Another My Twinn Interlude

I'm working on a few short reviews of play dolls that I bought a while ago, but I'm really slow these days.  My trusty old Cannon point-and-shoot camera is dying, so I'm discouraged by my pictures.  I've been using my iPhone a lot, but it's not the same--as you'll see.

Anyway, since it's taking me so long to get a review done, that slightly creepy Hairdorables picture has been at the top of the site for weeks...and I'm getting tired of it!  So, today I thought I'd quickly share another My Twinn project so that we can all look at something different until the next review comes along.

I've been enjoying the work I'm doing on My Twinn dolls, although the passion is starting to wane a bit.  I'm happiest when I'm working with a doll that's really beat up--almost a lost cause--but has some feature that captures my affection, like a gentle expression or pretty eyes:

Denver-era Denika by My Twinn.

If you look at the rest of the beautiful Denika from that picture, above, it's like a crime scene:

When she arrived, her body showed signs of being sliced and re-sewn in several places, her neck was broken, her vinyl and left eye were horribly scuffed, and she was too dirty and smelly to bring into my studio.  I like working on a doll like this because I'm not an expert at any of the refurbishing techniques, but I know I can make some improvements.  At least I can't make it worse, right?  But actually, sometimes I do feel like I've made an old doll worse by erasing all of the charming signs of age and love.  I'll show you what I mean a little later.

A fun side story with this doll is that some of her stitches are done in surgical suture patterns:

That's what's called a continuous blanket stitch across her chest and belly.  I like to imagine that Denika belonged to a budding young surgeon, who continued to use her for practice even in medical school!

Anyway, Denika is nowhere near finished.  She's going to take a lot of time, but I'll let you know how she turns out.

In contrast, the doll I'm featuring today was actually not beat up at all when she came to me. This doll simply has a rare face mold (Helen) that I've been coveting for ages.  I saw this Helen on eBay and knew instantly that I wanted to buy her.  She's redheaded, has tons of freckles, and is in beautiful condition!  However, she wasn't quite my style for several reasons:

The screenshot, above, is from Helen's auction.  This was posted with permission from the lovely seller, luvdisneyworld, who always has interesting dolls to offer.

I have a few rules with My Twinn restorations.  First of all, I try not to tamper with Denver-era dolls that are in excellent condition.  I feel like they should be left as they are.  Also, I like to make my dolls as realistic as possible.  I try to keep their original look in tact, or at least acknowledge something about their previous life.

So why did I do anything at all to this fully-dressed, Denver-era Helen in beautiful condition?  Well, she'd been re-painted by a former owner, so I felt like that negated my first rule.  Also, while the custom freckles are plentiful and nicely-shaped, I don't love the color.  They're too bold for my taste.  And, as much as I like the adorable kittens on Helen's dress, I wanted to put her in something from the My Twinn company (which I guess is another one of my habits or rules).

The first thing I did was remove the wig and take a closer look at Helen's face:

Hm.

The freckles are very orange and bright.  Also, her eyes are unnaturally blue.  Those two things combine to give her more of a stylized, caricatured look than what I'm usually after.

I'd say that the eyes look better in these pictures than they do in real life.  They're very bright and almost purplish in some lighting--even though they look purely blue here.

In contrast, my pictures make the freckles look a bit worse than they did in real life.  I love the assorted shapes and abundance of the freckles (they're even on her ears!), but they're just too bright:

The freckles were all over Helen's arms, too:

Anyway, the coloring on this doll was definitely a style statement, it just wasn't one I liked very much.  My goal was to make her look more natural.

So...what did I do?

First, I coated Helen's face and arms with Remove Zit (from Twin Pines of Maine) and left her to sit for several weeks.  I think it took four applications of Remove Zit before the freckles faded.  Some of the spots on her arms are still visible.

I also removed Helen's electric blue/purple eyes and replaced them with Secrist's Golden Hazel eyes.  These have a very natural green color that I really like.

I added a bit of color to Helen's cheeks and painted new freckles on her face, and I think I might have been too cautious here.  I was so determined to make the marks subtle, they're almost invisible in photographs!  They're a bit more noticeable in real life, but they're definitely subtle.  Helen's eyebrows were already quite nice, so I just lightly accented them with a bit of reddish-brown paint.

I also boiled her wig so that it was straight and silky.  There wasn't really anything wrong with the wig when I got it, but I find the super-long and wavy wig styles hard to brush and manage.

Last, I dressed Helen in a beautiful My Twinn linen dress that I think looks lovely on her.

Here she is now!

I had never seen this particular My Twinn dress before, and then it popped up on eBay and I knew it would be perfect!  The construction and fit are amazing.  It's soft and flattering and I love how it drapes and flows around Helen's body:

Incidentally, there was a doll on eBay recently who was wearing a dress similar to this, but not exactly the same.  The print is the same, but the fit looks tighter and the sleeves are shorter.  I don't like it quite as much.  I snuck a partial screenshot so you can see what I'm talking about:

I've noticed this with the My Twinn purple butterfly dress, too.  There are at least two different versions of that dress out in the world, and one of them is a lot nicer than the other.  I have so much to learn about these dolls!

Here's a closer look at Helen's new face:

And her super-straight wig:

I've waited so long to own a redheaded My Twinn Helen, and I couldn't be happier with this one!

I took her outside for a few shots, but honestly this is where my camera really lets me down these days.

I'll shown you just a few of those photos:

I do like how her red hair looks in the direct sunlight!

As much as I love Helen, my adventures with My Twinn dolls don't always turn out well.  For example, I bought this Denver-era Cookie on eBay a while back, and she seemed to have all of the qualifications for a satisfying makeover:

Her wig was too thin to fix, her cloth body was ripped in several places, her arm was loose from the armature and she was really, really dirty.  She even had dirt wedged into the edges of her eyes (which were fading).

She's a cute little imp, though, isn't she?

I fixed and cleaned her body, changed her wig, gave her dark blue eyes, accented her eyebrows, and added some blush--all of my usual tricks--but something got lost in the process:

Oh, wow--so serious!

She has the very lightest skin tone that My Twinn made (the 01 color), so she's hard to photograph, but still.  She doesn't have the impish cuteness that I saw in her auction photos.

The red hair and purple sweater make her complexion look sickly pale!  Argh!

Sickly, serious Cookie.

The thing is, if I get a less-than-ideal result like this, I tend to persist.  Different hair (bangs, maybe?), new eyes, or even a change of clothes can magically make a dud into a delight.

For example, I'm still playing around with the non-Denver Madison that I showed you a few months ago.  She's the one I bought so that I could practice finger molding.

Madison's head looked like this when I got her:

Then she looked like this at the end of my last My Twinn update (with a reject wig and some reptilian, two-dimensional green eyes):

And now she's been upgraded to some of my second-tier eyes (brown Pabol eyes) and a resurrected red Monique wig:

I think she's a little better!  Now she's just waiting for a new body (one that doesn't have poorly-repaired fingers) and a new outfit. 

So, that's the story of the three redheaded My Twinns who are keeping me busy these days.  If anyone has suggestions for how to improve poor pale Cookie, I'm eager to hear ideas!  

I hope the new pictures offer a welcome change in scenery around here while I continue to work on my camera problem and finish up the next review.  See you soon...I hope!