Step 2: Designing My Product

Attached are sketches that I've done to design how my doll will work, and what sort of interchangeable parts I want to offer. I am still considering whether or not to have a 3 part torso.

All parts will come in caucasian, native american, asian and african skin tones. Special parts, like the mermaid or animal legs, may come in artificial looking colors like purple or blue.

Hands, feet, and attachments such as horns, wings or tails will be secured to the doll with magnets. They will come in a few base colors. (Except feet, which will come in the same colors as the normal body parts.

My faces are pretty generic looking right now, I plan to develop them more in the actual modeling stage. For now I'll just point out that I have a hawaiian/pacific islander face shape that I am developing, a long/skinny caucasian face, a continental asian face, and a mixed race face for females. Males have only three faces right now, because I need to do more research on racial features for males.

Body part options I'd like to develop in the future: Lizards, dragon people, small-bird feet (like a robin or a finch), cat paws/feet, dog paws/feet, centaur bodies.

I am also attaching some basic color samples for the eyes that I will be making. Customers can request an eye color they want to come with their doll, or leave it up to me. Eyes will be acrylic beads with alterations to add the iris. Since I will be printing the iris off my computer, I will be offering custom eyes for customers for a little extra. The no pupil and symbol eyes can come in any color. I just didn't feel like making every color for them.

The joints shown for my doll are all just rough sketches and preliminary ideas. I am still fiddling around with how exactly to shape the joint to make it look most appealing. I am also pondering how exactly to make the head work, and if I want faceplates or solid heads. Face plates would provide more customizability, but they are less secure than just regular heads. So we'll see.

If I do faceplates they will all be attachable to the same back-head-piece, and each will come in the three different ear types (human, vampire, elf), and three different basic expressions (happy, sad, nuetral). More facial expressions will be available in the future, I'm just not bothering with them right now. Also, I am wondering if people would want a head type that has no ears, so that they can attach the animal ears instead?

Lastly, you can see some of the thinking sketches I did for the mermaid tail. I am considering making the torso 3 parts so that I can sell an option part for the bottom 3rd that would be colored to match the mermaid tail attachment. But anyway, as you can see, the mermaid tail will be attached like legs. However, those spheres will not be the joints. Those wouldn't work, they'd make the tail look all blocky. I've settled on a better method, which would enable the tail to look smoother when bent.

Please feel free to post any suggestions in the comments :)

Step 1: Concept of Company

How did I decide to start making my own line of customizable ball joint dolls? Well, I guess the creative seed was planted in my high school years, when my group of Anime friends first introduced me to Asian ball joint dolls. ABJDs are so beautiful, so elegant... The girl in me just fell in love with them. About 7 years later I have found myself with decent sculpting talent, knowledge of modeling in 3D and with ambition to start my own business. I started selling small kitty sculptures that I've dubbed "Krispy Kitties," and decided to challenge myself more.

As a fan of ABJDs, searching through the various options from Asia, I've found that I want more. I want more options, more interchangability, more ethnicities, more fantasy. I want a functioning, pretty, mermaid tail. And I figured, hey, if I want these things other people probably do too. After reading a ton of forum posts I realized that yeah, other people do.

Then I realized that most BJD companies (and by far the most popular and highest quality) are in Asia. The distance causes long time delays and communication problems for customers. So many users on online forums like Den of Angels or Resinality have complained about 5 months of waiting for a doll, or miss-communicated orders. When really... After the initial prototype and mold, I could probably produce a high quality Asian themed ball joint doll (with body blushing and face up) in as little as three working days. With in-country shipping, and limited "open order" periods, I could get dolls to their owners within a few weeks of their order, rather than months.

Then I thought, hey, you know what would be better than a ball joint doll merely sold in America? A ball joint doll sold in America, made of American materials from American suppliers. Not only will Chimera offer customers cheaper shipping and great customer service, but it will give them the pride of knowing that their money has gone right back into the American economy. I've researched 3D printing services, urethane resin production companies, magnet companies, and doll material companies that produce their wares in America. And, as my business starts up, I will be using the American company "Etsy" to sell my products online. In a suffering economy, it's important that our national currency circulates.My hope is that one day Chimera will get big enough that I can hire a team, enabling me to contribute more to our economic recovery by creating a few more jobs.

Now I have come to the point where I must sit down and design how my dolls will work. I've decided on the use of magnets, which seem to be popular right now. As well as "double" joints. I have sketches of my designs on paper, which I will upload for the next post.

Chimera will offer the following BJD related items:
-Female heads/body types.
-Male heads/body types.
-Fantasy/Animal themed variations of the above.
-Hand made, custom eyes.
-Ear/tail/horn/wing magnetic attachments for dolls.
-Face ups, Body Blushing, Tattoos and Manicures.
-Possibly: BJD jewelry/clothing/accessories.

Throughout this process I would be more than happy to receive critique of my designs, or suggestions for what other BJD fans want to see me make. Please feel free to post your critiques or suggestions in the comments of these posts :)