It makes sense because you can get clay to be as smooth as glass, and dirt and clay are basically the same thing, although most dirt has some sand, rocks, organic matter and whatnot mixed in, and clay is fine-grained and pure. Usually though, the glossy effect with clay is achieved by glazing and firing, but the Dorodangos aren't fired, only polished. I was quite intreegwed.
I've been looking for something craft-wise to do instead of sitting on my ass watching YouTube videos, and I was able to do Dorodango while I was sitting on my ass watching YouTube videos. I was looking for something cheap, and dirt is dirt-cheap, and everybody has a pan and a jar on hand.
I watched a few vids to see what the deal was. Everyone had a slightly different method, but basically the idea is to sift some dirt, add some water, roll it into a ball and then add thin layers of finely-sifted dirt and/or sand, letting it rest in between, and when it starts to get drier and firmer you shape it and polish it. Some people use wax or oil at the end to give it more gloss, but it gets smooth as glass without it if you use enough elbow grease.
They said that although soil with a lot of clay can make smoother, denser balls, as long as you don't have too much sand, pretty much any soil will work. I had some potting soil that was both storebought and dug up. It was too sandy, so I dug up a few scoops of some nice dark soil that was mostly clay. Unless the soil is already dry you have to dry it and then sift it to get out rocks, twigs and such, and to have a finer grain.
The soil I dug was largely moist clay which would've taken several days to dry, and I didn't want to sit there holding a heat gun on it, so I forced it through the strainer and mixed in some of the dry dirt I already had. It made a nice dense ball that was almost as heavy as pure clay. I put it in a plastic bag to rest and to "sweat." The water inside the ball makes its way to the surface, and you keep adding thin layers of thinly-sifted dry material, smoothing it with your hands, letting it rest and then repeating, until a good bit of the water has been absorbed. It's an interesting process.
When it's stiff enough to take being rotated in the mouth of a jar you can start to shape it and make it more round, but you aren't concerned with smoothing it yet. The mouth of the jar has to be narrower than the ball so that just the rim touches the ball and it doesn't fall into the jar. Rolling it in the jar smooths the peaks and valleys and makes it rounder.
If the ball is at just the right consistency you could make it almost perfectly round with enough spinning and turning. What's cool is when you get to the polishing stage, the rim of the jar not only smooths the ball but it also compresses it, which is called burnishing. It has a similar effect to how clay shrinks and gets denser when fired. The areas on this one that did get polished are as sooth as glass, and that's from being compressed.
On my ball I got a lot of unpolished areas. What happened was it had gotten too dry to smooth perfectly with the jar rim. It had gotten too stiff to be moving around in there perfectly (that's what she said) so the little dips didn't make contact with the rim and they didn't get polished. I could make it perfectly smooth by taking a paintbrush with water and going over the dips and sprinkling fine powder on them and then burnish, polish and repeat the process several times, but it'd take half a day, and I like it the way it is. I like the contrast between the rough and glassy areas. It looks like a planet. Plus it's my first Dorodango, and it doesn't have to be perfect. It turned out nicer than some I saw.
A few people let them rest in the fridge to make them stiffer. One or two didn't use a jar at all and just did all the polishing with a cloth. They were obviously not as round as most, and again I think that compressing the dirt makes a big difference. One guy skipped adding layers of fine dirt over and over. Once he got the clay more or less round, he dunked it in water and just quickly smoothed it with the jar. It was similar to glazing clay. They looked okay and he saved some time, but not being layered and burnished, the finish won't be nearly as durable. I wouldn't rush it, and you can't get that glass-like finish when you smooth it wet.
Some people "cheat" and add colorants, or clay to make it smoother. Some of them are nice but I like natural colors. "Mr. Natural" is my middle name. Mine looks like a polished stone, and since clay is powdered rock it makes sense that it would resemble a rock. I saw one guy who uses graphite for the final coats, which polishes to a mirror finish. It wouldn't happen in Nature too often but it does look cool...possibly a little cheesy but still cool.
One guy used pure sand for the final coats, which he said gave it a "nice crust." I liked that so I decided to try it. I didn't think pure sand would bond well enough to stick, but the results were pretty amazing. I didn't have any straight sand handy, so I found some sandstone that had some nice reds, oranges and yellows, and I ground two rocks together until I had a small pile of fine sand. I had some clay soil ready if the sand didn't stick but it did just fine, especially when compressed into the surface. It took extra time to get the sand but it was worth it. The soil underneath was dark brown, and the sand lightened the color a good bit.
One guy had a Dorodango work space with dried and sifted soil in various colors, bagged and ready to go. I could see doing that. You can dig up clay soil in various colors all over the place. I could dig clay and sand to go with it from the banks of the Cahaba River and make them out of that. Depending on what part of the river you're on, the colors can vary from gray to yellowish to brown to reddish, and in a few spots it's black, from coal dust that came from mines in a few spots along the river. I could even powder up some shells to use for the final coats. Dang, that'd be cool.
These are definitely worthy of display, and people sell them on eBay, Etsy and elsewhere. They go for between about $60 up to $150 or a little more, and people do buy them. It'd be a lot of work for not much if any profit, but they'd make really nice gifts for good friends. If I hadn't learned to make them and I had disposable income I'd buy several. I was thrilled with how mine came out first try. If you did sell them you'd mostly be charging for your labor. Overhead would be very low. It's almost like getting something for nothing.
Thinking that dirt could be polished glass-smooth just never occurred to me, and I almost had to make one myself to believe it. The process was fun and very Zen-like and the results speak for themselves. I'd love it if someone gave me one that they made. The Dorodango...a "mud dumpling" that looks like marble and is smooth as glass. Whodda thunk it? Learn something new every day. Let's get those hands dirty!
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