How Are Sex Dolls REALLY Made?

I have something really cool to share with you this time - like the ending of Terminator 2 but in reverse! Let's go in-depth on sex doll creation - before the marketing images, before the doll - before the mould even! Making sex dolls from scratch!

If you've ordered a custom sex doll before, you would likely already know that your doll was made by pouring TPE or silicone material into a mould, and then once cooled, broken from the mould, hand painted and assembled. 

 

But, how did we get there? 

Having been in the industry 6+ years now, and having overseen some 'from photo' custom works for our exclusive silicone lovers dolls (here!), I thought I had a fairly good grasp of how it all came together. However there is even more to it than I expected, which explains why it can take 6-12 mths (and a lot of money!) if you wanted to make your own custom doll from scratch. 

The Irontech and Zelex factory were kind enough to take me through their factories so I could check the process first hand. With Zelex I was fortunate enough to see all active moments of the doll creation happening at once. 

 

First Step - Z Brush

Each factory has a team that work on picking faces and features they'd like in a new doll. Typically they will use a few different inspiration photos and pass them to the artist to try and tie the whole look together. They may get inspiration from certain art works, anime, stock model photos, super models, celebrities, influencers or porn stars, and put together a whole new look that is completely new and not of one specific person.

Some factories, such as Zelex for their Inspiration series, will measure and scan a real woman for the initial measurements of the body. 

To simplify things, I will use a couple of example heads that we had Lushdoll build as a test to demonstrate their talents. As these were made as an homage to a celebrity/copyright likeness, they are just one-off test works and so are not listed for sale. These were also not scanned from real people of course, which is the simpler method of making a doll. 

Detroit Become Human's Chloe:

And any Big Lebowski fans out there will recognize this guy:

 

The artist uses Z-Brush to create an artistic rendering of the subject, which in the case of Chloe, ended up looking something like this:

 

 

For a body, such as our 173cm exclusive doll from WM, you might get a full rendering like so:

Once we are happy that the 3D rendering looks correct, we move to the next step of the process - making the prototype. 

 

Second Step - Liquid Resin 3D Printing of the Prototype

Beautiful nerd stuff! Zelex were kind enough to show us their lab where they do the really important stuff. 

One room has the computers for their lead artists to do the highly detailed 3D renderings with Z-Brush. The next room contains the very expensive top of the line 3D printers (yes they have two!), where they output their work. 

This is how a prototype is made. If you've ever made a plaster cast or even papier-mâché - you would know to make a mould you need an initial object to make the cast of and to work on, and this is where it comes from. 

 

 

Zelex owns two SLA600 machines which are just running constantly. These cost upwards of $35,000USD so they're not a backyard instrument! 

In the video you will see the laser travel across the liquid resin, solidifying the resin as it goes. There is a platform just below the surface, and this hardened resin adheres to it, and slowly builds up as the platform is lowered by fractional measurements at a time. This laser does multiple passes, and once the machine is happy that it is solidified, an arm which resembles T-Shirt screen-printing, runs across the top. This blade is known as the recoater blade, and it ensures a smooth surface for the next layer of resin to be solidified. Each pass of the recoater blade signifies a layer is complete, after the platform is dropped. You will see in the video the screen is at about 2000 of 4000 passes, after 33 hours of hard work. So the prototype part that is currently being printed will take about 3 and a half days to make in total. 

As you'll notice, there's not enough room for a whole doll, so it is done in pieces, and then re-assembled. 

We were lucky enough to witness one of the printers finishing, and saw the finished product rise out of the liquid - truly fascinating and mind-blowing stuff!

 

 

Here we have a head, feet and hands for a doll being completed!

Once she's out, the excess resin needs to be removed, sanded and then assembled. You might be thinking - hey this is completely smooth, what gives?

Well - onto the next step!

 

Third Step - Physical Texturing, Clay Sculpting

 

There are two paths at this point. Either with or without physical texture (some brands are calling this Realistic Skin Texture or RST). Even TPE dolls which do not have the ability to pick up extremely fine details from a mould, so therefore do not benefit from physical texture, will still have a clay stage where important fine details are added. Specifically in TPE these will be the areola and nipples, as well as the vagina and often the anus. 

