Coating a blow up doll with silicone the smart way...

[opendolldesign]

So...

I have been toying around with an alternate super low cost version of my doll skin project lately. While it wouldn't give you the detail of skinning a commercially made mannequin, for the cost it would be much more realistic than just the original blow up doll.

The materials are:

-Blow up doll
-2 part Silicone, such as eco-flex - http://www.smooth-on.com/Silicone-Rubbe ... catdepth=1
- Silicone pigments and flocking if desired to increase realism of skin (also available from Smooth On)
-A full body Zentai suit that is a little small for the size of your doll - http://www.zentai-zentai.com/custom_made.html
-Sodium polyacrylate (a cheap non-toxic material that emulates body fat and internal tissue almost exactly.) Order bulk or can use a bath product called Squishy Baff.


The process would be

- Inflate the doll
- Put a few coats of your un-pigmented silicone of choice on the doll
- Long before the final coat cures, put the zentai suit on the doll.
- Immediately coat the zentai suit with several layers of thin pigmented silicone so that you can no longer see the suit (may be a good idea to get a suit that is skin color to begin with for this reason).
- Now your blow up doll is strong enough to be filled with Sodium polyacrylate if you want, which should make it pretty heavy but also much more lifelike.

I estimate the total cost would be around $180 - $200.

Gotta run but let me know what you guys think. Any ideas on how to improve or problems that I didn't think of ?

[Christine]

Thank's Professor.....

Look's like she came out Great!!!

[Tybalt]

When its all done can you open her up, insert metal skeleton and foam stuff n that material that mimics human fat? And seal it up again?

[opendolldesign]

When its all done can you open her up, insert metal skeleton and foam stuff n that material that mimics human fat? And seal it up again?

Yes, but you would have to make sure and put some petroleum jelly or other release agent on the zipper of the Zentai suit before putting it on the doll (take really special care to not get any release agent on the fabric next to the zipper, because you want the silicone to stick to that). Then once it is done, you use an exacto knife to cut a slit through the silicone, unzip the zipper and then cut through the base layer of silicone and plastic material the blow up doll is made of.

It won't be air/water tight anymore but if you are going to stuff it then thats not a problem

Once you are done stuffing, just zip her back up and go at it!

[Tiriaq]

You should post some more pictures of your doll, so we could take a good look at what kind of materials they've used on your doll.
My first dollie was a hard kind of PVC, earlier generations. Even if you manage to get the silicone all smoothed out, it would never hold because the PVC will wrinkle and carry the look onto the silicone layer.

Mine is filled with pieces of cut foam. You have to have a good following order of working or you will end up with parts being stuck and not tight enough.

[Tybalt]

Please post vids on youtube and stepbystep pics please

[opendolldesign]

Please post vids on youtube and stepbystep pics please

I wont be building one of these any time soon, my plans are to build and share vids of my other more realistic design here http://dollforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52174 once I have the money to buy all the materials. Testing and experimenting for it ate up all my free cash.

[opendolldesign]

You should post some more pictures of your doll

I haven't built one like this yet and probably wont, it was more for resourceful people on a really tight budget. My main interest is on completing my other design here: http://dollforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52174

Even if you manage to get the silicone all smoothed out, it would never hold because the PVC will wrinkle and carry the look onto the silicone layer.

Not sure what you mean here, I have cured silicone on pvc/vinyl and no wrinkles formed at all. Care to elaborate?