Dolls

Bought this sweater from a local master, but my wife asked to use it for her doll 🙂I really like how it fits on her.

It closes on the back:

I named this doll Helena because her face comes from a Fairy Godmother doll, and the Fairy Godmother was played by Helena Bonham Carter 😅 I found her used at a local market and not in good condition, and gave her a new life by swapping the body for a more articulated one.

The tunic is from a local master. It's so nicely done. I wish I could have such skills.

It has a button on the back:

Bought from a local master. The stitches are so tiny!

Here a few closeups:

Recently, I rerooted a Barbie head that already had factory rooting holes. For this new project, however, I used a head from AliExpress that came without any holes (original post here). On the plus side, it had a molded groove marking the hairline, and most of the scalp was pre-painted in the correct color.

The doll owner chose the hair color. The hair is saran.

First, I covered the factory part lines and marked a new one. I used good-quality acrylic paint for this. I also inserted sewing pins along the back hairline. This is useful for several reasons:

1. The rerooting needle breaks much faster when used to make the holes.
2. It makes it easier to keep the spacing consistent.

After that, everything is pretty much the same as in my previous post.

The next steps followed a simple pattern: I marked the holes with pins, removed the pins, and filled the holes with hair. It's important not to leave the pins in for too long. Larger holes hold the hair less securely. I used one of my factory-rooted dolls as a reference to keep the hole spacing and density consistent.

Once I had finished the back of the head, I continued rooting along the hairline up to the part. After that, I started filling the inner area of the scalp, saving the part for later.

I also pre-marked the part with pins, but never more than four holes at a time. When only one hole was left, I inserted the next set of pins. For the part, I inserted hair into each hole four times. The part needs much thicker plugs than the rest of the head, but making larger holes is not a good idea. That's why I prefer using a smaller rerooting needle multiple times instead of switching to a larger one.

The head was fully rooted. At that point, I filled it with glue (in my case, Fabri-Tac) and left it for 24 hours.

The next day, I poured boiling water over the hair, washed it, trimmed it, and styled it. The doll was finally finished.

Video here

Bought these 2 dresses from a local master. Quite happy with stitching and overall quality. I think she repurposed an old fabric based on the smell, but I don't mind this at all. I think it's a great use for things like this.

A few closeups:

They close on the back with a little plastic button:

Today is Redhead Day, and doll communities usually celebrate it. Here's my little witches' gathering.

Happy Redhead Day to all the redheads out there - you lucky ones!

I don't have the full doll because I bought only the head. This is how she originally looked

I really love this mold (sculpt), but the hair and lip color felt completely wrong to me. Of course, that's just a matter of personal taste. Face repainting is done at the very end so the new makeup doesn't get damaged. So first of all, I removed the old hair. I cut off most of it with scissors after tying it with an elastic band. Firstly, to avoid making a mess, and secondly, so I could reuse the hair for rerooting other dolls later.

My first reroot attempt wasn't very successful. I really liked the color, but coarse goat hair is not a good choice for dolls this small. It actually looks decent in photos, but in real life the problems are much more noticeable:

1. This hair doesn't bond well with glue (and I use the glue rerooting method), so the doll loses hair every time I brush it. There wasn't much hair to begin with, because goat hair is very voluminous and I had to use less of it compared to synthetic fibers.
2. The hairs stick out everywhere. The fibers are too thick and the result looks rough.
3. The hair has almost no movement or flexibility.

My conclusion: coarse goat hair is better suited for wigs on larger dolls.

When I removed the hair, I discovered that the hair parting had torn a little. This often happens during rerooting, especially on older dolls or after repeated rerooting, because the holes along the parting are very close together. In cases like this, the easiest solution is to glue the hole closed and make a new part somewhere else. That's exactly what I decided to do. In the photo you can see glue residue on the old hair parting and markings for the new one.

In the photo I'm showing my rerooting tool. It's basically a handle holding a needle with half of the eye sanded off. These needles are consumables - they break very quickly. I broke around five needles while rerooting this head. It would probably be better if they were sanded at an angle, they would likely last longer, but it is what it is.

Then I simply take a strand, fold it in half, catch it with the tool, and push it into the prepared hole.

For the new hair material, I chose saran. It's often recommended for rerooting Barbie, Integrity Toys, and other 1/6 dolls. By the way, in the photo below you can see that after working with goat hair, I got used to using strands that were too small, so later I had to go over the head a second time to add more volume.

There were no ready-made holes for the new hair parting, so first I pierced the vinyl with a regular needle, and only then inserted the hair with the rerooting tool. The tool itself can push through the vinyl, and sometimes I got lazy and used it that way. But in reality, this puts much more strain on the tool, and the rerooting needle breaks much faster.

