Meet Skyfall
I use Super Sculpey for my original sculpt. It is a soft, high quality polymer clay.
Here is another image of the head, ready for casting.
I made a silicone mold and cast the head in polyurethane resin myself, even though the final cast will be done by a casting company.
This way I have heads in the right material to play with, paint and try on different bodies, ahead of time. It also means I don’t have to send my actual original sculpt to the casting company, so if something should go wrong and it is damaged or lost in shipping, it’s not the end of the world.
So, why not just casting the finished dolls in house and save the money from have it produced elsewhere? Well, honestly, I’m no professional caster. I work in my own home and don’t have the facilities or experience to safely produce a high quality product here. It is also a lot of work and that is work of a kind that I am neither very interested in nor very good at. This way I have more energy and time to put into the actual sculpting and marketing aspects and the customer will get a better product in the end.