What do you look for when buying or admiring a repainted doll?

Fellow collector, inti, posed this question on Prego this morning. Along with her question, she posted a montage of the eyes of her repainted Ellowyne dolls. For inti, the eyes are the most important factor in making a decision. 

She said,  "The most important thing to me in a repaint are the eyes, especially and specifically the irises & pupils. Of course, it has to all blend together with the rest of the face and other parts of it but it is usually the eyes that attract me to a repainted doll...Lots of times though when artists display pictures of their dolls, they don't provide close ups of those beautiful eyes or of the doll looking straight forward. It really turns me off when that is done, but it doesn't stop me from contacting the artist/ and or the seller if I am motivated enough with the whole face repaint and do ask to see pictures of the eyes up close."

Link to original post where you can see a slide-show of the eyes.   
Please remember that you need to be a member of Prego (it's free) to log-in there.

Picture of the Week Award ~ November 22, 2009

I am happy to feature the work of France Briere today. France aka Bijou Doll is an uber-talented repaint artist. I have not seen one doll she has worked on that I wouldn't add to my collection. I met her at a Fashion Royalty convention and she is as delightful and as beautful in person as her work!
Here is a repaint of Ellowyne she posted today:

See more by clicking on this link: Bijou Doll
Congratulations, France, on your Picture of the Week Award!

Delilah Noir Re-Paint

One of the newest members of my tribe is a OOAK Delilah Noir from Ashton Drake. She's a new doll who is vinyl, 16" tall and has a combination of ball and strung joints with 14 points of articulation. With the ability to change her eyes and wigs, she's immensely useful. The factory product comes with two wigs and two outfits and the back story is that Delilah is innocent looking by day but changes at night. Could they have come up with a more tiresome story line?

Image property of Ashton Drake

In spite of that I was attracted to her when I saw the factory version but when I saw the repaint, I knew I had to have her. Mine was repainted by Michele Hardy and came to me nude with only a pair of black boots.

Some of Tyler's clothing items fit—but she needed her own wardrobe and wigs! I purchased a 6/7 Roxy wig and it looked very good on her.
Having found out that she could wear the 16" Goodreau American BJD clothes, I browsed over there and purchased two outfits. Paulette sent me a wig along with my purchases as a gift. I love it.
Here is Delilah wearing the Goodreau fashion, Cream Elegance, and the gifted wig. The necklace and bracelet are from a Teen Trends outfit.

The "Evolution" of Foreign Affair Veronique

Impulse control? I don't have it and if you think that re-working a doll is a way to save money in a tight economy, give it up.

It all started out with a lovely Foreign Affair Veronique, the doll from a Fashion Royalty 2005 gift set.

After having this doll for a few years, I decided to change her hairstyle. What was I thinking? Needless to say, it didn't work out well. I sent the doll to Susan Korba to have her hair re-rooted. The results were stunning.

She remained in this gorgeous condition for about a year until I had the bright idea to fix her eyelashes. That wasn't too destructive but then I decided to do a little enhancing around the lashes. That fed the flames. I went on to change her lip color and it was all downhill from there.
Before quitting for the night, I had removed all her face paint and the new lashes in disgust.


Since I had already invested in the reroot, I couldn't just leave her in my studio with no face, could I?
Off she went to Ohio, to be repainted by Jon Copeland. Here are the results.