Venus De Polylactide

myminifactory

Human: My first attempt at a BJD or "ball-jointed doll" is Venus de Polylactide. Honestly, I'm not too thrilled with the outcome - too much range of motion in some joints and too little in others. To top it off, I only figured out how to hollow out the pieces properly after I'd already finished her. Still, someone might find her useful. I used MakeHuman to model the base form, Meshmixer to slice into segments, and Tinkercad to create the joints. Here's what you need to do to print Venus de Polylactide: First, download all three files: Single_Plate.STL, Support_Hands.STL, and Support_Limbs.STL. You can print the entire model at once using the "Single_Plate.STL" file, but this may limit your fine control over which parts get supports and infill. Supports are only necessary for the hands - keep them sparse (I used 10%) to minimize scarring. Use a thick brim to hold the limb segments stable during printing. For most parts little infill is needed, but for the hands I recommend 100%. As with anything, 0.1mm resolution is pretty, but this will take a long time to print anyway so you might stick to 0.2mm as I did here. To assemble Venus de Polylactide: First, use 2-3mm elastic cord - sold at craft or hobby shops. You'll need a fine wire (I use a violin "A" string, taped to the cord) to thread the cord through the limbs. This is tricky and time consuming. You may want to drill out the holes bigger to ease the process. Begin in pelvis by passing the cord from one hip joint to the other. Then thread down one leg to the foot and back up, back through the hip joint and out the pelvis top. Repeat with the other leg. Grab both ends of your cord, pull hard, and tie a small knot. You will pass this knot back into the pelvis, to keep tension in the legs. Then pass the two loose ends up through the torso, out their respective arms, down to the wrist, back through the arms and shoulder joints, and finally up through the neck into the head. Pass one end through the loop in the head, yank hard to apply tension, tie off and you're done. Glue the head cap on with the cement of your choice.