Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Baby Alanna is matted!

After softening her nose and lips a bit I was able to matte baby Alanna!

This is the picture that I used mostly for color tone:


As you see, my photos were challenging!  
I had a few of them in front of me while I painted, just to refer back and forth to them to create the tone that best resembled the real Alanna.

Here she is matted and with a sprig of one of the colors of hair I will use on her.  
(Since I do not have very good hair pictures, I am going off the description that her mom tells me that her hair color was:  brown, red, blonde.







I forgot to finish her nails so I will be doing that this morning along with some final touches on her matte.  

This head is SUPER HARD but heating it softens it, so that that is what I will be doing:  heating the head to root it.  

Sweet, chunky girl! 

Friday, March 24, 2017

Progress on Baby Alanna portrait, Day 5

I am going to start this post with a picture of the real Alanna and then yesterday's progress.




Here is the doll baby Alanna.
I have not done her nails  or matted her yet.
Her "mommy" would like the color on her nose and lips softened, which I can certainly do.










I probably will not have a chance to work on her today as "life" is gobbling up my time today but I'll be back at her on Monday  :)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Portrait Alanna progress

I haven't gotten very far with baby Alanna yet as I had to start her skin tone over.

This vinyl requires more binders than the Emily sculpt as it sucked up the paint from last Thursday.

I started over (I had no need to strip her) and added more Sure Bond to my Baby FX paints.

So far, this baby is pretty matte, which pleases me.

Here is the real Alanna:


The doll as it came out of the box:


The doll stripped down:


And at the end of yesterday as I have begun work on her:






I will be back in the studio today working on this chubby sweetheart!

Oh, I think that I have failed to say that the advertisement for this doll stated that she is 18 inches long.  When she arrived here, she was 21 inches.  On the new body I have chosen for her, she is 22 1/2 inches long, which is much better for the portrait baby.  Yay!

Monday, March 20, 2017

My littlest dolly lover

My kids and grandkids were here over the weekend
(well, not ALL of them but some of them!) and I had a moment to take out littlest one out to the Dolly House for her first tour.

She already loves dollies so I knew it would be a real hit with her.

And it was.  I told her that someday we would be able to stay and play for a while :)

Enjoy Esme's first Dolly House adventure!
She is 20 months old.





Happy Monday!
XXOO

Friday, March 17, 2017

Another Ashton Drake doll? "Beach Baby"!

Before I finished Emilia/Emily, I was commissioned to do a custom portrait doll.
Wait...a custom???  Yes.  I DO accept custom portrait orders :)

The woman who ordered had already found a good match for her baby girl in the Ashton Drake sculpt "Tyler" by Sandi Faber.  

Here he is as a reborn I did in 2008:


BUT, I could not find a "Tyler" ANYWHERE!  
I searched the world over to no avail.

And then a good match would have been Maisie by Andrea Arcello, but that kit is sold out as well.

The customer also liked a Berenguer doll, "Beautiful Embrace" that I made into a doll for my personal collection that I called Abi.


And we were almost ready to settle on "Beautiful Embrace" until I saw this Ashton Drake doll,
"Beach Baby".


She really is a great manufactured doll on a full torso with a cloth body!


I now have her stripped down, ready to be turned into the baby in the picture below the stripped down doll:



We are not going to use the torso so I will put her on a bit larger body making her more proportioned and closer to the real baby's size.




Let the fun begin!

XXOO

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Welcome Emilia, you are going home!

Baby Emilia (the Spanish form of Emily) is "born"!

She will be going home to her artist "mom", Silvia Ezquerra in Spain.

It was my absolute honor to reborn a classic Welcome Home Emily.

Enjoy her pictures!































I am so content

XXOO