Your Doll is Failure

♫ Come with me and you’ll see a select few from my doll collection take a look and you'll see how eclectic it can be ♫

[queenofsquids]

had a wild hair and finally painted and ... hair-ed ... this pony in one evening (highly unusual for me)

price paid is no symmetry whatsoever, but that's not a problem if I only photograph from one side at a time 🤪

not sure about the stylization at all but hell, I went for it

need to sincerely invest in quality acrylics that aren't 50 cent bottles older than my kids. this is so lumpy 😅😅😅 gets the main idea across at least

[dolldirt]

So cute!!

[sleepytoycollection]

Tanya Mousekewitz Funko Pop x Monster High hybrid doll

A doll of Tanya had been in my brain for ages, and seeing this Tanya pop finally pushed me to make one. the sculpt isn't too bad for a pop, just don't look at her from certain angles...

I actually had to redo her eyes because the first attempt I got her eye color wrong.🤦 Her eyes in the movie are such a pale blue, she mostly looks like she just has black dots instead of irises at all, so I didn't realize until I found some higher quality clips.

Went with a slightly darker color so she wouldn't look like that one Miley photo. Other than that, she's pretty cute and I'm happy with her.

[queenofsquids]

Ack she's so beautiful I'm besotted!!!

I didn't know her eyes had blue either whaaat! The way you painted them adds a lot of interest to her funko flathead. 😍

[dollsahoy]

I reprinted the pattern used in the last post--got the size right this time!

This Sun Set Malibu Skipper is still on her original body, instead of getting an articulated upgrade like the rest of the Mod-era doll(head)s in this project. This doll is in really good shape--she even still has her original sunglasses stitched to her head!--so I'm happy to leave her as-is. (Many thanks to @floccentric for the doll)

Although I had hoped the dress I made before would be the final dress, with that fabric, I didn't want to use that fabric again once I knew I'd need to make another version. I was aiming to fit a limited color scheme, and I wasn't enthused about my options...then, I reached into the back of the fabric drawer, and pulled out this

Sometimes, I'll see people get their hands on vintage mass-produced off-brand doll clothes, and think, due to the old style of construction and fabric choice, that the clothes were homemade. This, though, was absolutely homemade, and...not very well... The person who made it was right, though, that the print is really good for dolls.

I carefully cut the stitching all around the skirt and pressed it flat. There was practically no wear, beyond some very vague discolorations, so this dress was never really played with in its time, either.

There's a decent amount of this fabric left, too, so it will probably show up again. Eventually.

[queenofsquids]

Oooh what a lucky piece to find in the back of the drawer. I'm so looking forward to the final group.

The emerald green tights n shoes are selling me here

[queenofsquids]

so I began disassembly. removed TWENTY ONE screws so far.

what I'm trying to do is isolate the eyeball cradle so I can screw only that back in and have the head as light and empty as possible.

all the gears were coated liberally in so much grease.

but we're down to the basics now. I just need to saw off a large chunk of the black plastic electronics housing on the back of the eyes.

then finally get to cleaning everything off. see if the blue stuff will come off her lips. maybe it doesn't matter since I'm thinking of painting them a solid.

think I will probably remove her existing hair and use a wig. cannot overemphasize how dry and crunchy and stiff and awful it feels. I could probably cope if it was just texture, but it also doesn't cover that awful forehead/scalp seam. needs some bangs or something.

[queenofsquids]

successful sawing! even managed to leave a nub of the eyelid mech so it can stop at the right point to give the essential lidded look.

then I finally looked closer at her hair and noticed a huge chunk was already cut off so that made me feel much better about removing the rest cleanly. and after a good soap she is soooo much less greasy, a huge relief to handle now.

[dollsahoy]

[queenofsquids]

Well holy shit she turned out cuter than I expected!

Mainly thanks to this wig I found at the bottom of my stash!! It is nowhere near big enough to go around her giant head back. But it just happened to be a perfect cut/style to just ... sit on top. And drape over the enormous skull.

So I actually have a half sphere of styrofoam shaped and glued to the top of her scalp, and then hot glued just the crown of the wig onto the tip of that. So it's sitting kinda flat on the surface of her head lol. Just a super lucky coincidence. That wig looks terrible on a 1/3 BJD because of the angle of the curved hair, which actually made it work so well on Diva Starz.

