Speaking about dolls

A friend of mine actually did this same thing for her speech class a few months ago
it's a lot of information to jam into a short speech so you have to summarize your information and be selective about which specific topics about BJDs you want to talk about (unless of course you don't have a time limit on your speech)

I think this will help you as an information source, sorry I can't remember any more right not but if I do I'll add it later

 

If you do a search for "ball-jointed dolls" on Amazon, a lot of books come up. One of them, "Ball jointed dolls for beginners" was written by a member of DoA, and there are several with names like "Ball jointed doll making guide". Another option for you would be to visit a BJD artist's website/blog - some go into a lot of detail about how they make their dolls. I've seen blogs that start out with a just drawing, then show how each part is sculpted, how the stringing works, and all sorts of other info. I know of at least one site with more general info: bjd-wtf. Also, there's always the DoA wiki. Although, you could just focus your talk on what you know the most about already. It's really a complex hobby! You could spend 15 minutes talking about just about any one aspect of the hobby. Though if you're required to cite sources, it might be a bit more tricky, since some online resources don't list where they got their info. I'm not sure how your teacher feels about using internet sites as sources. Anyway, good luck and I bet your presentation will be interesting. People who know nothing about BJDs are often amazed by how diverse they are and how much customization is possible.

 

First off, you need to decide what your speech is going to be about. BJD history, mechanics, the making of, customization, costuming, modding? To do well in your class, you need to pic a specific topic and go from there. It's so easy to just launch into this great long discussion about everything BJD, but remember you will have a time constraint. In order to be graded well and present a well constructed speech don't try to cram too much into it. Good luck & have fun researching your chosen topic

 

The site Chibi_Rat gave you is a good start.

A little information about the history of Super Dollfie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Dollfie, or BJD's in general: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball-jointed_doll.

If you want to go a bit more technical, you could of course try to find a few BJD making tutorials with the molding and casting included, or check out this site: http://www.dollshecraft.com/infodesk/banner.php?number=61. Dollshe quickly explains how the molding and casting procedure works, but like I said - it is a bit technical.

I agree with what the others have already suggested. First decide the topic of your speech, because when you focus on both the history of these dolls, how to customize them, famous artists and collectors, how to make them AND a detailed research about the psychological effects of owning a doll... well, that might be a bit much for the average listener.

Good luck!

 

Hi Opal,

It is wonderful that you have the opportunity to share your passion with the rest of your classmates. However, the population of DoA should not be doing your homework for you.

This entire forum holds a wealth of information, and a basic search on the internet will be able to provide you with additional information that you may need. All the information is here, it just takes a bit of deeper digging to find it. The customization/maintenance, News, and General discussion subforums have some really great information on doll creation, care, hobby history, and current hot issues.

This is much more suited to a personal blog or lj, so I'm locking it up.

Best,
Laelen