BALL-JOINTED DOLL - FINAL WEEK !

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New body

For my final week working on the ball joints of my doll, I finished my FDM prints and ended up making quite a few changes to my final version. One of the biggest things I fixed was the arm and hand joints- they originally sat in a way that made the arms bend backward, which wasn’t what I wanted. So, I rotated them to allow for more natural forward movement. I also adjusted the inside of the torso so there wouldn’t be as much empty space. This way, support material wouldn’t get stuck inside, making it easier to clean out. The neck needed some tweaking too- I shortened it and adjusted how it connected to the head because it wasn’t sitting right. I also realized I had forgotten to scale down the knee joint, so I resized it to fit better between the upper and lower leg. While I was at it, I shortened the legs since they felt too long and out of proportion. Another issue was the torso and chest joint—they didn’t fit together smoothly. I used the move and smooth tools to adjust everything until they connected better. While working, I also accidentally created some holes in the model, so I had to go back in with the trim tool and smooth everything out to make sure it all looked seamless.

New joints close-up

Once I made all these adjustments, I was pretty confident about sending my parts to the resin printer. Most of them printed fine, but one print failed, so Peter had to reprint it for me. A couple of parts came out a little weird, like the right lower leg, which printed in a way that made the joints not fit together properly. The left arm also had issues- the connecting joint got slightly squished, so the upper and lower arms don’t fit as well as they should. Since the opposite arm and leg printed fine, I think the best fix would just be to reprint those pieces.

Error prints

Another problem I ran into was that some of the joint holes got filled with resin, especially in the lower legs. I had to manually drill through them so the elastic could pass through properly. The magnet connectors for the faceplate also didn’t print quite right. I had measured everything carefully to make sure the magnets would attach the faceplate to the head securely while still allowing access to the eyes and elastic threading. The faceplate magnets fit perfectly, but the ones in the head cap ended up too low, making the magnets stick out. I tried to carve out more space, but I didn’t have the right tools, so it didn’t work as well as I hoped. This is another thing I’d have to reprint. Despite all these little issues, the doll actually came together pretty well! I followed this tutorial on stringing the doll and it worked, though I’d probably use slightly thinner elastic next time. I went with 3mm, but I think 2mm would be easier to thread through the joints without needing to pull so hard. I’d also get smaller S-hooks for the hands, the ones I used fit the head and legs just fine, but they were too big for the hands and arms. For now, I just made some out of paper clips, but in the future, I’d buy a separate set just for the hands. Overall, I’m really happy with how the doll turned out! The only thing I’d probably change is the head size. I kept tweaking it while working, and now that I see it in resin, I think I’d scale it up just a little to make it look more stylized. Other than that, I’m pretty proud of it!