Journey to the world of DOLL CUSTOMIZATION.

I have been fond of Japanese BJD dolls for several years, but I have managed to stay away from them, though I think couple of years ago I almost bought one. I'm glad I didn't though, in the end they're just overly expensive, super beautiful dolls. I think collecting mangas is already quite an expensive hobby, I don't want another one. But doll customization isn't limited to only BJD dolls, and once I saw people repainting Monster High dolls I decided those would probably be cheap enough for me to get as well. In the end they still felt a bit too expensive to just start experimenting on, so I bought a couple of well-played-with dolls from flea markets before even trying to get my hands on a MH doll. And once I finally bought MH dolls, they were also used, I purchased them from a Finnish online auction website. Anyway, I got 3 dolls, and the first one I decided to start customizing was Frankie Stein.

The moment I got the doll I was so psyched up that I didn't realize to take any photos, I just had to strip her naked right away and restyle her hair! I even shampooed it because it felt sticky somehow (I don't even want to know what was in it). So this photo is after the hair wash and restyling. I think the original hairsyle was probably like this, but because it was a used doll, the hair was just... all over the place.

After that I made a design on how the repaint should look, but it took me a while before I was able to gather the courage to actually remove the original face-up. Besides, the last time I used acetone I splashed it all over our wooden table, so I was pretty nervous about using it again, ahaha.

Well, in the end I mustered the courage to remove the face-up, this time I also made sure the table was protected! Of course this time I didn't spill any of the acetone but better to be safe than sorry. Oh, I also needed to protect the torso of the doll, because I had read somewhere that if the acetone got in it, it would make serious damage to the body (it's different material from the head). And then I also covered up the hair, just in case.

I made the new face-up with watercolor pencils, pastels and acrylic paint. The subtle colors (well, the blush) was made with pastel dust and then I "sketched" the new eyes and eyebrows with watercolor pencils. Then I filled everything in with acrylics. The original sketch I had made turned out being very useful, even though I made some slight changes to it along the way, like the direction where the eyes look and the shape of the eyebrows. I used quite a lot of acrylic retarter, so the doll had to dry overnight before I added some gloss to the lips and eyes. I guess I should still seal the whole face somehow, but I haven't figured out what kind of product I should use for it. Anyway, the finished face-up looks like this:

I think it looks pretty nice for being the first "real" face-up I've made, but obviously I still have lots to learn. But I still have two more dolls waiting to be repainted, we'll see whether I'll continue this hobby after those, or will this be just a small summer fling.