plus size bjd – Hi, I'm Glace

Daniel BJD – Resione

04/2025 – I was never quite satisfied with the waxy looking Sunlu printed Daniel, but Resione released a new BJD resin that I really wanted to try. I went back to prototyping some more tweaks on my prototype – updated knees, neck, shoulders, and even some rough hands and feet. I took a week off from work and used most of it to print this guy out. Here’s what I wrote about the process:

I printed for 7 of the last 8 days, 10 completed prints total, 32 pieces – 1 whole MSD-sized doll, 2 extra heads, and print tests. I followed the given settings and instructions very closely, including using a kombucha band and space heater to keep my garage and the printer warm. Maybe recklessly, I never emptied the vat or removed/cleaned the built plate between prints.
I had 6 total part failures, annoyingly not until what would have been the last plate. One faceplate and the hands failed, I figured due to insufficient supports. I sliced them separately with more supports, and they failed again, really early that time. I restarted the print without changing anything and they printed just fine that time so I have no idea what they problem was there. Maybe USB issue? The resin does not like being paused. In the past I’ve usually paused an hour or two into long prints to make sure everything was sticking, and every few hours to stir the pigments, but when I paused this resin, supports failed at that point. From the third plate onward I didn’t pause anymore and only had the three parts at the end fail (twice).
I’m kind of exhausted from all the printing but I’m very happy with the results. The support settings do leave big bumps but the results are overall beautiful. It’s hard to capture the difference on camera, but in person the resin does look really crisp and opaque compared to the Sunlu/Siraya/white pigment mix I’d been using previously, and it was really nice not to have to stop and stir the resin constantly. The pieces feel harder and look more like cast resin or Siraya Mecha White. For my usage (mostly printing heads and parts to be compatible with existing BJD bodies/parts) this is definitely the best stuff I’ve used.

I’m finally satisfied with how he turned out. The only thing I miiiight adjust is the calves because the ankles are a bit unsteady, and to finish the hands and feet of course (even though I intend to continue using the Dollshe and Resinsoul hands that fit his shoes). I got him sanded pretty quickly, before I even took and other photos, and he looks and feels just like a casted doll for the most part.

Daniel BJD – Sunlu Resin Print

Comparison of old Daniel doll to new resin doll print

10/24 – After finishing the PLA prototype, I used up a holiday weekend printing him in resin. I hate resin printing! This is Sunlu Beige mixed with 10% Siraya Tech Tenacious and a bunch of white resin pigment. Unfortunately I don’t think I used enough pigment because he has a slightly translucent waxy quality that I don’t care for. I also accidentally printed two left thighs, oops. He does pose much better in resin than PLA, but he is heavy!

PLA Daniel BJD – Comparisons

10/2024 – Just some comparisons of the new PLA Daniel prototype with the old one, clothed, and compared to Tennant. I wanted to keep him as similar in size to the old one as possible so that I don’t have to replace his whole wardrobe, but I did make him a little bit bigger overall after this.

Daniel BJD Sculpt – PLA Prototype

Oct 2024: After many months of testing and tweaking, this is the “final” PLA prototype for Daniel. I started this in 2022 but getting a new FDM printer (Elegoo Neptune 4 Plus) in 2024 made it so much easier to work on. All the joints have been iterated to balance my preferred aesthetics and functions so I’m pretty happy with him. No hands and feet yet, so these are from Dollshe and Resinsoul respectively.

Daniel and Tennant at Resin Rose 2022

Also in that last post, but I received the Dream Valley body in yellow for Tennant, so naturally I went right about cutting it up, haha. He was way too tall compared to Daniel and Conchita. He’s still a bit too tall but any further height would be harder to remove. I removed a chunk from the ankles and shortened the neck.

It wasn’t too hard, just a lot of sanding to smooth it out. I did it once before on a Resinsoul body and used Milliput to connect the pieces which I think was less visible, but I got lazy here and used superglue since I could always Milliput later.

What I did was stick the calves onto the feet, then draw two level lines around them by holding a pencil parallel to the table and rotating the calves. I drew perpendicular lines across (like a train track) and also marked the back center to keep things lined up. I cut the pieces out with a Dremel (saw might’ve been better but I don’t have a good one) and used a coarse sandpaper flat on the counter to get the edges flat and even. I glued them together by lining up the back center lines and the internal channel, then sanded it smooth.

1. Dream Valley B4-04 51cm boy body in yellow with mods and Dollshe 18M Fashion Maxi Mystic hand in Oriental
2. Custom 3D printed head and body with Resinsoul Tang limbs and Dollshe 28M Fashion Maxi hands
3. Dream Valley B4-04 51cm boy body in white, unmodded

More recent photos of Daniel, mostly to show off his new rings. Also there you can see that Tennant on the Dream Valley body is way too tall, haha. When his body in the right color arrives I’m going to shorten the legs.

I took these boudoir-y photos of Daniel a while back for a Men’s Monday BJD thing that IG was doing a while back. I get the distinct feeling the Tumblr crowd will be more interested than IG though. Thanks for all the nice comments on him!

Daniel 2.0! I worked on him (the head + wig, the body is unchanged) from late 2019 through mid 2020. I refined the sculpt slightly and printed it out on an Anycubic Photon resin 3D printer this time. I didn’t do much sanding, just primed and airbrushed the head. The faceup went a lot better this time as well. I made him a wig from some mohair I had custom dyed on Etsy, but I think I’ll make a separate post about wigs later. I’m quite proud of how he turned out.

After I made the Tennant BJD, I had to make Daniel, but he was a much bigger project because I knew that I couldn’t get a body with the right body type (ESPECIALLY not in ¼ size). He was a work in progress through a lot of 2019.

I created the torso sculpt starting with an open source character creation addon for Blender (Manuel Bastioni or something like that? It wasn’t available anymore last I checked.) but I modified/resculpted it quite a bit. The head, like Tennant’s, was done in Sculptris then Blender. I finished the pieces the same way as Tennant’s head… it was just more pieces and a lot more work. I also put some heavy gloss around the joints to protect the paint under the final matte sealant coat, and all the pieces are sueded with real suede very generously. None of the joints have chipped yet.

I used the limbs from the Resinsoul Tang body Tennant was on before and I got some ¼ Dollshe 28M hands. He’s kind of similar in measurements to a DearSD or “Big Baby” doll. I’ve since created an updated head (I didn’t even finish the wig for this one, haha) but the body is still the same.