This is my first custom Monster High doll, and I learned a lot of cool new art techniques in the process. I think making my own little guy irl has fixed me.
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Progress pics under the cut!
The clothes were hand sewn and the plaid pattern was drawn on in sharpie. I also ended up making each piece twice as I figured out what did and didn't work with the doll proportions. Shout out to @Dollightfully's etsy shop for having easy to follow patterns I could modify!
After stripping all the paint and hair I added modifications with apoxie sculpt to better match Sloane's design, color matched with acrylics and added depth to the face with soft pastels. They also received top surgery with sand paper and a lot of patience.
The best part, the face!! I sealed everything up with Mr Super Clear and got to work layering up color and lines with water color pencils + white acrylic for highlights and base coat for the eyes. For the hair I glued down pieces of faux fur and razored it into the shape I wanted.
Tail needs to be attached, but otherwise this took me about three weeks on and off. Thank you to the free Clawdeen doll I got from work and a long hiatus for making this possible. Originally I just wanted to see if I could do this, but think I've unlocked a new niche hobby oops.
If you made it this far in the post—
I can't resurrect GlamBon in canon, but I can make them alive in my collection!
I love they're design so much, they might be my favorite design of Bonnie. Even better that they're associated with bowling, I LOVE bowling. I wanna go again for my birthday this year. I wish we got to know a bit more about them outside that, but alas. At least I can play pretend with my doll version now lol.
Custom uses a modified Bubiloons head on a Rainbow High Uma body. Outfit and face up my moi, as always. Really love how they turned out!
I've had this Janay head for years, but her original hair and paint just weren't my aesthetic at all. I finally figured out what would be the easiest things to change to make her more my style.
Placing a picture under the cut of how she looked stock, plus a list of what I changed
Stock on the left, and the hair cut I quickly gave her (years ago) on the right. The straight brown hair and earth tone face paint made it very hard to find much of anything in my doll clothes stash that worked with her.
I sat down yesterday and used a heavy needle to pick the glitter off of her lips, which I then painted over with sheer pink paint (so the original lip liner is still visible) with contrast blue shimmer. I also painted over her irises and eyebrows.
The new hair is made of the yarns from unraveled black rib knit fabric, glued to her head and coated with semi-gloss sealant.
She is now so much easier to dress with the clothes I have!
figured out how to repaint the inside of the rainbow high eye chips.
here's how I did it since there's no real how to anywhere, and I'll make an in depth tutorial next time I do it
1. take the eyes out of the head (there's plenty of tutorials on how to do this
2. pry the colored part away from the black part. I did this by putting an exacto knife thru part of the seam on one side and an awl in the seam on the other side
3. soak the eye chips in white vinegar for at least 24 hours
4. FOR THE SCLERA (white part of the eyes). skip this if you're leaving it white. I used a combination of needle nose pliers, xacto knife, and the same awl to scrape away as much of the paint as I could. I used the awl especially for the part just around her iris since it had the smallest point. this part could use some perfection since u can see there's still a little bit of white around her iris. for this character it works, but for others I'll need to figure something out. maybe a sewing needle or pin?
5. FOR THE IRIS use an exacto knife to peel as much of the paper sticker away from the iris. there will be only left on the iris and unfortunately the only way I've been able to get it off is through just sanding it off. there's a little dip where the pupil is and for that I scraped it with the xacto knife and the awl again since the sandpaper couldn't get in such a tiny space
6. this part is maybe optional, you can put a layer of gloss all over the inside of the chip to provide a smoother surface for painting. I only put gloss over the iris. If you're doing glitter, put gloss over wherever you want the glitter to be and carefully sprinkle it over the gloss. wait for it to dry and brush away extra glitter with a paintbrush. now you're ready to paint! do it in layers, I recommend putting any highlights or shine down first, then the pupil, then small iris details, and then your main color.
7. wait for everything to dry and pop the eyes back in! this part is tricky again, but I found this video helped me, and I used the thicker end of a chopstick instead in place of the tool she had.
feel free to ask questions and I'll answer as best I can.
"Some day I'll wish upon a star / And wake up where the clouds are far behind me / Where troubles melt like lemon drops / Away above the chimney tops / that's where you'll find me"
Almost done with the faceup of my desolation girlie!! I'm loving how the Blackest Black 4.0 is working in those eye sockets, they're so dark!! Unfortunately I needed to do a coat of it over the eyeliner, because the eyeliner being lighter bothered me, and now I need to wait until this caffeine leaves my system so my hands are steady enough to do another pass. Also need to get her some lashes to go with those gaping burnt out sockets
Still not sure what I'm going to do with her hair, but the sloppy half up half down looks somewhat promising. I'll test out different shapes and see what speaks to me, but I'd love suggestions!! I'm probably going to end up giving her a sorceress style dress, but I'm fairly open about clothes as well, lol
to the doll customization community: any suggestions on how to get into doll customization?
what hair do you recommend for reroots? what is the best paint to use? what kind of finishing spray is the best?
i’ve been told that watercolor pencils are good for sketching out faces. eventually i would also like to get some kind of glittery powders to add some sparkle to some of my dolls skin. anything will be helpful!! 🧡
Took about 2 weeks for Hextian's Nina Thumbell to arrive. Right of the bat, box art is STUNNING.