A clay sculptor will either copy from a picture (typical with TPE), or take an impression from a real person's vagina, like this one from Lusandy shown above. It will then be pressed in clay and attached to the prototype. 

 

The difference with physical texture

As we know from TPE dolls and toys like Fleshlights - TPE as a medium is great - it can give you that beautifully soft, super jiggly flesh-like feeling that silicone can't quite achieve (yet!). A good quality TPE that is well formulated, can last a long time (just avoid the cheap ones!).

What it can't do, due mainly to the properties of TPE, is give you very fine details - things like little bumps on the areola, or little lines on the lips, are pretty rare in TPE - they can get there, but you wont see super fine details in the skin itself, it is a flat, smooth substance.

 

This is a close up of S-TPE skin from the WM Doll factory with Realistic Skin Painting upgrade. You can see it has flesh-like speckles, which add to the realism, but no physical texture. Similarly, you can get silicone dolls with skin painting and no physical texture, where they try and build up a texture-effect using paint only. 

 

The clay vagina image above also showed examples of physical texture added to the skin. You can see the little bumps etc. These will make negative impressions in the mould, which will form the fine bumps on a breast or a pubic region once the doll is poured, like so:

These two pictures are RST / Real Skin Texture from Top Cy. 

 

The incredible details on the bottom of an Irontech foot!

 

And, not to do WM Doll dirty by posting their TPE and not comparing to their silicone being made in the same factory - it is the limitation of material not the factory - look at the details on this guy!

 

When the 3D printing is complete, you have a hard, mannequin-like structure. If you are making a doll with physical texture, to add these bumps, you need to completely coat the prototype in this green clay, and then transpose details into the clay. 

As mentioned, Zelex uses real women for the initial measurements, and then once the prototype is printed, they add the physical skin texture from the real person as well. To do this, they bring in models from overseas, such as Korean and Japanese pornstars, and cover them in a modelling substance which will harden and take all the tiny pores, bumps, and fissures of the skin, and allow them to press them into the clay. Zelex has a whole room of clay sculptors whose job it is to mark and transpose physical texture onto various strips of flat clay flesh, and then attach it to the limbs and torsos of prototypes. It was an incredible sight to see them making real the flesh in real time - no photos allowed sadly! 

Remember the Big Lebowski head I mentioned before? This one had physical texturing and so had a complete clay stage for his head. 

Lushdoll do impressive work!

 

These are some really detailed hands from Irontech / Real Lady. Underneath would be a hard resin prototype that was created in the previous step, and over the top they have covered in this green modelling clay. The sculptor has given the hands the extra fine details, which are for silicone dolls taken from real hands and feet. 

 

A little nipple and areola by the artists at Lusandy. These are similar to the ones that will be added to a prototype for a TPE

 

Fourth - Mould Creation

 

As mentioned, once you have your hard resin prototype, cover it with clay, and either impress fine details or not. You can then create your mould. The mould is a bit more straightforward as all the hard work has gone in already. The mould is a fiberglass-reinforced epoxy or polyurethane composite moulding pressed around the prototype to create the template that all future dolls will be made from! 

A large library of moulds at the Irontech Doll factory!

 

Our exclusive Zelex 162cm G Cup was at the front of the queue at the Zelex factory ready to make a doll!

 

A Lushdoll hand in a mould, ready to be poured. Each bone has to be lined up exactly with little pieces of string.

 

A piper TPE doll, with vagina and anus rod inserted into the mould ready for pouring. No more TPE ball/plug method!

 

A Starpery skeleton in the mould waiting for pouring - the wrapping helps the TPE or silicone knit better to the bones, and helps to avoid the material getting into the joints. 

So this blog took you from scratch to mould! Next blog I'll take you through what happens when you place your order for a custom doll - from the mould to your home!

Oh yes! And our Big Lebowski head, of course he looks just fine now - the dude abides!