Hand made dolls.

I think I read in another thread that you can sometimes commission custom dolls if you have a particular idea of how you want it to look. I would definitely be interested in eventually having a custom doll like that made if I really stuck to this hobby. As long as the quality was on par with the normal doll companies I think that'd be really neat actually!

 

I'm shocked that someone could sculpt one that fast. I don't know how much cheaper it would be. I think that one of a kind pieces made by an artist who has spend years perfecting their craft is probably actually going to be quite a bit more expensive. I imagine that sculpting a face would actually be pretty challenging and probably time consuming. However, my craft knowledge/personal hobbies do not extend to sculpting of any kind other than very basic things so I don't really know.

I tend to calculate out all kind of things so it'd be a question of cost of materials x hours it took to do it plus skill x artists hourly rate. Materials are probably fairly cheap, but if it took an artist says 10 hours to complete a custom sculpt, and you though the artists time was worth at least $50 an hours, which I would think it is, that's $500 minimum. So I guess I'm saying it probably wouldn't be any cheaper and would be a lot more expensive (for a truly quality one of a kind piece).

Anyways, that's my base thoughts on it, I tend to ramble. Sorry D:

 

With practice you can sculpt anything fast. You develop muscle memory, like with riding a bike, and it just comes to you. I've been trying to make my own ball joints for years, I have trouble with locking joints, some parts I'm much better at than others. When things are going good I can do a face plate in a couple of hours.

If I liked a home made doll I'd definitely look in to buying it. I wouldn't expect a home made doll to be any cheaper than a company made one, heck I'd pay a bit more to get exactly what I want and know that it's mine alone.

 

I use polymer clay to sculpt my bjd's. The time it takes varies, depending on the look I'm trying to achieve and also the mechanics of how I want the doll to move. It takes considerable time to get the joints correct so they not only work properly, but are smooth and clean. I'm very particular about the arms and legs functioning to their optimal potential, so I spend a great deal of time to make sure they do. As far as selling the doll at this stage and the cost thereof, I'm not sure who does that or how much they would charge. Making molds and casting in resin seem to be the normal practice, then the doll is sold as OOAK. The only personal experience I have with others pricing was at $100 per inch. That was for a single doll by a single artist, so not sure, but I am curious as well.

 

Den of Angels has a sister site called The Joint. Years ago there used to be a section of this forum where you could show handmade dolls, but now all handmade dolls are encompassed in The Joint forum to streamline the content of both forums. I'm afraid that BJDs made from polymer clay would be off topic for this forum anyway, as this forum has a resin focus.

That said, such dolls can be quite wonderful. As others have guessed, I would expect that a handmade, one of a kind doll would cost much more than a company made BJD and with good reason.

There used to be a small number of companies (I'm not sure if they still have these services anymore) where you could send photos of a celebrity or sketches of your original idea and they would sculpt and then cast a limited number (usually 10) of dolls for you. I have one of these heads actually. They can be quite fun.

 

I'm kind of confused.... All BJD artists start out as people who want make their own dolls. Why wouldn't anyone want to buy their creations? That's essentially what BJD's are! There are plenty of companies who are successful with many satisfied buyers who are a one woman (or one man) show, who sculpt, cast, paint and sell their own dolls. Many of them show off their works in The Joint, or on their blogs.

It's more expensive to buy a custom doll because you have no one to split development costs with. So, for example, if it takes someone.... 100 hours to sculpt the doll, and paying them $50/hr (low for a professional, but we'll assume this price for now), that's $5,000 for the time to sculpt alone. Materials are probably another $100 on top of that, and if you want it cast in resin? Add a few hundred dollars more for molds/resins/casting time. If an artist then goes to sell 100 copies of the doll, each buyer would only be paying $50 for development, plus the individual costs of actually making the copy. (We are, of course, not counting profits, which are necessary for a business to stay afloat).

(And if you're talking about making your own, you're still looking at hundreds for materials alone.... Not to mention, resin and silicone and finicky materials and if it's your first time using them you're bound to screw up and waste a lot of both).