How did you get started doing your craft?

I've always been a collector of dolls of one type or another and around 8/9 years ago I discovered the joys of Japanese fashion dolls made by Volks, Azone, Takara, Bandai etc. It was my love of Japanese anime that sent me in that direction, as I was collecting dolls from my favourite anime series!

My first articulated doll was by a company called Azone and she cost me $110, which was an awful lot of money for a 27cm doll, but the quality of both the doll and outfit was exceptional, so I stopped worrying about the price and started my collection of articulated dolls alongside my collection of anime dolls.

Like with anything you're interested in, I started searching the internet for other people who collected these dolls and found out about the various edit kits you could buy from Volks, Obitsu and Azone and decided to have a go at making my very own OOAK dolls, but due to having a 3rd baby, didn't start making anything until 1 year ago!

The initial idea of having to start from scratch with a completely blank head (a skinhead) with no hair or face or clothing was actually quite daunting and to be honest my first attempt at painting a doll's face was quite horrible *lol* It was a learning curve though, as I discovered various ways of improving what I was doing with hints and tips I picked up from other doll customisers and asking myself what I was doing wrong and how I could go about making it better. It was all very much like the old saying "Practice makes perfect"!

I thank my Needlework classes at school and my love of making cosplay outfits a few years back for my ability to make clothing for my dolls and although making 1/6 scale clothing is a lot more fiddly than 1/1 scale, again with much practice, it becomes much easier.

I'd say I'm purely a hobbyist! I've never even thought about selling any of the things I make, although I did get a few commissions for people sized cosplay outfits a few years back.

What goes into customizing a doll?

The first thing to decide is what head mold to use. If you add the range from Volks, Obitsu, Azone and NDR (if you're lucky enought to get them!!) there's well over 2 dozen head molds to choose from. Once that decision is out of the way, it's onto the hair (always start with the hair first!!) and whether to use a prerooted head or a skinhead (completely blank head).

A skinhead will need rooting, but this does gives you far more scope with styles and colours, whereas a preroot will save you a lot of time, but there is a limit to what you can achieve with a preroot - look wise.

Face painting is next, which is called a "face-up", I tend to use non-eyehole heads, as I prefer painted eyes for my dolls.

There is quite a range of bodies available too and you can opt for small, medium or large breasts, breasts with nipples or without, seamless bodies and even bodies without joints! Plus you have a choice of skintones - white, natural and tanned.

Most of the decisions for hair colour, body type, head mold etc is usually made beforehand, but sometimes I just go with the flow and see what happens *lol*

Next is the clothing, although I've usually got the idea in my head of what I want beforehand, sometimes the personality of the doll is the deciding factor on what kind of outfit I will make, plus my mood at the time - whether I'm into kimonos, romantic days gone by etc.

Lastly is naming the doll! I usually decide on a name while I'm painting the face, but sometimes the personality of the doll doesn't come out until days later!

How big are your custom dolls?

All my dolls are 1/6 scale and between 21cm and 30cm tall depending on whether the mold is for a child doll or an adult doll, female or male (the tallest are the Volks Neo Go's at 30cm).

What makes a One Piece or a Volks Neo Go custom doll?

My favourite anime of all time is One Piece and as a collector of anime fashion dolls, I was annoyed (but not surprised) by the complete lack of dolls for the show (it is a boys show after all *lol*) so I decided to make my very own One Piece dolls of all the characters that I like.

What makes them different is having to create something that already exists in a manga book or an anime, so you have to make everything "just so". The eyes have to be painted just right and the clothing has to look like it does in the show, which can be difficult at times, as I know from my experience making cosplay outfits - animators don't care if a piece of clothing is "impossible"!!

Basically they have to look like a specific character rather than being something you made up.



There is an awful lot of choice when it comes to making female dolls. There are far more choices in head molds, body molds etc, but for the male dolls you are actually quite limited. You have the skinny little bodies in the Volks N and C types and a not so skinny Obitsu slim male, with 4 or 5 rather nasty head molds, which is why most doll customisers use female head molds. There is the option of the muscle man body from both companies, but it really is an Action Man (G.I. Joe) type, so when you imagine a gorgeous male doll you want a gorgeous body and head and there is nothing more gorgeous (in the 1/6 scale world) than a Volks Neo Go and this is what sets them apart from the other male 1/6 scale dolls!



What tools and materials do you use?

I use water-based acrylic paints and varnishes for painting the faces and fine Kolinsky sable paintbrushes (sizes 3/0 -10/0), plus lots of cotton buds, kitchen paper towel and acetone free nail polish remover for mistakes *lol*

The hair I personally use for my dolls is saran hair. It's lovely hair to work with and will take a lot of boiling and messing with afterwards without any problems.

It's best not to use any really heavy or thick fabric for 1/6 scale doll clothes, as not only is it more difficult to work with on such a small scale, but it often doesn't lie right when you dress the doll, but other than that, I will use anything that suits my purposes including cutting up old clothing!

I enjoy sewing my doll clothes by hand as opposed to a machine and all I need is 2 sections of the sofa to work in (one for me and one for all my bits and pieces). I do have my own room for my dolls and a big old table for my sewing machine, which I will use for the pieces that take longer to make, like kimonos and hakama as hand sewing those is far too time consuming.

