CrowBlackJay is a Russian artist who paints and sculpts. Her very first resin BJD is an extremely articulated dragon.
Q: First, can you tell me a little about yourself?
A: Since my childhood I liked to paint, and I was very interested in the animal world.
One day the dinosaurs took all my attention. At the age of 12, I tried to sculpt a parasaur from clay. Of course, at that time I did not know about the need for a wire frame and the thin-legged dinosaur fell apart before baking. But it did not upset me. On the contrary, I was happy that my dinosaur came out good enough, though not much detailed. If I could once, then I can again. This experience was very valuable!
In those days I did not have the opportunity to get good materials for sculpting. For this reason, for many years I switched to painting.
The older I became, the more fantasy came into my world. I painted various animal hybrids, dragons, elf warriors, werewolves.
Art has become my work.
Q: Tell me how you became interested in making resin dolls.
A: It was a long path, as well as a path to sculpture.
I met BJDs for the first time in 2005, thanks to my sister. She showed me a website where the new authors shared their works from porcelain and baked clay and the experience of their creation. It impressed me, but if the dream to create my own doll was born then, it was left somewhere in the subconscious.
I returned to the same website later in about 2011. Then I already had much more opportunities. I could afford more time and materials to test myself as an artist. I was filled with memories of how I liked to sculpt in my childhood. The idea of creating my own doll captured me.
That’s when I began to study everything about joints, materials and techniques of sculpting. And I liked the process of learning and understanding the work of joints. It’s reveals the mind. I became an enthusiastic child again.
As a result, my first prototype was born. I sculpted the workpieces from sculptural plasticine and then with self-curing cellulose clay. I was going to make this doll with Flumo to finish the details.
But these plans were not destined to come true. A change of work and moving to another city took all my free time. I left the idea of doll making and focused on my work. It helped me to return to my dream later. My work intersected with 3d modeling. And with the help of my husband, I mastered a 3D editor for sculptors. At this time, 3D printing has become more real and accessible, and the idea captured me again.
My journey has just begun!
Q: Tell me about the dolls you have created so far.
A: There were many ideas, but one of them captured me completely – a dragoness! She just burst into my mind and settled there. I saw her exactly as she turned out in the end. Well, perhaps, in the original idea, she could have had a hairs.
She is a hybrid that combines something from an Asian dragon, a horse, a giraffe, a deer and a human.
She was developed using 3D sculpting from scratch.
3D sculpting differs not so much from clay sculpting, except for physical feel, but everything else is the same way, with the help of hands and mind. Then my dragoness was printed on a 3D printer and went through a long stage of priming and finishing.
Not everything went smoothly. There were times when I was ready to abandon it because of the problems in the work of the multi-jointed design. But she did not let me go. And in the end I found the solutions.
To cool off a little, I switched to other projects. So next there was a wolf cub. Wolves have always fascinated me. Once, my husband and I were lucky to take a walk with two cubs and their tutor here in Russia. Therefore, the first to appear was a wolf cub.
They are available only in the printed version at the moment.
Q: Are you working on any new dolls?
A: I plan to make a resin wolf-cub in near future, and an adult wolf is still under development.
Also I’m working on an elf-girl, but I can not say much about this project yet.
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She is a Dragon may be ordered now until August 26th. Information on the pre-order is posted HERE.
CrowBlackJay’s work may be found here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/
https://www.instagram.com/
