Feature - An Artist's Original: The Bishonen Dolls

Feature - An Artist's Original: The Bishonen Dolls

To start the interview off, please introduce yourself :

My name is Don Kinney - most people online know me as Donn. I am the creator of the Bishonen House dolls.

Have you always been interested in art?

Absolutely! While I was growing up I always drew, painted, and made things. I started sculpting when I was about 14 and have always enjoyed working with clay. I began to get into puppetry when I was in Junior High and I spent a great deal of time working with foam, synthetic furs and feathers. That naturally progressed into learning how to make molds to make foam latex skins for puppets and then learning how to mechanically articulate things like eye blinks which led eventually to making completely mechanical puppets.

Do you have other dolls besides BJDs?

Probably the closest things to dolls I own are the Nightmare Before Christmas toys by Jun Planning. I also have a few random action figures - mostly the Palisades Muppet Series. BJDs to me are somewhere between customizable action figures and pieces of art; even though I call them dolls, I think they are much more than just that. From my experience, most people seeing them for the first time have a difficult time trying to figure out what to call them.

Have you had any formal art training?

I attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh on a full scholarship with a major in Industrial Design. I learned quite a bit about fabrication and working with different materials in school. School was a great start but most of what I know about mold-making, sculpting, and casting was learned through experimentation.

What inspired you to make a BJD of your own design?

I really wanted an adult looking male doll. Most of the male dolls available at the time I sculpted my design looked rather young, thirteen, maybe fourteen tops, and I wanted a doll that looked mid to late twenties. I also wanted a doll that was a bit more stylized. I've always loved the long legged, tiny waist fashion illustration proportions that more than a few manga and anime artists give their male characters.

How long did it take you to make the first Bishonen?

I worked on my first body sculpt in my spare time while finishing work on an animated pilot for Nickelodeon. Since I only had a few days here and there to sculpt and make molds, it took about nine months to complete the sculpture and make the master molds. If I had time to do him over without interruption, plus use everything I learned working on the first, I could probably cut that time down to 4 or 5 months if I could keep up the pace. I honestly find mold-making to be extremely stressful. It's really easy to make a mistake and completely destroy a master sculpt that took months to finish. I'm not a fun guy to be around when I'm making molds, LOL.

What materials did you make the prototype out of?

It really depends on the body part and, for that matter, my mood. My two favorite materials are Sculpey or Premo polymer clays and Chavant clay. Sculpey is nice because you can continuously add to it and harden it at different stages. It sands easily and usually you can get a piece with a finish good enough to pull a master mold from. Chavant clay is completely different to work with than Sculpey. It's a very dense and wax-like non-hardening clay. You can get incredible detail with Chavant but it always stays soft, so you can quite literally destroy your piece at any point during sculpting if you are not careful. For prop prototypes, I use a completely different method: I usually carve them out of wood because it works great for things like swords and guns.

Where did you find inspiration for him?

After being exposed to BJD's at an anime con and then seeing some of the dolls made by traditional Japanese BJD artists, I was inspired by the diversity of styles and the art form itself. There are no set limitations in the art form. You can take doll making in a million different directions and never exhaust the possibilities. As far as inspiration on a per doll basis, I borrow a lot from people around me. When I see someone dressed a particular way or with an interesting profile, I find inspiration for new doll or headsculpt.

What has been the hardest part of the process? Did you encounter many obstacles in making him?

I ran into several technical problems while making him. Some of those problems were solved with happy accidents and some of them were solved by nearly a year of experimentation. The first problem I ran into was getting a nice matte/porcelain finish on my dolls right out of the mold. This was one of those scary problems that I knew if I didn't come up with a solution it would add days of extra sanding work to every doll I made. It took a bit of experimenting but in the end I got it right! I think that evening I actually went out and celebrated. The other big hurdle I just recently solved is how to create a nice dark skin tone resin. Resin is extremely temperamental on its own and the more things you add to it the more unpredictable it becomes. If the pigments you add to resin aren't mixed exactly you will get streaks and, if your molds aren't perfectly clean, sometimes dark blotches. These flaws are more obvious with dark skin tones.

What has been the most rewarding part of the process?

The most rewarding part of making these dolls is getting e-mails from happy owners and seeing what they've done with the dolls. It's really a great feeling to see someone expressing their creativity with something I created. Once they leave me they take on a complete life of their own. I also really enjoy photographing them once they are finished. I love building little sets and making or searching out proper scale props and furniture to use for photo shoots. Unlike real models, they can hold poses for days and never need to take a break ;-) I love it when people who've never seen my dolls in person see my photos and are fooled into believing my dolls are life size! Creating that illusion is fun.

What have you learned from the entire process?

I've learned a lot about sculpting and mold-making that I didn't know. I think I've gotten better at both. It's a lot easier for me now to look at a complex object and figure out where seam lines should be on a mold. It used to take me a while to lay out a 3 or 4 piece mold but now I can pretty much do that sort of thing on the fly. I've also learned how to operate a vacuum chamber and a pressure chamber and have lost my fears of both of these scary devices.

Where did the name Bishonen come from?

Bishonen is a Japanese word that roughly means pretty boy. Since the inspiration for my dolls comes mostly from the ball jointed Japanese dolls and from male anime/manga characters, I thought it was a fun name.

Can you give us Bishonen's details?

The Bishonen dolls are roughly 30.5 inches/ 77.5cm tall. I use 17mm Masterpiece eyes in all of my dolls. Although 18mm eyes will work, I prefer the snug fit of the 17mm silicone eyes. Each comes with an interchangeable sock foot so that he can wear SD-13 sized boys shoes. He can wear most 8/9 9/10 SD sized wigs.

Since I create my dolls entirely myself I am only able to produce about 22 to 25 dolls a year so they are quite rare. I do not intend to ever mass produce them or have an outside house do the casting work for me. At the moment I am considering stopping the run of the current doll sculpt at 25 but haven't made up my mind because I still have ideas for him. I know for sure that I will be discontinuing several of the heads this fall. I like to keep things fresh so as I retire each head a new one will be on the way. This gives the people who have bought dolls something a little more collectable.

How long has the entire process taken you? (from the first day you started sculpting to the first boy completed)

Ironically, it took about 9 months to create the prototype and pull the master molds from it. After that I spent about 4 months promoting and getting the Web site up. In total it took about a year. My first and second dolls were both sold and picked up by their new owners at Otakon 2005 which was also the first public display of my dolls.

Where can someone buy your Bishonen dolls? How much are they?

My Bishonen House dolls are available exclusively at www.bishonenhouse.com and they start at $650 and go up in price depending on the level of customization you would desire.

Are you planning another head or doll? What are your future plans?

I'm planning new heads and a completely new doll. I just completed head #5 and am working on an elf variant of heads 5 and 3. There are other heads in the works but I don't have any release dates set. The new 2.0 doll I'm working on is something completely different from the current doll and, as far as BJD's go, there is nothing like him available. I can't wait to see how he turns out :-)