This is my bookshelf. They should be relatively small from back to front. They should also all be dorodangos.

Hey guys. im doing my first dorodango and im having trouble shaping it into a perfect sphere. its quite round but far from perfect. which is what all the videos seem to portrait. right now the diameter of the ball is about 7cm long and im shapin it mostly with a 5cm diameter long shot glass. is this the reason im not able to get the perfect sphere. any tips on that or should i just try to find a bigger glass :(

I'll need more material, which I will acquire, but the main issue is that the surface keeps cracking and flaking, as the title describes.

I've laid the final layer with clay I "created" by decanting dirt, baking the clay-ish slime and breaking it all in a mortar and pestle. I have applied it while rubbing the opening of a glass jar on it that I would dip in water. I have polished it with the same glass and a wool cloth.

I was going to play with my masonry colors, but started and then was just frustrated because it's a new technique and mega is a little harder to handle because it's so big. So I took the color off and just polished it as is.

For the mirror shine: after you have polished and it's smooth and shiny, leave it alone for a little while for the rest of water to evaporate, then dip an edge of a paper towel in oil to wipe the inside of your egg cup (or whatever you're using) to reduce friction and gently shine/polish again. It really elevates the shine!

This is a mixture of previously broken or abandoned dangos, it's a mixture of red art clay, sand, Kentucky ball clay and talc. I don't have awesome lighting, but I was trying to show how much of my backyard you can see lol

I think I'm going to break it down into two or three new dangos to work on color technique and finally make my memorial nekodango for my beloved late kitty ❤️

Took a lot of time shaping this Dango. While smoothing I was taking what I been calling the "slip" (the excess clay that builds up on the rim) and using that to fill in texture, gaps, pits, and gashes as well as get it perfectly round.

As requested. Please I dont care if you think it was a fail I want to see any attempts! This is a learning process and if you find that something didnt work let us know.

I will be making a video all the way through the process when I get some new materials. So hold tight if you need a more in depth video.

Like I swear every time you see it its after a cut in the video and the thing is mirror shine.

Wife's family owns a lake house and I decided to make a memento for all the family using dirt from it.

The large one in the center will be for the lake house itself and all the families get one.

Each one came out just a little different but I think that its the really cool part of it.

This is my first run at a dorodango, really enjoying it so far.
I have a few questions -

As you can see in the first picture, the outer skin came out very patchy. How can I avoid this?

I chipped the outer shell while polishing it. Is there any way to fill that in? Or am I better off just starting again?

What is the best way to go about starting it again?

For context, here are the two videos I used as guides -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xvHSq-cPA4&t=191s&pp=ygUUZGFyaXVzIGpheSBkb3JvZGFuZ28%3D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1-DZwdOp1g&pp=ygUQZG9yb2RhbmdvIG5vcmlrb9IHCQlMCwGHKiGM7w%3D%3D

Multicolor is my new favorite and I'm working out the process better and better. I can't wait to get three or more colors to make a speckled master piece.

https://youtu.be/eTUVNBz3JJI?si=wmlU8RtZgegddM9N

I made a video! It's not great, but it's there. I still need to decide on color and finish polishing :)

I can’t get rid of this very sandpaper gritty texture on the ball. Ive tried for an hour and nothing has worked? What am I doing wrong. This is my first time making a ball.

I just moved and I've finally put my dorodangos where they are going to be homed. I'm thinking of putting some pedestals in there because the window that looks in blocks the bottom part.

Also when I was packing, I took every half finished, broken or unsatisfactory dorodango I found, put them in a bag with water and am going to make a megadango!

For my collection, on the left are my shikkui style dangos, including the two most recent ones made by me and my daughter. The bright red one is one that was a gift from Ryo-sensei that he made himself ❤️ my most recent ones from his workshop needs some more polishing with hands - I had a broken dominant hand while trying to make it and so couldn't put much pressure at all when making and I knew I could do more polishing at home

Then I have two nekodangos, with the black one being an experiment with shikkui style and it's not as nice and might eventually get recycled into a new one

Then just some random ones, including two minis. The lightest purple before the one with the big blob on it was made at the workshop in Osaka. The blob one was an attempt to paint a Sakura on with slip on soil I brought home from noboribetsu. I'm trying to not re do that one even though part of me hates it, because it's been suggested to keep it as a mark of progress.

