T'was the week before Christmas
At CustomDollBaby.com Babies raced to get ready To go home to their Moms! The last several days seem like a blur. Rooting, wig making, gluing, sealing, stuffing, weighting...All the final details need to come together so all my Christmas babies are dressed up, packed up and shipped by end of day Monday. Every second counts because it's the final countdown! And I'm running with Elf-Like Precision, training for Christmas Day!
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A good haircut goes a long way. After a few hours of snipping, Holly's got her Christmas Princess hairdo! She's wearing the shades to protect mommy's Christmas morning surprise LOL
Holly came to me with two pretty wigs that were not quite what her mommy wanted. So I suggested that we make her wig from scratch. And that's what we've been doing for the last few days. I started with a pack of 10" and a pack of 8" Yacky Idol Human hair. Before I could put it on the baby, I needed to wash all the dye out - which took at least 4 wash and rinse cycles. Plus a moisturizing treatment to replenish all the moisture we just scrubbed out. I let it dry overnight in my bathroom - which really freaked my husband out. He thought it looked like giant eyelashes blinking at him. I thought it looked festive - like a garland made out of hair. LOL Now we're ready to glue it down one row at a time to make a custom fit baby wig. After a day of wiping off and reapplying matte varnish, we finally recovered Holly's beautiful complexion. So cute!
It would be a tragic disservice to the reborning community if I only posted the things that go well. In spite of my best intentions and knowledge, sometimes things go horribly wrong. But the good news is that it can be fixed! As you know, I've done a lot of research on sealing and skin texturing. After much trial and error, I found a reliable method that works. In spite of that, this Arianna kit turned into a matte varnish mess. I created my mixture. I tested it on a test part. The test part turned out perfectly. The doll turned into a frozen snow baby. Even more strange is that I put the same stuff on a Channel kit, as well as the Arianna arm and did not get the crusting and flaking. My only guess is that the vinyl the head is made out of reacts differently to the varnish than everything else. I suppose with all the Christmas spirit, Holly just wanted to "let it snow!" You know what I'll be doing most of the day tomorrow: buffing this junk off. :/ How to Fix Chalky Matte Varnish on Your Reborn DollIt wouldn't be fair to share the disaster without sharing the fix. Here's how to repair you matte varnish disaster. No matter how well you paint hair, nothing quite looks like hair but hair. To add a layer of dimension to my painted eyebrows, I like to root some extra fine mohair on top of it. Sometimes I leave them just-add-hair-gel natural. This time we're gong to seal them in place with thick medium so they always look neat. Little Holly is going to be her Mommy's Christmas surprise! So I can only leak snippets of photos until she's home! :-D Here are her perfectly shaded little hands all ready for blushing. :) To create Holly's beautiful biracial reborn complexion, we started with a Flesh 03 base layer before adding custom complexion colors. Looking great so far!
Toddlers are not typically heavily mottled, but I find a little bit of mottling can go a long way toward toddler reborn realism. Here are Holly's mottling layers! Interested in learning how to do mottling? Check out the demo!
Mottling Lifelike Reborn Baby Skin While you might be worried about how much Halloween candy you need to buy, my head is 100% in Christmas. I'm already busy making sure that babies who need to be on Santa's Sleigh Christmas Eve will get there on time. Well, I guess I'm not the only one managing my Holiday deadlines... Before adding the Base Coat, Holly needed to be neutralized. Using blue and flesh colored paint, I was able to take the orange out of her complexion. Now she's ready for painting! Check out the Demo to lean how to neutralize your vinyl reborn doll kit. I'm excited to introduce you to another one of my Christmas Babies! This is Holly, based on Arianna by Reva Schick. Holly is the biggest baby ever to enter my workshop. Its going to be a lot of fun bringing her to life. I'm especially privileged to work on this doll because she is the treasured possession of her mommy, who is an incredible artist herself. I'll be showcasing some of her work on my site soon, so stay tuned! My first Artist Mommy - I'd better do a really good job! :) Here are Holly's Before Photos! |
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Reborn Doll ArtistHi! My name is Kim. I am a reborn artist based in NC. I have been creating dolls since I was a child. I discovered the art of life-like baby dolls in 2011 and have been reborning ever since. Archives
December 2016
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