Newly Listed – 8.13.15

Two new dolls have been listed for sale in my Etsy shop this morning! I’ve named them both, though only one will come clothed. First is “Seer” and she is a repainted Monster High Twyla doll made to look like an ethereal prophetess.

 

Her hair was washed, conditioned, and boil permed to acquire the curls. I removed the gray swirls from her legs (they were quiet scuffed as it was) and left the gray on her hands and forearms for a more mystic appearance.

As with all my repaints, the factory paint/make up was removed using 100% acetone nail polish remover and then she was repainted using Faber-Castell and Prismacolor watercolor pencils and chalk pastels. Each layer was sealed using Mr. Super Clear’s UV Matte Sealant. Liquitex Gloss Varnish was applied to the eyes and lips to give them that dewy appearance and in this instance individual eyelashes were glued for a more 3d, in depth look.

Second is “Chelsea”, whom I plan on doing a separate post about for my Adventures in Rerooting series of posts. Chelsea was a little more complicated, as previous posts show she had quite a bit of damage when I removing the factory hair plugs for her reroot. But I had this great idea to use DMC embroidery floss, pulled apart into separate strands, to restyle her hair and I LOVED the way it turned out. I fully expect to use this method and medium again. Clawdeen is truly one of the molds that I love to work on and shes great fun to play with.

 

She was also repainted in the same method above, with eyelashes glued for a more realistic effect. I just think she’d DARLING and I hope that she finds a wonderful new home.

Adventures in ReRooting, Part Deux

So I had a Dawn of the Dance Clawdeen Wolf from Monster High to whom I had repainted her face…but I wasn’t a huge fan of this series doll’s hair. I had been considering for a long while what to do as reroots are still something I am brand-spanking new at and the idea of what I wanted to turn this doll into hadn’t fully surfaced yet. Then I had the idea to utilize embroidery floss in lieu of the traditional nylon/saran hair or yarn.

 

 

Original doll, after face up, after hair removal.

 

I went out and got myself some colors of floss that I liked and that I thought would work well with not only the dolls coloring, but how I repainted her face. I then proceeded to get through the daunting task of removing the hair from the dolls head. Removal of the head is actually pretty easy if you go slow and use REALLY hot water to loosen the vinyl. Once you do that head quite literally will pop off without too much force. Then I soaked the inside of the head briefly in 100% pure acetone to loosen up the gunk of glue that they utilize to keep the originally rooted hair in place. After a good rinsing, I grabbed my pliers and got to work.

Do not let anyone tell you otherwise – pulling out a dolls originally factory rooted hair is ROUGH. My hand, the day after, is STILL sore from having to grip the pliers and pull. The industrial strength glue that they use is RIDICULOUS! Not to mention, with this doll, they put a TON of hair in the dolls part which makes it even more difficult. As you can see in the second pic on the top row, there are quite a few places where, even trying to pull gently, the force of getting the glue out caused huge holes in the mold that I will now have to try to patch and/or cover. I think I’ll be able to cover them thankfully but was NONE too happy to have that happen. Finally I was working on the hair rooted at the crown and I could swear to the powers that be the dolls head was either trying to give birth, or throw up. I’m still not certain which it was. As you can see, the MASS of hair and glue was quite large and I’m actually amazed more damage wasn’t done to the head sculpt.

I’ve already begun the long and arduous process of rerooting with the floss and so far I’m quite liking the result. I wont always want to use it since I think it will lend itself to a certain signature, but I’m excited to see how she finishes up and of course pics will be posted when she’s ready for sale.

I’d also like to take this moment to point out that I know why most folks wll repaint AFTER a reroot now, since the process causes strain on the sealant and Clawdeen now has a white band across her nose – which oddly has inspired me to do a little more to her when I do to repair the ‘damage’. Make lemonade out of lemons people!

Also, if you ever wondered WHY repainted and rerooted dolls especially are so expensive – yes this process is something that I’m new to. But it took me about an hour and a half to remove the hair from the original doll and it’s going to take me roughly 3 more hours to reroot her. I spent an hour on her last night with the floss and I only had about two rows completed. Repainting can take anywhere from 2 to 5 hours currently depending on what exactly I want to do to it. (The norm is about two to three). When you pay for a repainted one-of-a-kind doll your honestly paying for the artists time. Please remember to respect that. It’s one of the things I love about this community, however, is that the time spent really is something that true collectors appreciate. (And dont even get me started on constructing clothing! I’m still working on a dress!)

 

Posting Whirlwind

So yesterday I decided to get all my ducks in a proverbial row and attempt to get the 8 dolls I now have listed in my Etsy shop cross posted to Pinterest, Tumblr and DeviantArt as well as my Facebook page. Dear gods! Three hours later I had it all done and that was with a lightning quick internet connection! Best yet, I still have odds and ends to post on my Ebay account.

See, I generally sell my dolls nude primarily because I am a so-so seamstress and partly because in my head, my potential clients have an idea about how they want their doll to look and are purchasing my dolls to fulfill that image. Granted, there are some people that just want to buy the whole package and eventually I’ll get to that (time allowance willing!) but for now I think that having the dolls nude makes it easier for a client to really customize how they envision their doll looking. That of course leaves me with the factory provided items sitting around so those I try to resell on eBay for collectors looking to flush out their factory purchased dolls. Win-win if you ask me!

I got my Clawdeen, Cleo and Venus all uploaded to Etsy the other day, and they join the Frankie, Operetta, Abbey and two Lagoona’s I already had posted. Now, all the ladies are in all the areas I can possibly think of and I’m still scouting out more social media platforms in which to post them. If you have suggestions, feel free to bring me in on the loop!

In the meantime, I think I’m going to rest. Who am I kidding? I have a Draculaura whose hair I need to finish and then photoshoot and upload her, and a Ghoulia who is waiting on beautiful new Dollyhair. There is no rest for the wicked after all!

Abbey Bomidable Repaint from Chrysalis Creation. Click the pic to follow the link.