u/Friendly-Bluejay-744

Hi, I want to share my restyle of the Edward doll... Like many people, I felt a bit disappointed when I saw the first pictures of Edward but I have an innate need to give 2nd chances to things I feel I can fix and in my mind I could already see the potential, so I grabbed her.

When I finally saw her in person, I was like "geez, her eyes are REALLY huge" but I got used to them pretty quickly. I unboxed her and immediately started the transformation process:

The outfit:
I get the concept of reinterpretation, but why would they give Edward such a ballet coded outfit? 😭 The first thing I immediately did was remove the shoulder pads, skirt and headband. With those small changes, the accuracy went from 30% to 50%. I spent some time analyzing photos of the original outfit so I started adding some tiny gold studs with touches of copper paint for a rusty look and I took the robotic heart from her headband and placed it in her hands. I think it makes much more sense there.

As for the boots, the mix of textures stressed me out so I got a pair of boots from Ali and added little scissor charms as heels. Maybe a bit redundant but way more gaggy than the ice angel and the T-Rex. Also added some extra leather straps and buckles like belts and torn strips of faux leather from an old jacket around the tops of the boots.

The hair:
I was surprised by how little hair she actually had. Trying to restyle it was useless because of the lack of volume so I decided to buy more black hair, braid it and reroot a ton of extra hair to give her more volume. Still, I wasn’t convinced by the length so I got inspired by Edward’s spiky, messy hair. All I needed was thinning scissors and a bit of gel to go from afro to punk.

Some other modifications:
I wanted HER to look more like an androgynous HIM so I added an extra belt across the chest and also gave the scars a touch of purple. Now, to me, she looks much more like Edward than before. I wish I knew how to repaint dolls so I could remove the purple eyeshadow, because it makes her eyes look even bigger than they already are. Maybe one day I’ll modify that too.

What do you think about the transformation?

Hey guys, I wanted to share this experiment I did with the new Ken Basics. Please don’t take this as a tutorial because this procedure has risks and you could damage a valuable doll, take it more as a possibility for very specific cases.

Some months ago I got a Barbie head and wanted to darken it a bit because the body I got for her was slightly darker and warmer. In my head, it sounded like a good idea to dip some orange crepe paper in hot water to extract the dye and then submerge the head to stain it. It made the head a bit warmer, but not darker, so I tried brown crepe paper instead. Once I started dipping the head, it turned into a dull olive tone and I panicked… but then I realized that this method with brown crepe paper could actually work to mute very orange heads and turn them into a more muted brown skin tone.

That was basically the process I used with this Ken head and thankfully it worked. The head kept getting darker and darker little by little (I dipped it for about 2 seconds, washed it in cold water, and repeated the process to monitor the result). I noticed that the Adonis body has green undertones, so I took a green highlighter and spread some of the ink over the Ken head, and the colors started matching more and more.

If you ever try this and regret it, don’t panic... the dye can be removed using Oxy 10 under sunlight. This method can be fun to learn about color theory and to experiment on low value dolls, just be careful with dolls that have light colored hair because the crepe paper will stain it and it'll be difficult to remove. In that case, you could use a brush and spread the colored water only on the desired areas for a few seconds instead of fully submerging the head.

Have you ever tried dyeing doll heads with crepe paper?

The popularity of Odile’s stepsisters (who are face molds from Defa Lucy) is leading to new variants being released...and they’re gorgeous ♥

I’m personally obsessed with the pink haired mermaid and the one with brown hair and green streaks. Apparently, the best body matches for the light skinned mermaids are Purple Top Yoga and Millie New Neutra (a bit darker shade)

Do you like them?

Does anyone else obsess over getting the perfect body match, or is it just me?

I don’t know if anyone else relates to this but I usually feel really stressed when dolls have limited body matches and the closest option still isn’t perfect (even worse when the body is lighter than the face)

It happened to me with the live action Ariel... the only petite body that worked for her at the time was Looks 15 but the body was clearly brighter and that bothered me for years 😭 Luckily, I read a post where someone said that the new Basics 08 was the perfect match for her. (Apparently Yara Shahidi is also a perfect petite match but honestly I didn’t even know that doll existed)

Now my mermaid doll finally looks right to me and I ordered another Basics to give her body to human Ariel

What’s your most satisfying MTM body match so far?