The very oldest examples of traditional Japanese dolls were typically carved from wood. Other doll making methods were developed long ago to mass-produce popular dolls. Carving is a very slow, and labor intensive process and wood is not the ideal substrate for a rock hard outer coating like gofun so artists developed doll making (molding and casting) methods to mass-produce their dolls in either a wood composition called "toso" or clay. Most modern Japanese dolls are NOT hand carved. Hirano Masamichi's hand carved dolls are extremely special but this document explains how Hirano creates his toso dolls.

Traditional Japanese dolls have a heavy opaque finish made of ground sea shells called "gofun". Part of the artistry of traditional Japanese dolls is how well the gofun is applied completely covering all doll parts. Gofun is applied in a traditional way with a lot of sanding and buffing between each layer. The end result is a silky smooth luminescent white surface. The gofun finish is so beautiful in itself that only minimal facial details are painted over it. In Japanese art of all kinds "Less Is More".

A western doll maker can learn a different approach to sculpting doll forms by noting how Japanese sculptors create some of their dolls. In the west, a doll maker will create a doll with a humanoid body and then dress it and often fighting to get the folds of the fabric to fall correctly. They will also sculpt a bald head and fight with the wig to get the volume for extravagant hair styles. The approach to achieving visual reality in a small scale is totally different in some types of Japanese dolls where the basic forms of heads and hairstyles, bodies with flowing or folded cloth is directly sculpted and then covered with the fabric or hair.

The following photos are from Hirano Masamichi's brochure illustrating his toso doll making process.
 

The body form is sculpted from clay. Note that the flow and all of the folds of the clothing is sculpted in clay. A 2 part mold is created. The wood/composition (toso) is cast from this mold and dried.

After the casting dries, it is primed to seal the toso. Grooves are cut into the form so that material may be tucked and glued onto the body.

The fabric is glued and pressed into the grooves in the body sculpture. The grain and patterns of the fabric are laid down very carefully to insure that the cloth looks as if it is flowing, and folding naturally.

Gofun coated toso heads are attached to wooden dowels which serve to connect the heads firmly into the body form. Some of these heads are sold without a body as a good luck token with an appropriate wish or greeting written on a piece of paper wrapped around the dowel.

Luckily a friend found that Hirano Masamichi was featured in an April '91 Doll Reader article. I was excited to find an active Japanese wood doll sculptor! This article gave just a general location in Japan to start my search for Hirano. I traced Hirano Masamichi with the help of the department of cultural affairs in this prefecture.

About a month after contacting the Japanese government, I received a package in the mail containing Hirano's portfolio detailing his carving process. Each photo and the complete process was detailed but written in beautiful Japanese symbols! Luckily someone was also kind enough to translate some of the text into English for me. Hirano also sent me one of his advertising brochures showing the other traditional dolls that his large doll studio produces. This brochure also illustrates the sculpting process of creating dolls made from toso, a wood/compo. I will write more about Hirano's dolls after I get this brochure translated.

Thank you Hirano Masamichi and Yutaka Hagi (Industry Promotion Division Labor, Commerce and Industry Department of the Saitama Prefectural Government in Japan) for sending this information and sharing it with the Internet community.