I shaved down and shaped the underlying LOL OMG head to fit around the Diva Starz eye mech. Then filled the rest of the head cavity with scraps of styrofoam to hold it all tight in place, and screwed it back together with the original LOL head inside. She makes little styrofoam squeaky noises when I move her head 🤭

So uhhhh she's an angel 😳

I don't know how people photograph ultra shiny Blythes like this. I just gave up trying to minimize the glares and embraced them as part of the charm. I'm really glad I didn't accidentally mess up her high gloss. I usually take a magic eraser to everything, but I used my brain for once and tested on her head back and wow even a light once over obliterates the shine. So yeah I just used a soft cloth on her face.

Oh! And I removed the led inside her mouth and filled it with white poster putty to try brightening it up.

[dolldirt]

OMG I love her! She is so cute.

[queenofsquids]

dolls and flowers 😂

this is the first time I'm trying liquid hydrogen peroxide instead of the hair cream. unfortunately could only lay hands on 3% so I'm not sure it will do anything, especially with the weak-ass sun today. guess we'll find out 🤞

bluuuuuub

[dolldirt]

late to the party, but I always add a reflective surface under the jar. Aluminum foil, mirror, old cd, etc

[queenofsquids]

Stumbled into a Diva Starz (Tia?) at the thrift store finally! Staining on lips, dirty eyeballs, missing half her lashes, and her hair feels like hell. Her electronics aren't working, I don't know enough to repair that.

What I really want is this head on a fashion doll body though. I suppose she's not so rare that I have to be precious about leaving her as-is, though I always feel a guilty pang for all the hacking these days 😅

Despite all the Rainbow High parts fodder I have, none of the bodies match her color 😤

Ironically I have a Moxie Teens body that does match, but I don't want her tall, I want her giant-headed like Blythe.

If anyone has a link to a hybrid Diva Starz or anyone customizing a head with info about the insides or anything I would really appreciate it. I hate to dive in blind if someone else has already discovered the necessary... otherwise I tend to just. Break things

[drawmyhearton]

this is the barbie-body model, but is this any help?

From this blog

[queenofsquids]

YES this helps a lot thank you so much. It definitely looks like the scalp is similar with the little flanges, and four screws (on mine two screws hidden under the vinyl scalp)

[dolldirt]

I'm interested to see what you do with her. I was tempted to hybrid one of these as well, but haven't found one yet heh. Good luck!

[dollsahoy]

Doll Hackin'

I have a doll head I'm working on that needs a smaller body than Barbie-size. Since I don't want to spend any money, I looked through the box'o'bodies and found a Just Play Spirit Riding Free body that's a good size in the torso, but I don't like the legs--I feel like they're too long for a young teen, plus they have the large high heel feet so common for high school age character dolls these days.

The feet, and some of the issue of leg length, could easily be dealt with by cutting off the original feet and taking some of the end of the leg off with them, then drilling into the leg and inserting the ankle pegs from a spare set of feet. I do not, however, have any suitable sets of spare feet.

What I did have was a spare set of Liv Legs (thanks to @musicalmeowsandcandiedlemons!) and an idea I've wanted to try...

(many photos of unclothed and disassembled plastic below the cut)

The Liv hip connection is not compatible with the Spirit hip connection, so I couldn't do a straight swap. I initially figured I'd cut the Spirit legs off at the thigh, cut the Liv legs apart at the thigh, and use acetone goo to graft them together. Unfortunately, this would maintain the aspect of Liv legs I dislike the most: the fact that they have double hinged knees but no corresponding thigh rotation, making them extremely limited in posing.

A few years ago, though, I'd had the idea that the twisty end of an (empty) lip balm tube could be used to add a rotation joint to projects. I tested the idea with Shep's neck connection, and it worked. However, that was a relatively large area to put the lip balm tube into--would I need to trim the outside to get it to fit into a doll leg?

I used a hobby hand saw and a miter box to make the leg cuts--normally I'd hack at everything with a cutting disk on the Dremel, but I wanted to take a little more care with this project.

I figured out where to cut by wrapping a thread around the largest part of one leg, marking that, marking where the thread overlapped, then using that bit of thread to find the area with the same diameter on the other set of legs.

After cutting the legs (and lightly hand sanding the cuts), I moved to the lip balm tubes. I inserted one at the cap end--incidentally discovering that the tube fit perfectly into the legs--to mark how deep the cavity in the thigh was. I used that mark to cut a strip of paper to guide where to cut below the twisty end, again using the hand saw and miter box.

This is the test fit of the cut lip balm tube into a leg

(If you're wondering about the twine, it's so I could keep the legs on the correct sides and not accidentally swap them XD)

I put small screws into the flat ends of the lip balm tubes, to give the epoxy putty something to grab, because I couldn't wrap the epoxy putty around the sides without interfering with the movement. (Next time I do this, I'll try to remember to rough up the tube surfaces, to provide more places for grip.)

