Fantasy for Dolls - Issue 15 The Story of Felani and Doll Maker's Notebook

An Intro to Doll Maker's Notebook

What happens when you request a custom doll?

I have the pleasure of customizing dolls for their people, and many wonder what the process is!  First we talk and agree upon who will be customized.  When I receive the head of a doll in the mail, I make sure I label and keep everything together.  I use inspiration pictures and ideas from my client to make their ideas come to life.

I need to clean the doll's face of factory paint, stains, and surface dirt creating a solid base.  I prime with Mr. Super Clear and work with chalk pastels and watercolor paints once the base coat dries.  I'm a better brush person than a colored pencil person.  I just can't get my lines to do what I want if I use a pencil - no matter how sharp.  During the painting and chalk pastelling process, I send several pictures to make sure what I'm doing aligns with my client's vision.  It's easy for me to make changes before everything is sealed up!

When I get the OK, I seal up the doll and send her back home!  This is when I add up the agreed upon fees and the transaction becomes complete.  Easy peasy :)

What could be more satisfying than finding a discarded or donated doll and bringing her back to life?  I love refurbishing vintage Pleasant Company dolls so that they can have another chance to inspire joy and imagination.  When I work with my dolls, I create stories that these dolls inspired for their little person and can revive the part of my brain (at least for a little while) that has forgotten the treasured art of play.

With this in mind, it has been a pleasure to be part of a larger community of fellow doll aficionados!  Collaborating with such a unique and talented group of women is kind of like to be asked on a play date with friends down the block!  How about we collaborate?  Yes please!

My role in this collaboration has been to fulfill the creative request of Heather at Bbeauty-she has been the creative force of our work together and sent me several dolls to work on.  She gives me ample creative freedom and trusts that I'll work my magic.  Sometimes that magic might be a little too strong-ha ha!  For instance, the doll we will be revealing this week was the result of several experiments with dying vinyl that I thought had turned disastrous.  Who knew that dying a doll goes faster than you can turn around to get the tongs?  But panic subsided and made way for creative problem solving ideas!

In the end, she turned out to be one of my favorite projects.  I had to forego my usual techniques and leave my comfort zone to try something different.  I layered several colors and textures of air-brushed paint which gives her a very luminous skin tone that feels very alive with color.  I wondered what Heather was going to think when she opened the package!  It was her turn!

The Story of Felani

Felani is a story of a very imperfect doll who had been loved and played with and then discarded.  She must have been wearing black or dark clothing a very long time because she had dye transfer all over every limb on her body and not small lines but large areas.  When she first came to us, I thought wow that's going to be a hard project because that's more than just a little acne cream.  But I believe in saving dolls, not discarding so she came to me for a reason.

Values on dolls are often placed based on perfection, the newer the better, the less flaws the better.  But I believe differently, a flawed doll is an opportunity and that's what gets my creativity and imagination flowing.  There is no reason to take apart a perfectly good doll and experiment on her.  But with a flawed doll, all doors are open to experiment and play and create something new.

I didn't know right away what she would become, but I knew I had a problem to solve and the dye marks were going to determine everything that would happen next.  In fact throughout this project, as problems arose, it helped shape Felani's character and purpose and dictate the direction to go.

To get rid of all the dye staining - she would become a fully dyed doll.  It was a theory originally that I had observed with stained clothing which renewed itself and eliminated stains after a dye bath.  Emily from Doll Maker's Notebook and I had often discussed doing more complicated projects, and were waiting for the right opportunity to come along.  We waited for the perfect candidate for a make-over and Felani was our answer.

I sent the doll base to Emily at Doll Maker's Notebook to do the dye bath and painting for a custom.  We bounced around a few ideas and then settled on doing green skin possibly to be a witch or something of that nature.  The plan was for a very bright green, but Felani had other plans and she came out a weird army green-grey color.  (see photo above)  In a second attempt to change that outcome, there was another dye bath but instead of becoming greener, she just got darker - a dark army green.

Poor Emily felt as if she failed the brief, but all those dye marks were gone and so all it required was a pivot to define the direction.  After a brief pow wow, we discovered that actually what we had was a perfect base color to which all the green we needed would be added in the make-up and painting stages.

Emily used her artistry to create a very tribal make-up look on her inspired by the Avatar movies using the white as almost a freckle spray and using lighter tone green variations in the face-up and limb painting.  The eyelids were painted dark to match her new skin tone.

The Removed Ear with glue prepped for new ears

Still going off Avatar inspiration looks Emily changed the ears by removing the original and adding long elf ears.

The original ears which had been sawed off, saw pictured to the left

The elf ears were put in the same dark green dye bath to match the head coloring

The new ear goes right in the spot of the old ear

Glued down and set to dry

Back of the ear, ready to be sanded and painted to blend in with the rest of the head

Held in place to dry

Viewing all the picture progress, I wasn't exactly sure which direction I was going to go with for character.  She almost reminded me of a baby Yoda in this stage or some galactic ambassador.  As I waited for all her pieces to arrive, I brainstormed and created a mood board for costuming, hair design, and character.  With deep research into Dungeons and Dragons and Lord of the Rings, I determined she was the right fit to be an Elf / Orc Hybrid character near a forest village.

Fan Art of a female orc warrior for which I used as inspiration for braiding her hair

Elf / Orc half breeds were often found as warriors with patterned green skin, dark eyes, dark hair, and very tribal looking.  I found the picture above which I would later use as inspiration for her hair design style.  Elf / Orc half breeds often retained elf beauty for the females and neither accepted by the Elves nor the Orc tribes they often went to reside with humans.  I thought that was very interesting as the future goal for Felani was that she would be adopted by a very special human.  

My daughter chose the name "Felani" from a list of orc names generated by the internet as she liked the sound of it. The meaning of Felani said "the one to die for" and I thought, that sounds like a love story, I can work with that.

Stay Tuned for our Next Issue where Felani's character comes to life.

Save the Dolls

Bbeauty Dolls' has an active campaign to save and rescue unwanted, broken, and damaged dolls and give them a second life with a new owner.  Our goal is to stop the mass dumping of dolls into landfills and thrift stores.  Broken, and poor shape dolls that are donated to thrift stores often get tossed if they are not deemed in good enough condition to sell, and also get dumped if they don't sell. We are also tired of seeing mass amounts of poor condition dolls for sale on the internet.

We want to change that fate.  Instead of bad condition dolls getting dumped or out there for sale, we are refurbishing them, recycling them, and re-imagining them so that each doll is ready for their new life in close to perfect condition.  As such we are networked with doll hospitals, doll artists, and doll specialists nationwide to ensure that all dolls from the 1950's to today have a chance to be restored and loved once again.  All proceeds from these doll sales aid us in funding our mission for this special project.  Please contact us if you wish to join or donate to our cause.