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Original Doll Sculpts - what happens to them?

Sep 14, 2007

    1. I have been looking through a lot of BJD websites lately (like you do) and there seems to be a lot of new sculpts in the works with many of them having pics of the original doll posted on the website to show the work in progress (Dollstown is a prime example here) and i got to wondering what happens to the original doll sculpt?
      Do the sculptors/companies ever sell these original dolls or are they kept for reference? They don't get destroyed do they?
      I would love to know if anyone has seen an original doll in RL and what they were like......more detailed perhaps or did they differ a lot from the final doll released for sale?
       
      #1 Mamehisa, Sep 14, 2007
    2. my guess is they are kept by the artist/company so that if they need to re-make the mold they can.
       
      #2 mhdolls, Sep 14, 2007
    3. I noticed that some companies update their body and head sculpts at some time so i presumed that at some point they would have a 'redundant' original doll hanging around. I wondered if they ever sold them, would'nt that be fantastic - to own the original doll?
       
      #3 Mamehisa, Sep 14, 2007
    4. Chances are that the original sculpt isn't made of resin. If it's been made from clay then it can be broken up and the clay reused. Even fired clay can be reconstituted by soaking in water.

      A lot of companies actually use the same bodies with different head sculpts so there isn't a whole original doll as such.
       
      #4 Moggie, Sep 15, 2007
    5. I always thought making the mold destroyed the original doll? I could be wrong though.
       
      #5 mk13, Sep 16, 2007
    6. Hmm. I would hope each company keeps an archive of each mold produced. I mean, Nike keeps a pair of every shoe they ever made in archives. Hasbro archives toys too...
      It is a good practice, and widely supported.
       
      #6 mince, Sep 16, 2007
    7. Do you mean the actual sculpt that goes to the company for tooling and casting? Whenever I have had a toy or doll cast (for vinyl or resin), the mold making process trashes the original sculpt. Sad but true.
       
      #7 angeldevildolls, Sep 17, 2007
    8. My original sculpt is in a plastic baggie just in case I need to make more molds. Nothing to do with her, the grey primer isnt pretty.
       
      #8 Renzi, Sep 17, 2007
    9. All your replies are really interesting, thank you.
      So, are there no original doll sculpts that are kept by companies/sculptors as a doll in their own right?
      Renzi do you never feel like you want to overpaint the grey, do some body blushing etc and make your original sculpt into a truly unique doll? Maybe you could make a copy of her and use that for re-casting so she does'nt get lost forever?
      I have looked at some of the BJD artists that produce only OOAK dolls in porcelaine etc and their dolls sell for a vast amount of money, surely an original sculpt doll by a gifted maker would be worth too much money to have it crushed by the moulding process? I hope so anyway!
       
      #9 Mamehisa, Sep 17, 2007
    10. Not really, she didn't feel alive until she was resin. Baggy is her home. :sweat
       
      #10 Renzi, Sep 17, 2007
    11. You cast your own dolls then, you don't fear for her being crushed like angeldevildolls when they send their dolls for casting by a company, that's good - i would just love to see the original sculpts finished and displayed rather than placed in a drawer or baggy for later use.
      Has anyone seen an original all perfectly finished?
       
      #11 Mamehisa, Sep 17, 2007
    12. I doubt why you would do that, isn't the model sculpt made for being copied, meaning, become the original only when in resin. As the latter product of this process - but that's just how I got it - it's meant to be "finished". Not that I want to correct you, because I really don't know, only an impression.
       
      #12 Eolomea, Apr 26, 2014