. There are some 'bad things' you can learn too, I guess, but the same is true for art mannequins and starting with drawing cartoons and anime and what-have-you. I dunno', I just don't think that there's much of a thing as 'bad development', because when you put pencil to paper you'll learn stuff eventually no matter what you're drawing... and my mentality is 'You start at SKILL ZERO ROCK BOTTOM YOU SUCK and there's no getting crappier than you are when you just start out! So don't feel bad, everybody sucks except the people who actually practice!' XD (That's the way I comfort friends when they complain about how they have no skill at drawing...)

Hm, but now I'm thinking I should draw my doll as a still-life piece... It would be heaps more interesting than the vases and junk I had to draw in my Design class XD .

ali

 

They aren't replacements for live models, but I think some BJDs' bodies are pretty good models for doing figure and value studies. For anime/cartoon proportions they're perfect. Some hands and feet are pretty realistically sculpted; I've used them as a reference before.

*wishes she could get a Dikadoll jointed hand*

 

i did a whole unit in collage with mine...it was easy cos we use 1/3 scale as a ruff anyway

 

I know several people have brought up the very good point that using BJDs as a drawing reference will not help much with executing naturalistic human figures... still, I can imagine many artists perhaps *wanting* to incorporate a stylized and mannequin-like figure into a piece of art. Especially when mixing disciplines, say fashion design illustration or something. BJDs can't replace what you learn from life-drawing practice, but they could equally well be another tool or subject for an artist to use.

 

Hmm, maybe for a quick sense of perspective or something like that, but I suppose it really depends on what style of anatomy you're looking to draw. Most bjd's, as pretty as they are, are not all that anatomically correct. The sculpts are usually meant to be beautiful or cute, so if you're more into realism you'd probably be better off with an anatomy book.

 

Sometimes I use it for reference.
Its another thing I like about dolls is that I can pose them and draw THEM.
most fictional characters aren't there at your fingertips to pose them how you like.
BJDs are