This is a poseable ball-jointed doll I hand sculpted using air-dry clay and strung together with elastic cord. This project is still a work in progress. Hence, my sculpt only consists of the torso and legs so far.

Supplies

For this project, you will essentially only need two materials: clay and elastic cord. The brand/type of clay you use is up to you, as long as it is durable enough to handle the tension of the elastic. I used Activa's "La Doll Premier Lightweight Stone Clay", and I found that it worked well (pictured). For the elastic, I used a 2.4mm round cord (pictured). Any round cord that is approximately this size will work. You will also need a couple miscellaneous tools to help you sculpt and carve the pieces. I personally used an x-acto knife, drinking straw, wooden skewer, and toothpick, but you can substitute these with other similar items.

Step 1: Overview

The first half of the process is sculpting each body part. Here is an overview of all the parts you will need to make. As you can see, there is one chest piece, one hip piece, two thighs, two calves, two knees, and hip joints. I highly recommend sketching your design (and printing it out if you drew it digitally) before sculpting. It will provide you with a very helpful guide of what shape/size each piece should be. If you have a physical sketch in front of you as you work, you can overlay your sculpted pieces above their respective part in the sketch to check them for accuracy. How exactly the body of your doll looks is up to you, but I will now go over some details on how I made mine.

Step 2: Hollowing Out Pieces

You will need to hollow out every piece you make. This not only creates a path for the length of elastic to feed through the body, but also creates space for the joints to sit in. As a general method, I first sculpted each piece whole, without considering that there would need to be space in the middle. Once I liked how each piece looked aesthetically, I allowed them to semi-harden. Once the clay was somewhat firm, I used a drinking straw to poke a crude hole into the center of each piece. (The semi-firmness of the clay allows you to remove material without the overall shape becoming deformed). Then, I carefully used an x-acto knife to widen the hole. You will want to pay extra attention to the ends of each piece. The middle only needs to be wide enough for your elastic to go through, but the ends have to be wide enough to house the ball-joints. The above images are examples of my process that I made on a scrap piece of clay. The first image is the hole created by the straw, and the second is of hole after the clay was thinned out with an x-acto knife. Position the joints into each piece to see if the hole is big enough. Once the joints fit nicely, you can smooth/neaten the surface of the clay.

Step 3: Details on the Torso

Here are some closer pictures of the torso pieces. To construct my torso, I started by sculpting the entire thing as one part. In terms of sculpting the anatomy, I found it easier to start with a simple rounded rectangle shape, then added on small pieces of clay to build up the shoulders, neck, hips, stomach, bust, bottom, etc. After allowing the clay to semi-harden, I cut the torso in half along a slightly curved line around the ribcage area. Now that the torso was separated into two pieces, I added a bit more clay on top of the hips piece. This rounded portion will sit inside the bust, and will allow the torso to bend, so constantly check if the pieces are able to sit each other properly as you sculpt. Using the same straw and x-acto knife method described in step 2, hollow out both pieces. For the bust piece, you need to completely hollow the lower part of it so that the hip piece can fit inside, create a hole that goes through the neck, and a hole that goes through where the arms will eventually sit. For the hips, you will need to create two wide holes for the legs that lead to a single hole at the top.

Step 4: Details on the Legs

Here are some closer pictures on the legs pieces. The shapes of the legs are up to you. But not matter what, you will have to carve out a semi-circle shape on the back of the calves and thighs. This will allow the pieces space to rotate along the ball joints. Without these, your legs will have very little range of motion. So, as always, be sure to test that your pieces fit well together. You'll want the semi-circles to fit flush with the curvature of your joints when the legs are fully bent. Now, for details on the joints themselves. Both joint types are essentially two connected spheres. But for the knee joints, you'll also need to add kneecaps by adding on a small mound of clay to the front and center of the "peanut" pieces. This prevents the legs from unnaturally bending forward at the knee, and helps to keep the standard position of the legs straight. It terms of everything fitting correctly, the top of a knee should fit inside the bottom of a thigh, the bottom of a knee should fit inside the top of a calve, the top of a hip joint should fit inside a leg socket in the hips, and the bottom of a hip joints should fit inside the top of a thigh. Then, once again, holes will be carved once these pieces are semi hardened. No x-acto knife is needed for the joints, since the hole only needs to be big enough for the elastic to go through. I simply poked a hole straight through the middle with a toothpick, then went through this hole again with a wooden skewer to widen it slightly. Finally, create small slits at the top and bottom of the joints. This will give the elastic a place to go when the joints move. I created a small slit with an x-acto knife, then widened it using the long side of a toothpick in a sawing motion.

Step 5: Stringing the Doll

Once all your pieces are completely dried and solid, it is time to assemble! All these parts are held together by a single piece of cord. Start by measuring a length of elastic that goes from the top of the neck to the bottom on the knees. Double this length, and add a little extra so that there is give when you tie the knots. That is how long your piece of cord should be. Feed the elastic through one leg whole, and out through the neck. From, there, pull the elastic back down and through the other leg hole. To keep the elastic held in place, I put a toothpick in between the loop of string right above the neck. You can also use a large bead or metal ring instead. (In a finished doll, the ends of the strings would be neatly held inside the head and feet, so these are of course just temporary place holders). Then simply feed the string through each of the legs pieces on both sides. Just like at the neck, hold the string in place at the ends of the legs (where the feet would be). And with that, your doll is completed! (Minus the arms, feet, and head, that is...)