First of all, I have a new doll!
I have been infected by the Blythe fever that´s going on amongst the doll people. It´s funny that a few while ago I absolutely disliked Blythes because of their super disproportionate body. The head is humongous and at first the dolls seemed grotesque to me. They have this eye mechanism which allows them to change gaze when pulled from a string from the back of their heads. The mechanism was intimidating as I watched some customizing videos from Youtube where the head was opened and the whole thing was revealed. But you know, when I started to see videos, photos and other postings of them, I slowly started to like them, especially the customized ones. And there I was, ordering my first!
The things that really appeals to me with these dolls are first of all the price. You can find a factory Blythe (no clothes, just plain doll with hair and make up) as low price as 40 $, so way much cheaper than BJD´s. They are more durable than resin dolls because Blythes were originally made as children´s toys so they had to be made to last also a bit rougher plays. You can customize them in a million ways just like BJD´s from changing eye chips, making or buying wigs, rooting hair by your self, carving and painting face, etc. They are small enough to carry where ever you please for photo shoots, and if you happen to brake something, you can buy replacement parts cheaply and easily from many various web shops.
As much as I love my resin BJD´s, they are fragile, heavy and expensive and therefore not something I want to ruin by carrying here and there in public. I wanted to have a small, cheap doll which I could take with me for example on a weekend trip and take funny snap shots of it doing everyday things. The big head and eyes also allows them to have lots of character regardless the small size (a bit like a caricature drawings have).
So I went and chose my first Blythe girl with long golden brown hair. I originally wanted to have short haired doll, but since there wasn´t the colour I wished, I decided to go with long and cut it to short afterwards (there was no differences in the prices regardless of the hair lenght).
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| The box with the always-so-funny text! |
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| Here she is wrapped in plastic. I also purchased a pair of little bloomers to go with her. |
As soosn as I took her out from the plastics, I noticed the legs had been bended during the shipping so badly that she was not able to stand straight at all. This picture does not show how wonky they actually were, but you still get some idea of the issue:
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| But alas she had a shipping injury: bended legs! |
I contacted the seller and she kindly promised to send me a new body to replace the broken one.
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| After couple of weeks the new body arrived in a perfect condition. |
Then started the customizing. First was the most difficult part, aka "destruction", which means taking the whole doll apart. Blythe´s have many small different parts inside their heads because of the eye mechanism. I honestly was super nervous to start this phase! After watching numerous Youtube videos and reading tutorials about the process I had gained enough courage to begin. After all everything went well and I didn´t brake anything. Here you can see pictures of the process (sorry for the quality in some of the pictures! They were taken with my phone for Instagram):
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Both Sides of the head and the eyelids got sanded matt. I carved her lips, philtrum and nose just a bit to enhance her sweet features:
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I wanted to paint my own eye chips so the plastic ones had to be taken off:
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I ordered the new chips from a wonderful Cool Cat web shop. I chose the glass ones because I love the crystal clear look and the quality of them. Only the best for my girl! ;)
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I tried several methods, colours and paints on the glass chips to get the idea what works the best. From top to bottom: first-, second- and the third pair painted with the same method. The bottom pair was the fourth and those have been painted using different method (the pupils are still unpainted):
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After many trial and error, these were the first pair which I was happy with both colour and texture wise:
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When the right method and colours were decided, it was time to paint the other two sets:
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Waiting for the paint to dry.
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I painted the fourth eye pair in mint green colour:
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Newly painted eye chips glued on the eyeballs and the whole mechanism has been inserted back inside the head. The scalp is partly attached too:
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What came to the faceup, I wanted her to look natural and simple. For some reason Blythe´s usually don´t have any eyebrows, which I found a bit weird, and for that reason I gave my girl a pair. I like how she turned out, but I must say that this will be the first and the last Blythe I´m going to own. I absolutely love her but for me there is too much little nibs and nobs to deal with and too many parts to brake or loose. I enjoy the result I managed to achieve but to be honest, I did not enjoy the process at all. I was simply too afraid to brake something or generally do something wrong! Compared to Blythe´s, resin BJD´s are so easy to handle and above all, change eyes. And because I find myself to be less is more -kind of a person, owning too many dolls is the deal braker to me. I want to have just a small collection.
My Blythe still needs some hair styling and cutting, and I haven´t even decided her name yet but all that will come sooner or later. Right now I will enjoy her like this while spending time with her to get to know who she really is.
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| Posing in her new outfit. |
