BJDs are great dolls for those who can’t leave well enough alone. You can change their hair. You can change their eyes. You can wipe face-ups, and redo them, to your heart’s content. Thanks to the forgiving qualities of resin, you can also perform tweaks and fixes to a doll’s poseability. Three of my dolls have had “surgery” on their upper thigh or hip joints. In this post, and the next two, I’ll share these little alterations, in case you’re moved to do the same to one of your crew.
Before getting to it, please remember to use safety when drilling or sanding resin. Resin dust is a toxic substance. You don’t want it in your lungs. Work in a well ventilated area, and always wear a proper respirator or mask to prevent inhaling dust and shavings.
This first modification was done to my Volks Kyotenshi Byakuren, Ariel. Ari came to me as a pre-owned doll, but he’d mostly been kept in his box, untouched, prior to my bringing him home. I was thrilled the moment I saw my new guy, but less so when I tried to sit him up on my dresser. No amount of cajoling would keep him from falling backwards. I first blamed this on the doll’s one-piece torso. Both of my previous dolls had jointed torsos, and no problems sitting. The jointed torso does make some difference here, as it allows you to adjust the doll’s upper body for balance. Upon examining Ari more closely with another BJD-keeping friend however, we determined that his legs were the problem. Lucky for me, it was an easy fix.
The string slots at the the top of Ari’s thighs were very short. The cords could not come far enough forward to allow him to balance in a sitting position. Using a hand-held, electric, rotary tool, I lengthened each slot by a little less than a third of its total length. In the photo below, the bracket indicates where I added length.* I used a burr attachment on the rotary tool to accomplish this, basically sanding through the resin I wanted to remove. With Ari, I was able to do this easily without unstringing the him. Ari’s string channels are deep enough that the elastic cords were well below the tip of my rotary tool. If you do this on a doll with thinner legs, or more shallow channels, you will need to use extra caution (or unstring the doll, just to be safe). It’s also a good idea to lightly roll over the edges of your cuts with the rotary tool, once you’re done. Doing so will sand away rough spots or sharp places which could wear on the elastic.
After making this small change to both legs, I tested to see if the modification had worked, and huzzah! He sits like a champ! A champ who likes to sit!
It’s worth mentioning that if you have a doll with a sitting problem like Ari’s, but you’re squeamish about taking a drill to your baby, loosening the string tension is a less invasive possible answer. Less tension can achieve the same effect, as a more loosely strung doll won’t have such a tendency to snap backwards. My personal preference is to keep my dolls rather tight, as it makes them easier to stand and pose overall.
*Just as an added note, to those who may wonder why Ari isn’t “correct”, as evident in the photo of his nether regions, it’s because he a Volks Tenshi, or “angel”. Volks follows the mythological convention that angels are completely without gender (ala Kevin Smith’s “Dogma” lol), therefore, unlike most BJDs, none of the Volks angels have anatomically correct bodies.
