I've been making OOAK dolls for like five years now. I strictly work with polymer clay, although I don't use Super Sculpey like alaskaallie does. I've used a couple brands before - Sculpey III, which is total garbage; Primo & Fimo, which are both okay; and Sculpey Souffle, which is my personal holy grail clay.
I highly recommend giving it a shot if you can. You should check out The Blue Bottle Tree (https://thebluebottletree.com) if you have any interest at all in polymer clay. I feel like I'm always repeating this, but Ginger's advice is amazing. I've been sculpting for like 10 years total and her tips have improved my game so much. Her articles on baking are amazingly helpful and I cannot recommend her method enough. Since I switched to her's my work is so much stronger. How you bake will quite literally make or break your dolls, or whatever you're making.
Though I will add that you shouldn't just go buy a bunch of random polymer clay or just pick a brand based on other peoples' preferences. For example I prefer Souffle because I have damaged wrists and its incredibly soft, but you might prefer a harder clay or one with a different finish. There are many brands and types of polymer clay that all have their own pros and cons. Of course, Ginger has an excellent article (https://thebluebottletree.com/best-polymer-clay-brand/) that covers tons of different ones.
If oven bake clay is completely out of the picture, maybe you could try and research what BJD makers use to hand sculpt their dolls before casting? Most of the artists I've seen seem to use air dry clay.
I've been making OOAK dolls for like five years now. I strictly work with polymer clay, although I don't use Super Sculpey like alaskaallie does. I've used a couple brands before - Sculpey III, which is total garbage; Primo & Fimo, which are both okay; and Sculpey Souffle, which is my personal holy grail clay.
I highly recommend giving it a shot if you can. You should check out The Blue Bottle Tree (https://thebluebottletree.com) if you have any interest at all in polymer clay. I feel like I'm always repeating this, but Ginger's advice is amazing. I've been sculpting for like 10 years total and her tips have improved my game so much. Her articles on baking are amazingly helpful and I cannot recommend her method enough. Since I switched to her's my work is so much stronger. How you bake will quite literally make or break your dolls, or whatever you're making.
Though I will add that you shouldn't just go buy a bunch of random polymer clay or just pick a brand based on other peoples' preferences. For example I prefer Souffle because I have damaged wrists and its incredibly soft, but you might prefer a harder clay or one with a different finish. There are many brands and types of polymer clay that all have their own pros and cons. Of course, Ginger has an excellent article (https://thebluebottletree.com/best-polymer-clay-brand/) that covers tons of different ones.
If oven bake clay is completely out of the picture, maybe you could try and research what BJD makers use to hand sculpt their dolls before casting? Most of the artists I've seen seem to use air dry clay.
Sculpey III is suuuuuuch garbage which I don't understand since most of their other products are top notch! Seconding everything here, it's really worth it to give polymer clay a try. I will be curious to see what others have to say about which is the best air dry clay though! I haven't had great experiences with the ones I've tried but people always seem to make amazing stuff :)