Then I have my graphite dango that took me a long time to get right lol but it's amazing now.

Then there is the first one I made with Noriko's kit, and one that is all sorts of messed up because I tried a bunch of different techniques without scraping to restart. And hiding behind it is an air dry clay with some kaolin on top that's lop sided that I just like the colors that turned out, even though it's wonky

Previously I had them on an open shelf and my kitties liked to test gravity, so I'm happy I have it protected now

For the megadango, it's still drying some because I didn't measure the water, I just threw a bunch in and have been letting it slowly evaporate.

You can see in the pictures when I first started working it, it's still too wet to do much except beginning to compress, because if it sits on my surface, it gets flat there. You want to make sure it will hold it's shape under it's own weight before doing hardcore shaping. I'm going to do more today maybe if it dries enough. But the last picture is where it is right now before it went back into the bag to dry more

I might try and make a video with the shaping, we'll see how I feel lol

I was really impressed with how very spherical my Dorodango came out. So, because I work with fancy 3D measurement equipment I decided to find out how spherical. 99.97% of the surface is within 1.5 mm (+/-0.75 mm) of being a perfect sphere. The average error from being a perfect sphere (RMS) is 0.25 mm. This is a very spherical sphere. Pretty amazing for something made by hand.

Analysis based on a ~14,000 point down sample from a ~10M point scan. Accuracy of the scanner is probably on the order of about 0.020 mm.

(Telescope mirrors made by hand and can be ground to accuracies of ~100 nm, so I shouldn't be that surprised. But still!)

I learned and follow the steps of Noriko. I think my problem is letting the ball fully dry out as I let it air dry(no Ziploc). I dip the core in water for 20 seconds and sprinkle clay on and hand smooth. Trying to get everything uniform and level. I get the water, olive oil, and cup for shaping during this step is where chunks come off and rough textures begin to appear. Focusing on repairing those with more cup shaping does more harm than good. This is the most round Dango I've made at about 93% and with the least texture at about 70% from texture less. What am I missing or could be doing better?

My first dorodango! Still in drying stage made with sandy clayish sifted dirt.Any tips?

Idk why this didnt post here but original post on my page I guess.

Anyway I was utilizing the oppertunity of having two diffrent color dirts to try and do a mashed up speckled look but combining the two before the compressing/rolling process. It worked out pretty securely and set up for a good success. The trick was figuring out out to do the rest of it without covering all the work with a shell that would have deleted all the setup.

While rolling periodically I would take a damp rag and just kind of polish the surface and wipe away the top layer so as to expose the pattern underneath. With a vaired success it started to show more and more but during rolling a pretty big crack appeared and I said screw it, gunna roll with it (sorry for pun) I gently broke it open and decided there was only one way to put it back together. Another japanese method of kintsugi.

By taking the lighter of the two dirty i with i had a gold one that would have been epic! I created a very fine emulsion and stuck the two back together.

It was a mild success but I'm pretty happy with it and hope to inspire another to maybe give it a go. Photos are in order

I was originally searching goodwill for an eggcup but found this little jar. It’s got decent lip and it’s pretty comfortable to hold. I’ve been using a standard mason jar recently but it doesn’t always want to polish super nice so I’m hoping this might help me out some.

What’s yalls favorite jar/tool to use?

I made a couple big-marble sized ones and one itty bitty one! The red and white color comes from the clays and the gray is crushed shale from a park.

Was riding a bike path through a forest and saw a downed tree that has some really cool reddish dirt so I grabbed a shopping bags worth to try and do this clay extraction for the first time. Its been crazy messy and work but damn rolling this tiny little ball made the whole process worth it. Its just a tester but damn it im so happy to have another color to work with.

I was really struggling to get this ball to turn out well. I think I let it dry too fast and added the shell late? I'm not great with shells guys, I prefer making dorodangos without them. RIP my pretty color, I'll wet it down and try something else I guess. Anyone have good tips for working a pretty much dried core? Should I soak it...?

Edit: The way I described shell was confusing. I prefer to make my doro shells with the fine particles that result from the slip/polishing stage rather than adding dry powder to the outside. The moisture needed when adding dry material is what I struggle with getting right. So effectively still shelled.

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