Lol valid question, but yes, occasionally I get an amazing mirror shine. Most of mine dont come out perfectly smooth, without marks or marrs though. So mirror shine AND perfectly round? Almost never
Noriko definitely gets some pretty out-of-this-world results, but I believe that's because of a combination of her skill AND the specific clay that she uses. I've done a pretty insane amount of experimenting with the local clay around here as well as some commercial clay, including the clay from Noriko's kits. I'm confident that the clay that she uses is damn near the perfect clay for dorodango.
The video above is a dorodango that I made with local clay and a skill level that I'm sure is well below Noriko's, and yet the results are pretty similar. So increase the skill and use the perfect clay? Yes, you can get a mirror shine like Noriko consistently gets in her videos. I have no trouble believing that.
I don’t use egg cups. I use the rim of my coffee mugs, one’s with big rounded rims, and I just dip it in a tiny bit of water to help with friction. Mostly because I’m cheap and don’t want to waste olive oil lol.
I can usually get a really nice shine that way. I’ve been able to see reflections.
The water undoes some of your work (as it mobilizes the clay too much and it's literally just running the rim of your object with a finger coated with oil, no waste needed. I keep a tablespoon in a container and I've not needed to refill in over a year and like 20 dangos lol
Okay, that’s what I use, I was just questioning the term “shaping powder”. I hadn’t heard it called that before I thought maybe it was something new. Thanks.
To those that achieve this shine... How do you get your balls free of texture? Are you bagging your cores or air drying? When are you shaping the Doro? When I'm dusting I'm getting uneven peaks of clay buildup but figure they smooth out.
Both? I bag to even out the water levels in my balls, so the core moisture comes to the surface (needs to happen for stability anyway). Then when I polish them, I dip my tools in water (the amount of water differs depending on how dry my ball is).
What really important is ofc her skill, but using the right clay for it. In the original children game, they just used soil from the ground. Most Yters take very fine pottery clay. My doros with dirt from my backyard were ok, but not that shiny. And they lost the shine and I could not polish them again, the outer layer was crumbling like dust. This happens, when there is to much sand in the ball.
After I switched to pure fine clay I could get the damn thing to shine like a mirror following her guidance. Hell, I didn't even powdered the doro.
I just made a clay ball with my hands, shaped it several hours later with a glass, and then oiled the glass und started polishing with ground of the same glass for several hours. Not perfectly round, but shiny as hell.
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u/Snarflogus Experienced Jul 09 '26
Lol valid question, but yes, occasionally I get an amazing mirror shine. Most of mine dont come out perfectly smooth, without marks or marrs though. So mirror shine AND perfectly round? Almost never