So a few weeks ago my friend in the US and I were chatting about a particular doll and both decided to order one. We both bought on the same day and both dolls were shipped at the beginning of September. Both dolls were coming from Greece and would you believe it, both dolls arrived on the same day too, even though my friend's doll was going all the way to the west coast of the US!
The doll is not a doll I'd normally go for, she's incredibly quirky looking and definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but she made me laugh. I only have to look at her to make myself smile! She is a Malisa by the Greek artist Chrishanthi of Ppinkydolls, who sells on Etsy.
When I saw the doll in her box I thought I'd made a dreadful mistake. She was so pale and I really don't like pale dolls, also 'pale' doesn't really photograph well for me in the sunshine. Also she had long spidery eyelashes, one of which had been crushed and was all out of shape because she'd been sent without any face protector. BJDs are generally packed with face protectors because it prevents just such problems happening with the eyelashes as well as protects the faceup whilst in transit.
Here are some before photos. She is not wearing her wig in these photos but you can see her crushed eyelashes on her right eye (on the left of the photos).....and you can also see the messy thick glue that they were attached with.
My mum was here when the doll arrived and she couldn't stop laughing and said the doll was so ugly and like an 'alien'.....well that is like a challenge to me. I was determined to make this little ugly bug into a cutie!
First of all I removed the eyelashes that seemed like they were stuck on with super glue! Then I removed the shine on her pink lips (I really am not into pink lips) and then I set to work giving her more colour.
As you can see above, I filled in her eyebrows as they were pale and nondescript, I wanted them to be darker so I used a couple of shades of ground down chalk pastels in brown, I then added more individual hairs to the eyebrows, using various shades of brown and grey watercolour pencils. I used some black pencil around the eyes to fill in where the original eyelashes had been removed (the glue had taken some of the eyepaint with it when removed). I added some more dark eyeshadow and then I worked on the lips. I used various shades of red and brown chalk pastels which I applied with a small flat paint brush, building up the layers of colour and using Mr Super Clear Flat sealant between layers. I filled in her mouth cavity with the same shades of chalk pastels and then I re-whitened her teeth using white watercolour pencil. I also added some colour to her nostrils, her philtrum and the very sides of her nose, to define the shape of her nose more. After that I added blush to her cheeks, forehead, chin and across the bridge of her nose. I then sealed her again and once the sealant was dry I gave her new eyelashes. I used one human size false upper eyelash and cut it in half then trimmed that down to size. Her eye holes are not big compared to the size of her face, she wears 12mm eyes.
When everything was dry, I put brown glass eyes in. She actually came with a sort of two tone grey eyes but I preferred the warmth of the brown eyes.
The wig in the above two photos was the one she came with but I felt it wasn't quite 'zany' enough for her so today I looked through my wig box and found this bright auburn/ginger Tibetan lambswool one that I've had for ages. I tried it on her and felt it was just perfect for this unusual and quirky girl!! I've trimmed it about a bit to suit her better.
As you can see below, even with the extra blushing she now has, she still looks quite pale in the sunlight, but I'm happy with her new look.
She's a funny little thing, with a tilt of her head she can look so different from one photo to another! I think in this photo (below) she looks quite happy.....
But in this one she looks really sad....poor girl, I wonder why?
And in this one, she looks almost annoyed over something!
She's wearing clothes borrowed from my Blythe dolls and shoes from Riley Kish....one day I will get around to making her something of her own, I mean who wears a strappy summer dress with woollen leg warmers and boots!! And her name, by the way, is now Riley Mai!
Well thank you for stopping by, I hope you all have a good weekend ahead, so until next time....