Once all the hair was in place, I filled the inside with glue and thoroughly spread it around with a brush. I used Fabri-Tac glue. I can't be 100% sure, but I assume any waterproof fabric glue would probably work. After waiting a day, I poured hot water over the head so the hair would set into place. I didn't use boiling water directly - I waited about thirty seconds for it to cool down slightly.

After the hair dried, I trimmed it the way I wanted. This is the final result. I also added a few colorful strands to make her look more lively.

Ordered clothes from a local master. Everything is so tiny! For the belt I had to use pliers to get it through. Pockets are also real. But shirt buttons are decorative - under them are real inner buttons:

They're still tiny, but easy to close.

More photos:

I ordered it from a local maker. I really like it when clothes have tiny patterns. They make the miniature look more realistic.

I finished sewing my first dress for Barbie. Before this, my sewing experience - especially with a sewing machine - was pretty limited, so this feels like a real victory for me.

I used a ready-made pattern from Etsy. For marking the light-colored lining fabric, I used a washable marker, and for the dark fabric - a white pen.

I thought a dress like this would be simple to make. I was wrong. In reality, I had to unpick the seams and redo the stitching many times. The pattern has very difficult curved seams. I could have sewn it by hand quite easily, but doing it on a sewing machine was quite a challenge. It took a lot of time, but eventually I managed to sew all the dress pieces and all the lining pieces together.

After that, only the final steps remained: sewing on the placket for the snaps, sewing everything together, turning it inside out, closing the opening, and attaching the layers at the bottom of the dress. The last two steps were done by hand, which I was very happy about! My first complex sewing project is finished, and I'm really happy with it.

I used two types of snaps: metal (5 mm) in places where the snaps needed stronger support, and plastic (4 mm) where the stress is minimal.

You can see in the photos that the metal snaps stick out quite a lot and create an unattractive gap between the fabric layers. If I had used only plastic snaps, it would have looked much more aesthetically pleasing, but they would have broken frequently and I would have had to repair the dress. You always have to decide what matters more in a particular case: aesthetics or functionality. For this dress, I chose functionality.

Also, looking back at my mistakes, I would probably mention the thickness of the lining fabric. The pattern creator uses thin mesh, and that is definitely the right choice. But this was my first learning project, and I tried to use materials I already had.

Recently, I finally received a body for my Barbie Modern Circle Melody. It took me a long time to decide on the right body. Certainly, I like Mattel MTM (Barbie Made to Move bodies) visually and I really appreciate the more realistic proportions and variety. But their quality is terrible - from mismatched skintones between different body parts to really awful joints. That's why I prefer using MengF bodies for my hybrids.

The ideal MengF match is the Beige skintone. A funny thing is that in photos the original body seems to match the face better, while in real life the original body has a much stronger contrast with the face, and the new body matches almost perfectly.

Another advantage of MengF bodies for older doll hybrids is that they can still wear their original clothes. Older dolls used to have a larger bust and a smaller waist compared to modern Barbies. Though I didn't dare try the original shoes - they're made of very stiff rubber.

My wife ordered a You Create Kit 001, which comes with three heads and one body. She wanted the other two heads from the kit, and I liked this one, so she gave it to me.

Since I didn't have a body for this head, I borrowed a spare, less articulated body. That's what I used for this post. And today I received the body for her 🙂

But it looks like the color is slightly different from one batch to another. I couldn't capture this in a photo, but the body I received was a bit brighter than the one I have on my Lina (they have the same skintone). Luckily, she has a lighter head, so I used the new body for her and Lina's body for Ana. You can also see the old body on the right. While it looks very similar, I wouldn't be able to put her hands close to her face or sit her in lotus pose.

I obtained her recently on the local secondhand market on a cheap Chinese body. And the new Chinese body has finally arrived. I ordered MengF Pink White. I think Pink Red would be the best match, but they don't manufacture this skin tone in the 24-jointed variant. But Pink White also looks great.

I also swapped the original cap with a metal crown 🙂

I thought for a long time about whether I really needed her, but in the end I decided that I did. I usually unbox all my dolls, even though sometimes it's especially difficult. But with this one, it turned out to be easier - her box was damaged, and to my taste it doesn't have any special aesthetic value, unlike, for example, the Modern Circle series boxes. Besides, I'm quite afraid of mold, bugs, and other issues that often come with older dolls.

Luckily, this girl turned out to be quite clean. At least none of my main concerns were present, so I felt relieved.

The only thing I found were greasy, sticky spots on her legs. If I understand correctly, this is plasticizer leaking from the vinyl, which happens over time and due to storage conditions. It's not a problem for me, since I rebody all my dolls onto articulated bodies anyway.

Thankfully, there was paper under her dress that helped keep its volume, so the dress only got slightly stained when I removed it.

