Seen On-line

Freddy Tan, doll repainter extraordinaire posted his repaint of Draculaura, a Monster High doll. This is fabulous. She looks so pretty now. Now my MH girls look so boring. Sigh.....

She is on eBay for sale at this time. I'm looking forward to seeing what this little gem goes for.

Freddy's photography is pretty spectacular, too.

Making Beautiful Dolls Even More Beautiful!

James Mitchell who goes by the board name of James/FL does it.

A collector posted a picture of his Ultimate Tyler BJD repainted by James and I couldn't believe that she could be even more gorgeous than she was originally.

Today James posted a picture of a his new Deva Doll Aspara repaint.

Look at those eyes, those lips...Wow!

Here's another I loved from his flickr photostream (which you should really check out):

Unexpected - Trolls:

He's my kind of collector - one with a sense of humor. Go look. Enjoy.

Seen on Prego This Morning

Look at this excellent and realistic repaint of Tonner's Stefan Salvatore doll. I think it's fantastic and a huge improvement over the original.

Repaint by Deborah Connelly-Bombich

The artist goes by the board name of Deborah/justCreations. This is some major talent!

Deborah's website is under construction but you can see many of her past repaints there by scrolling down to the Galleries link and clicking on the pictures.

My Favorite Fashion Royalty Sculpt, Vanessa

I'm talking about the real Vanessa, not Waldo. This is Aerodynamic Vanessa.

She was repainted by Vin Trapani and given an FR2 body.

 I did not like True Royalty Vanessa at first. She had a pushed in face and looked emotionally damaged. She may have been the palest Fashion Royalty doll to have ever been released at that time and would have made a great vampire.

 

I worked with heat on her head to reshape it. When I still didn't like her, I had her rerooted. No gold ring yet.  The other day, after plucking the chicken feathers out of Go North's gorgeous gown, I put it on True Royalty, combed her hair partially over her face and loved it. Yay!

 

  

Seen on the W Club Board

Posted by idrusa: 

"Sugar"     OOAK Poppy Parker by idrusa

Isn't this just adorable? The repaint and reroot colors are perfect for Poppy Parker. She's verrrry sweet now!
This was originally a Beatnik Blues Poppy. Idrusa did a wonderful job of transforming that doll into "Sugar."

IMOGEN Repaint by Juan Albuerne

This is a seriously talented man. Juan Albuerne posted a few pictures of his Imogen repaint today on Facebook. Take a look at these!

There's so much depth in Juan's repaints. He approaches each one differently...no cookie cutter formula redo anywhere.

To see more of Juan's wonderful work click here.

Male Dolls - One Collector's Pictures

We'd probably agree that the majority of doll collections are populated by female figures with a male doll thrown in here and there. I realize that I rarely post pictures of male dolls. Today on Prego, JinCincy answered this week's theme, the color black, with a few picture of her own Men in Black. Droolworthy.

RHage, Iple EID Akando

Kamal, Iple EID Luo by Lyn Raftis

Ian by Tracy Weston

Adam by DAO

There's much more. Jackie's blog, Vinyl Connections and Resin Residents are two sites where you can see more hunky guy dolls and her girls, too.

A Captain Jack Sparrow Repaint from My Immortals

Susan sent me a link to her repaint of Tonner's Captain Jack Sparrow and when I first looked at it I thought it was a photograph of a real man! This is spectacular! Click on the image below to go to Susan's website.

Virtually Stunning Alex Makeover Progress

I previously wrote that I was very disappointed with VS Alex. I purchased her impulsively and I was really sorry about that. There wasn't one thing I liked about her except her body.  I cut off all her hair and accidentally tore her scalp in the process. At that point I just wanted to throw the head away. I tried other heads on the body but her neck is huge and she is quite tall. Nothing looked right.
Using acetone, I removed her lips, cheek and eyebrow screening and some of the eyeshadow. I started liking the look immediately.
The third picture shows the current appearance of the head. I still would like to soften the eyeshadow somewhat and do something a little more defined with the lips. I used pastels and water color pencils the same way I learned to do a faceup on a resin doll. I sealed my work with a matte spray.
When I reheated her head to put it back on her body, I held my fingers on her cheeks and pushed in while it was cooling. This gave her more defined cheekbones.
She is wearing the same wig as the middle picture. The colors are different as I changed some internal settings on my camera to improve the quality of the pictures. The bangs were thinned.
I'm pleased with the progress. She looks less cartoon-like and I didn't completely ruin her and that's not an easy task. ;-)

Original Virtually Stunning Alex

After she was balded.

Now

I have to admit that I still do not like her face but it's much better IMO. What do you think?

Picture of the Week ~ Veronica Hage

This week's featured photo was taken by Veronica Hage who posts on Doll Divas and the W Club. The doll was originally an Aerodynamic Vanessa Fashion Royalty. She is dressed in the fashion from Bewitching Luchia.

Click on the picture to see it full-sized.

The re-root and styling is by Marina. Veronica enhanced the eyes and eyebrows and repainted the lips.