I don't think I use any special techniques, but thinking about what threads you need to match your fabric ahead of time is always a good thing to think about, as I can't stand not having matching fabric and thread

Where does your inspiration come from?



Anime and romance (knight in shining armour stuff!!). Simple as that ^__^

I can't draw to save my life, but I can create the characters I see in my head into dolls. I love bishounen (pretty boys) in anime, which is why I use an awful lot of the Volks Neo Go dolls, as they not only have beautiful bodies, but beautiful head molds too and with the fact they always come with long rooted hair, means I can create a fantasy guy in 3D!!

I'm also a sucker for the perfect fairytale romance, so a lot of my ideas come from that. I love creating "couples" with a romantic edge to them and my guy dolls are created with a "Prince Charming" element to them.

I have to admit that whatever I'm "into" at the time will have an effect on what I create, as with all my traditional Asian clothing creations!

Can you give us a short tutorial on assembling one of your dolls?

It's all dependent on what kind of doll I want to create. If I want a cute guy doll, I might choose to use a female head mold instead of a male head mold. The first step will be to decide what kind of hairstyle I want for the doll and root the hair accordingly. The rooting process can take upwards of 25 hours, as I use the needle and knot method, which involves inserting the strands of hair into the eye of a needle, inserting it into the scalp, pulling it through the neck hole and tying a knot to keep it in place inside the head. I'm not sure how many hair plugs one head takes, but I'd guess in the region of 200-300.

Once the head is covered in hair, you pour off the boil water over it to flatten it and to keep the parting in place, then cold water to cool it all down - it basically sets the hair. Once the hair has dried it's time to cut and style and sometimes it may need boiling flat again.

When you paint a dolls face the paint should be watered down slightly, this prevents the applied paint from looking globby and you need to apply thin multiple layers to build up the colours. Start with the outline of the eyes, fill in the whites, add the iris, pupils, eyelashes and dots of light, then the eyelids, eyebrows and lips. I usually leave the paint to "breath" for 24 hours before applying the varnish, which I paint on.

I sometimes make the clothing before painting the face, as this often gives me more idea of what kind of face to give the doll. Then the last step is to attach the head and dress the doll. Naming them is also an important part of the process and I usually use what my mind has conceived as their personality to name them (checking for meanings of names etc).

I have 2 dolls that never got names because nothing would come to me, all I knew is one was a Prince and the other a Princess and to this day they are still called Prince and Princess

How difficult was it to make an outfit like The Pied Piper Of Hamlin?



My imagination! It runs riot and confuses me no end *lol* With the Pied Piper, I knew it had to be sexy, but it also had to look like the Pied Piper (the one in my imagination anyway!). I often find in a situation like that to just let my imagination run away with itself and to just go with whatever comes out of my hands; basically "one step at a time".

I started with his pants, but the braces were purely the sexy side that was my wanted element - bare chest and all that!! I then picked up a piece of blue lace and played around with it until it ruffled in a way I liked, then just sewed the cuff/neck sections on. There was no pattern involved, just playing with it til it all looked good.

The good thing about small scale dolls is they make easy models to work with. When I need  something like a hat, or a boot/sock design, I lay the doll down on a piece of paper and draw around the part of the body involved, add on seam allowance and cut out a sample piece, then make any adjustments as I go along. Sometimes I'm really lucky and the first attempt will work out perfectly, other times I might have to keep at it until it works/fits.

Experimenting is a good word for what I do.

I think the main ingredient for designing a doll outfit from scratch is my imagination - if I can see it in my head, I can usually turn it into a costume, as long as it's not too complicated. I do tend to pick things up very quickly and I can see in my head how you would make something fit a person and basically you use the same process for doll clothing.

The biggest difficulty is the scale and how fiddly certain elements can be. When I made the tails for my rat girls I had to figure out how on earth I could turn something that small the right way around and I ended up using a plastic stick! The worst thing is finding zippers, press studs, buttons, etc. in the right scale, but thankfully there are a lot of manufacterers out there who are helping us 1/6-ers out by bringing out the tiniest of haberdashery items imagineable!!

How about accessories for a doll like Byakuya or Akira custom doll redone?

You can steal "Action figure" accessories *lol* I may not like the look of the actual figures themselves, but they do come with some amazing accessories and so well detailed - especially Dragon in Dreams!!

It's relatively easy to adapt a lot of those items to use with my dolls. I must admit to wanting to try making those kinds of things for myself, so one day I might not have to "steal" the from action figures *lol*



Do you take your own photos?

I take all my own photographs and most of the time I think they're awful! It can take 60 or more photos of one doll before I finally get one I like.

I was told that for taking photos of dolls you should use a nice plain background so that the camera focuses on the doll only and to use the macro setting, so that's why I tend to use white backgrounds all the time!

I think the best thing you can do when photographing an articulated doll is to make the most of the fact it is articulated. There's no point in having a doll with over 25 or so points of articulation if you don't pose them nicely

Do you participate in any shows or exhibitions?

I only ever show pictures of them on the internet! I'm happy to know people like looking at my dolls and what I've created!!

I make my dolls for myself and each and every one of them has a special place in my heart and I don't think I could bare the thought of selling any of them.

I'm lucky enough to have a whole room all to myself for displaying my dolls.



*Tenshi-blues

Status: deviantART Subscriber
Doll Maker
Female/United Kingdom
Deviant since May 30, 2007, 9:07 PM



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