Right now she is on a temporary body from a Barbie tennis player. I want to put her on a MengF body so that I can occasionally dress her in her original outfit - modern Barbie bodies have more natural proportions and a less narrow waist.

I recently posted that I found this bald head on Ali and was planning to root her (add hair).

Today the head arrived! Here are a few close-ups in better quality. I always reduce the image sizes to avoid taking up too much space on the Lemmy instance (who needs photos of a doll head in 4k?), but it's still much better than what you can find in the store:

I can also confirm that it's indeed an original head. In the last photo, you can see the Mattel stamp. It says 2011, but it's not the manufacturing year - it's the year when this face was first introduced. As I mentioned earlier, it's the Mermaid sculpt. My wife has a doll with this face, and you can see the same year on the back:

I wonder how these Chinese sellers got their hands on it 🤔

I also ordered a Chinese green body called MengF. Unfortunately, in green the only available option is their old 2020 version with 12 joints. I think the green body wasn't very popular, so they stopped manufacturing it 😅 Color-wise, it's a good match. You can see the difference between the body and the head in the photo, but in reality it's fine.

For some reason, her hands look a bit different in this lighting. In reality, the color difference is barely noticeable.

For the hair, I ended up choosing black saran:

The plan is to try rooting this Karla head first for practice, and after that root the green Mermaid head:

I'll post the results, along with photos of the process 🙂

Curls on dolls are a bit problematic in terms of maintenance. Unlike human hair, you can't brush them, and they become quite tangled over time. They also accumulate dust more quickly (or at least it's more noticeable on curly hair), and washing is very delicate - cold water and a net to avoid damaging the curls.

My wife recently did a successful experiment on straightening her doll's hair (see this post for results), so I decided to try it myself as well. I used my 45th Anniversary Simone (the name sounds fancy, but it's not a rare or pricey doll). Here is my previous post with her original hair.

I used a regular human hair straightener. I think any will do. the only important feature is the ability to set the temperature. The maximum temperature depends on the material. Common materials are saran, nylon, kanekalon, and polypropylene. Sadly, doll manufacturers usually don't say which material was used, and it differs from doll to doll.

So I went with 100°C, which should be safe for any of them. Using high temperatures can easily burn the hair!

The process is simple, just quite time-consuming 🙂

First, separate several strands along the hairline:

Then very gently brush them just a little and keep the hair pulled taut. Now, apply a hair straightener:

This should make the hair much easier to brush. Repeat the process:

It usually becomes straight after ~5 passes.

Repeat for the whole head.

After that, I brushed the whole head and washed the hair:

Finally, I did one more pass with a straightener. This time, I didn't separate the hair into even strands; I just took sections and applied the straightener. Here is the end result:

It's not very visible in the photos, but after the last pass the hair became less fluffy.

And here is a comparison with another Simone (from Look #10), who comes with straight hair from the factory:

Hope you found it useful 🙂

Ordered from a local master. Can't help myself, I just like tiny things 🙂 Hand for scale:

Full look:

Ordered from a local master. It's so tiny! Here is my hand for scale:

And my hand even not that big. Some more photos just for fun:

The doll is from Barbie Basics Neutral Kit 001.

Before:

I like restyle my dolls from time to time. You can see how she looked before in my original post: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/58022613

Found her at a local market for cheap, in this outfit and with a non-original body from China.

But I'm planning to give her a proper princess treatment and buy her a premium body from China 😅 And a dress. But current modern outfit looks also kinda cool in my opinion.

I'm a doll hobbyist, and while I was looking for doll parts on AliExpress, I stumbled upon this head. I showed it to my wife, and she quickly recognized the Barbie Mermaid sculpt. This is how I discovered that this head is from the Barbie Star Trek 50th Anniversary doll. Originally, she looks like this:

I think they somehow managed to get unused heads from the factory, because I saw several listings of this head, and some of them even had (badly) handmade hair.

So I decided to buy one. Among doll hobbyists, it's common to buy blank heads to paint them and add hair (the process is called "rooting"). Except in this case, the head is already painted, I just need to root it. I won't be able to replicate the original hairstyle, but it should be fun 🙂

I also found this author on Flickr who purchased and rooted several heads (you can scroll two pages). Originally, I was planning to use black hair, but from the pictures above, white also looks kinda nice 🤔

I also think a dark red color will look great, similar to Poison Ivy from DC. I also considered a dark green head, but couldn't find saran in this color (it's the best material for doll heads). What color would you use?

The original body doesn't have many joints, so I bought a custom one from AliExpress. I used MengF New Brown. The head is a bit lighter, but the difference isn't very noticeable in reality. This body is also more detailed and feels better in hands.

Original body for comparison:

Closeup for the color difference between the head and the body: