The most awesome customizing tutorial.

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Hey guys, so while surfing the web in the wee hours of the morning, I decided to look at the Monster High community on Livejournal and one of the recent post in the community was from a member sharing how she customizes her dolls.  She used to customize Pullips and used this technique and when she switched to MH dolls she just decided to use the same technique and it worked.  I honestly can’t wait to try it out.

 

Ok, so before I go into the tutorial let me explain a few things about myself.  I love being crafty and I love attempting to customize dolls.  But where I fail is having a lack of a steady hand to properly paint my doll heads.  Now matter how much I practice I just don’t have a steady hand.  I had heard of people using watercolor pencils along with pastels instead of paint to customize their dolls and I thought I might try that, but worried I wouldn’t get a bright vivid color with the water color pencils.   Well after reading this tutorial I found another alternative to painting and seems a lot of people are excited about trying this technique out instead of trying to paint.

Ok, so on to the tutorial.  Instead of paint, the artist uses regular color pencils and pastels.  Well wait, maybe I should clarify, she uses regular ARTIST QUALITY color pencils and pastels.  We are talking Prismacolor color pencils people.  Not sure what brand of pastels she has.  I’m kind of thinking you can use any chalky brand, but it wouldn’t hurt to get artist quality pastels too.  And  well besides sealant she doesn’t use anything else.  And she gets these awesome faceups for her dolls.  I am so amazed and from looking at her Flickr, her awesomeness just continues to shine.  It’s mostly BJDs and Pullips that I found, so not much vinyl there, but it’s still awesome to see her work.

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Another thing from the tutorial I loved was that she showed alternatives to using acetone and MSC.  She personally uses MSC but she mentioned alternatives to it.  Someone on a Blythe board a while back also mentioned some protectant spray that protected from UV rays she found at Hobby Lobby as well, so there are alternatives to MSC.  I just prefer having something I can quickly go pick up if I run out instead of having to wait for a order to be shipped to me. When it comes to crafting, I want it and I want it now.  Yes I know who I sound like and I will gladly turn into a giant blueberry as long as I get what I want now.  Ok, no not really, I can just imagine how painful the juicer is.  But you get what I mean.  I don’t want to have to wait when I have a vision in mind.

So speaking of vision, my sister just recently gave me a TON of her Barbie dolls she didn’t want any more.  Some are Flavas, and since I already own all the ones she gave me I can customize the extras.  She gave me her Puffy Ami Yumi dolls too, which I can customize as well. I’m getting excited here.  With this technique I think I can become more creative now instead of putting it off because I can’t steady my hand to save my life.  LOL!  So yay!  And to top it off, once I use up my paint I won’t have that big batch of stuff sitting around.  I have a big paint project coming up so it shouldn’t be to hard to use up.  However I think I may keep at least some primary colors around for painting on canvas from time to time.

So umm, I just saw the artist, Stephanie, works at Toys R Us.  Now while for a spilt second I wanted to get jealous and say she was the luckiest gal in the world, being a former retail slave I know better.  It was bad enough cleaning up the toy aisle at Kmart, I can just imagine cleaning up the aisles at Toys R Us.  Poor gal.

So yeah, just wanted to share that new discovery I found today.  Perhaps this may help those of you like me who are a little nervous to try full customs or trying customs at all.  Try it out on some junk dolls and see how it turns out.  You may discover your inner artist.    Ok, I am off.  I guess I should try to get some sleep but I think I may watch something and crochet another amigurumi before I try to get some sleep.  Talk to you all later.  Bye for now. 

Loves ya,
Mouse