Then I smooshed the tube and putty up into the tops of the legs. I had problems getting the right side in properly, so I re-puttied that one the next day when I did the putty for the left thigh connection. Once that was cured, I attached the lower leg on the right side the same way, wrapping the putty around the sides and onto the cut edges, keeping it away from the axle.

Then I let that cure (having also used a bit of the extra putty to age the torso up a bit.)

(yes I know the plastics are different colors. It's fine.)

And here it is right now

Just imagine if Liv legs could always do that...

Have fun with this idea if you find it useful!

[queenofsquids]

thank you for all the process photos. this is a helpful concept.

I wonder how standardized lip balm tubes are, if they're all nearly precisely the same?

the Liv legs look great stylistically with this torso

[queenofsquids]

sewed an ultra simple tee for Ditto trainer 🥹

[queenofsquids]

Found a chenille yarn while cleaning R's room, and the color match wasn't great but I thought I should try it anyway.

The color actually looks so much better in person. I'm constantly frustrated by purples in digital photos 🤷🏻‍♀️

But! I do love the shape! And the way the "drips" turned out! I used a fabric glue this time for fast hold.

I think I'll keep this one! She's so adorable with hair 🥹 It really changes everything.

I know sculpted hair would look so much more Ditto-like. But I really wanted fiber. I'm just gonna imagine my Ditto is so good at transforming that they can do fibers 😂 She's so soft and fits in with my Animal Crossing dolls better.

Gosh the drips! 😍

(Edit to add since I typed it out in the comments: the base doll is Boxy Girls with face carved off and sanded, legs carved down and Hairdorables Bella Bows Series 1 shoes glued to the stumps, and Wreck It Ralph Yesss doll hands, all painted purple)

[dollsorwhatever]

New addition to the Miss Long Hair lineup! You can tell I was really itching to style a doll's hair this day lol

Something interesting about this particular example is her eye makeup; usually, Miss Long Hair comes with warm-toned blue eyeshadow and a blue crease. This girl comes with an indigo crease, and very subtle indigo eyeshadow to match!

She's wearing fashion No.6004, which I deboxed just for her!

(scan of my Miss Long Hair booklet by @dollsahoy! See the full scan in this album on my Flickr ) I don't make a habit of deboxing vintage doll fashions these days, unless I have a duplicate- and luckily I do for this fashion! (old draft that I forgot to post lol)

[dolljunk]

I've thrifted this Bratz doll that had been customised beforehand and I have been trying to get over my fear of customising Bratz dolls since it's a completely ballpark to what I'm used to. But I knew that with a doll with a severe haircut and a face that needed some TLC she would be perfect for a Nana Osaki repaint since I wanted to gift @houseofmous something special for Xmas. I really liked the anime back in the day so I heavily referenced that as my main source for the stylisation, but I did look at manga art and Bratz faces to get the right blend of linework for her. I know not doing the right Bratz shaped lip is kind of a weird choice but I really liked how underpainting the lower lip harkens to the anime stylisation and it felt right to go with that. I ended up giving her a modern Bratz doll body since she was pretty beat up and my fiance dressed her in Bratz pieces that felt right lol.

[chimichangacongaline]

finally got around to repainting Emily, plus a little dress and veil altering, painted maggot and made her a proper bouquet, tons of little butterflies, pearls and flowers

[slaughtergutz]

Is this what the kids call meta

[zaksdolls]

Nov 5, 2021: Why not?

[dollsorwhatever]

Miss Long hair

Two new additions to my Miss Long Hair collection, freshly restored and styled! (boring stuff below the cut)

These were both in unplayed with (albeit dirty from age) condition, so it was a pretty lightweight restoration for both. Since their factory curls were still intact, I opted not to do any heat styling on the foundation hair and instead simply brushed the curls into flips, which they took to very nicely! The only heat applied was on their partings since they needed to be re-thatched, and I straightened the box kinks out of their grow tails. The brunette also had some fading on her upper torso, so I swapped bodies with another doll that will be wearing a full coverage dress anyway. They both came wearing variations of the Crissy dress, but the blonde was almost destined to end up in this wedding fashion pack when I saw her soft makeup in person! Brunette gets to stay in her green dress for now, but I reserve the right to put her in something more interesting later! I feel like I should have at least one doll in the Crissy dress, but it's pretty boring compared to all of the stunning original fashions that were made for Miss Long Hair so it's a tough sell for me lol