I asked Veronica how she set up the photo and about the camera she uses. This is her reply:

"I used a black velvet background made from an old skirt. I have to keep props to a minimum for quick cleanup as I don't have a lot of time with three young kids. I use two lights for my setup. One at each side. My camera is a Canon Rebel XSi. This is my first SLR and I took a short evening class on the basics at my local community college. I've been using it for about six months now and love it."

Her suggestions for other collectors regarding doll photography:

Look at the doll carefully before shooting. Look for stray hairs, little bits of fuzz, hand position, hair position. Look from the level at which you're going to take the photo. If you see something distracting remove it or fix it. Look again to double-check. Most of one's time taking pictures is setting up.

You can see more of Veronica's collection and photography on Flickr  and on her website.

Picture of the Week Award ~ April 4, 2010

This is a Tonner doll named Hypnotic Antoinette. James Griffen, aka Paradise Blue on the doll boards, has captured her beauty in this photograph.He repainted her eye-makeup and liner, deepened the shade of her lips and glossed them using Golden Fluid Acrylic paints and then sealed his work with "Golden Varnish".
For the photograph he wet her hair to deepen the color and tame the fly-aways.

James has added the following information:
"Her earrings are something I made from bits of craft pieces that I bought at a dollar store. Her jacket belongs to a Gene Marshall centerpiece doll from the Kentucky "Derby Dreams Gene Convention." Her skirt is a hand-knitted popcorn cape made by a friend which I decided to use as a skirt."

Setting?
"The backdrop is made of black foam core and photographed near a window. Shadows are created by vertical blinds. Antoinette sits on a Siamese cat figurine, also made for me by a friend."

Any photo suggestions to others?
"I use natural light when I can. I like to photograph my dolls by a window. Sunlight coupled and vertical blinds as shadow work well together. Always use the view finder on your camera, (if your camera comes with one.) It helps keep your focus on the prize."

See more of Hypnotic Antoinette and James' work at http://www.thedollpage2.com/photopost/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/417

Congratulations, James, on your Picture of the Week Award!

Picture of the Week Award ~ January 17, 2010

A classic beauty for this week's Picture of the Week Award is a repainted Scarlett "Return to Tara" doll from the Tonner Doll Co. Her hair has been restyled and the gown is a OOAK creation by Alana Bennett of dollfashionsbyalana.com. The photographer/repainter is Boots Villavecer from the Philippines.

When I find a candidate for the Picture of the Week I always send several questions for the artist to answer. Boots was very generous with his time and response so I am going to paste his response here.

I am no professional so I don't have much equipment. The doll here is a repainted Tonner Scarlett "Return to Tara" doll. The hair has been adjusted. The gown is an OOAK creation by Alana Bennett of dollfashionsbyalana.com. It is inspired by a gown worn in Scarlett the TV series in 1994. It is originally in "blue" but via special effects has been made green -- Margaret Mitchell's favorite color.  All factory paint has been removed and I used what I call my special brush from Noel Cruz himself who encouraged me to pursue repainting. Just a Canon Digital Camera IXUS B515 10 Megapixel Camera. I don't use flash, because that creates shadows at the back of the doll. I always use the "portrait" function on the camera and from there, control the exposure because the lights can often be strong. I have 2 table lamps that can be angled as lighting sources. For the backdrop I use large clamps to hold a cloth on the photo. The cloth must slope down have no wrinkles or folds (depending on how the kind of effect you want). If you want some draping soft cloth is preferrable. I don't have a tripod so I have to have a really steady hold on the camera, but that's actually easy with the camera I use. 

Thanks to technology, one can fix the photo using Photoshop CS3. I use "dodge" tool to highlight dark shadows; "burn" tool to darken the areas in the background; the "clone" tool to add details, and various tools under the "Filter" tools to create the brush strokes, the additional lighting. The magic is in a Filter tool known as "Liquify". Here you can fix the hair and the gown if there are unwanted or desired things you want to enhance. 

My real name is Boots Villavecer, from the Philippines. 44 years old, working as a Creative in an advertising agency. I spent 5 years in Publishing and during free time would practice photo-editing for 13 magazines. Among them being fashion and beauty. My website is: http://www.soultalk777.blogspot.com.

Congratulations, Boots, on the Picture of the Week Award!

Traveler By Nature Veronique - Makeover

Gown from Pewter Natalia. Jewelry by Joy.

Do you recognize this doll? Of course not. Nothing about her is original except her head sans hair and paint. This was Traveler By Nature Veronique from the amazing "Voyages" collections. She was released for sale in the winter of 2004 just around the time I began collecting FR. She's my second TBN. Promotional Photograph Property of Integrity Toys

I had her rerooted by Susan Korba about 2 years ago.

Black dress from the original Hollywood Royalty doll, Lana Turner.

She was magnificent and then I had the brilliant idea that I would enhance her eyes. FAIL.
Do you know how it goes? Do just a little more when it looks good...and then maybe a little here and a little there and then BAM. Messed up completely.



Photo needs to be inserted in three places.

Picture of the Week Award ~ December 27, 2009

We are wrapping up the POW Awards this year with a gorgeous repaint of a Sybarite Seville by Idrusa. It's obvious that there's a lot of talent here! The repaint and the photograph are beautiful.

If you would like to see more of Idrusa's work, here is the link to her flickr photostream.

Congratulations on the Picture of the Week Award, Idrusa.