↓ Skip to main content
HK Oxalis Portfolio Website
HK Oxalis Portfolio Website

Custom doll highlights

·425 words·2 mins
Crafts 3d 3d Printing Meshes

Introduction
#

I love making dolls and doll clothes, and I often make my own using 3D printing. Here’s a selection of them that I’ve made, but didn’t write a full breakdown for.

Frog
#

A painted frog figurine with articulated legs, arms and head on a white background. It's lifting its right leg and arm.

These frogs are made in the same scale as a Sylvanian Families doll, with only five points of articulation, but they’re fun to paint, easy to print, and I’m proud of the sculpting, especially on the face.

The bed of a 3D printer with the parts of the above frog doll laid out in black plastic.

Fairy
#

Two fairy dolls. One is larger and blue with purple hair. The other one is half as big and orange, without any hair, but painted like a monarch butterfly.

This fairy design had two goals. Firstly, I wanted it to be as articulated as possible, with the widest range of movement I could manage. Secondly, I wanted it to work at two scales, one half the other.

These two goals ended up working against each other in the end, however, due to the simple realities of friction and weight.

The big doll was well articulated, yes, but it was hard to keep in one place. The wings were too heavy to stay in place without support and the torso ball joint constantly shifted under the weight of the head, leaving it posed in unnatural ways that would have damaged a real person’s spine. The joints had to be large and exaggerated to accommodate the small doll and its stringing.

A fairy doll standing on a blue table. It is about 30 cm tall, similar to a Barbie and blue with purple hair.

On the other hand, the small doll was nearly perfect. Once assembled, it held its pose really well - mostly due to the friction of the paint and varnish. This was its own problem, of course, because the wear on the joints will then risk peeling the paint off. But the real problem was assembling it in the first place. It was incredibly fiddly to string together, and the end result was too fragile for most uses. I’d hesitate to give it to a child, or even another adult who isn’t familiar with the potential breakpoints.

A fairy doll sitting on a blue table. It is about 15cm tall, about half the size of a Barbie, and orange, without any hair, but painted like a monarch butterfly.

I think the real best result of this model would be to make something halfway between them - but then, that isn’t any standardised doll scale.

Human
#

A humanoid doll painted purple with wild rainbow hair sitting down on a white background.

Obviously, I had to do a human doll too. They took a lot of iteration, and I’m still working to perfect my designs. This one is an earlier iteration than the fairy, and it has plenty of articulation points, but not quite my dream range of motion.

This one matches the proportions of a larger Monster High doll, so it’s compatible with many pre-existing clothes and sewing patterns. I did like the stylised face on this one a lot more than my earlier mermaid designs (See one of my previous crafts articles for more pics of those).