Reportage
The Making of Chinese Love dolls
The stunning realism of the silicone lovedolls ‘made in China’ is the result of painstaking procedures of molding and finishing, which can last up to a week for a single doll.
The creation of a realistic love doll requires five stages:
- Design and Sculpture
- Creation of the metallic skeleton
- Creation of the silicone/TPE mold and successive molding.
- Cleaning and Finishing of the doll
- Make up
Each stage requires a high degree of accuracy and expertise.
Design and Sculpture
The design is possibly the most decisive phase in the creation of the sexdoll. That’s where its fate is decided: will the draft be developed or will it remain forgotten in a drawer?
Once the draft is approved, the doll will be sculptured. The sculpture, made with synthetic resin, will have to be perfect down to the last detail. This is in fact the model that will serve as the prototype for the moulding, so there’s no margin for error here.
Creation of the metallic skeleton
The metallic skeleton is nowadays standard feature on silicone lovedolls. This skeleton will give the doll the rigidity necessary to have human-like postures.
Most doll’s manufacturers own original designs, which need to be constantly improved to satisfy market demands.
Over the last years for example the legs opening angle has considerably increased, and so has the flexibility of the joints.
Creation of the mold in silicone or TPE
The mold is constituted of two parts, the front and the rear. In order to create the mold, a layer of plasticine is laid on the entire surface of the doll, with a gap left to separate the front and the rear part of the mold. Once the plasticine is dry, a layer of silicone is applied on the doll, together with several layers of resins necessary to solidify the mold. The skeleton can now be placed inside the mold and the silicone be poured.
Cleaning and Finishing of the doll
After the molding, the dolls undergo a careful process of finishing, in order to obtain a final product that is ultra realistic.
Each doll will have to pass a series of quality control checks to ensure product compliance. Such checks will be carried out on the materials as well as on the functionalities, such as joints, orifices, separation of fingers etc. Each detail matters, and it’s this very painstaking job that makes Chinese lovedolls true luxury products.
Make-up
Make-up is hand made by a professional make-up artist
Note: all pictures shown in this article come from the EXDOLLs and WM Dolls’s factories. All drafts, diagrams and pictures of the skeletons come from unknown sources.