Like look at it?!? Something this pretty is out of place in my neck of the woods.
Rise, my master! (Best believe I'm keeping that tissue paper. Gorgeous color.)
Free her
Still freaking out over The Packaging. (A fucking wax seal, the ART AAAAAA-)
I remember watching the video of him customizing her way back when but I didn't realize it was back in 2016. She Old (and pretty!)
Oh its like a little bed!!! She's tied down with some twine? on a quilt padding panel that you can pull out with the ribbon loop.
Ever After High doll stand and brush included.
She is free! And cute!
Her! Face! (Back of hair is a flat- lmao bed head)
Up close and in my hand, I can definitely feel the painted fabric and plastic (diy skill babey) and I really adore her all the more. She brought joy to the end of a stressful work week.
This Mattel Hattie Happy head arrived with rhinestones in the eyes, replacing the original (and fragile) eye chips. I painted irises and upper shadow over them, and that blended well with the rest of the original eye paint.
The head had been in the parts box for years, waiting for an appropriate body. I stuck it on a Cave Club body as a joke, and...it kinda worked? But I didn't like the lack of shoe options for the Cave Club feet. It turns out the Cave Club lower legs are easy to remove, and I had had some Bratzillaz (or possibly Project MC2) lower legs in for a while. I really liked the proportions of the lower legs on this body, but I was never happy enough with the actual legs to go ahead and paint them to match.
I dug the doll out again recently and noticed how much the Cave Club thighs looked like G1 MH thighs, just scaled down a bit. @musicalmeowsandcandiedlemons had sent some MH legs a while ago (thanks again!), so I cut them apart to get the lower legs out, then trimmed a bit of plastic off of the knee pegs, and they fit into the Cave Club thighs pretty well.
They didn't match, though. (they had been Draculaura's)
I still didn't feel like dealing with the airbrush, or with mixing (or buying) paint to match, so I rummaged through the Citadel paints in Husband's stash and thought Bestial Brown looked close. I applied it with a broad brush, and it is a little streaky and dark, plus I wanted to protect the paint from possibly sticking to the insides of the shoes, and hosiery addresses all of those issues.
I do not like sewing for dolls this small, but that also means I don't have much that fits them, so I have to make something sometime, and sewed this dress specifically for her today.
To start, I’ve grouped the sculpts by which eye shape they use. Then organized them by facial features.
I don’t own every doll, so some of these may be incorrect! However I have spent a lot of time studying irl pics, and comparing my own dolls to make this as accurate as possible!
I keep seeing a lot of collectors online who are curious about the head sculpts and eye shapes. So I hope people find this useful!
(Also graphic design is not my passion lol, I’ll go back and remake these eventually)
Original eye shape:
These sculpts all use the same eye chips. They have 2 prongs on the back.
Rows 1-4 have pretty much the same headsculpt
Georgia, Phaedra and Paris have their own sculpts (idk if Paris even uses these eyes, its really hard to tell. She definitely doesn’t have the twins eyes which I’ve seen some people suggest)
Heather and Mila share a sculpt
Twins eye shape:
These eye chips have 4 prongs on the back.
The first row all have the same face
Daria and Uma share a sculpt.
Nicole and Sabrina share a sculpt.
B2 eye shape:
These eyes are marked with B2 on the back.
The dolls in each row share a sculpt with each other. (I think Roxie might have a slightly different jawline, but I don’t think its drastic enough to categorize it as a different sculpt)
CNY eye shape:
These eyes are marked CNY on the back. They’re similar in shape to B2 but have a noticeably larger pupil/iris.
HS eye shape:
These eyes are marked with HS, they’re also similar in size/shape to B2.
These two use the same head sculpt. They even have the same face screening!
3-B eyes:
These eyes have 3 prongs on the back.
They’re similar in size and shape to the original eyes, but with the eyelashes placed lower.
River?:
I don’t own either of them, I also haven’t seen their eye chips. So idk if there’s anything marked on the back, or how they compare to the other eye chips.
NQR:
When Jr High series 3 comes out, I’ll go back and make a chart for them.
So far all the girls use the same head and eyes. The eyes are marked NQR
I’m assuming River has his own eyes, they look much smaller than the other dolls.