If you are a new visitor and not familiar with Reborn Dolls, or what one is, let me explain.
Reborn dolls, or fake babies are becoming highly popular and very collectable.
I am passionate about my hobby of turning an ordinary vinyl doll, or using a special doll kit into a realistic looking 'baby', except that it is a doll! The results are stunning and very life like. I strive for the ultimate in realism. Because of the doll kits available now I can make these lovely 'babies'.
The craft has moved into another dimension, with better and better sculpts being made of babies and are truly works of art.
This is achieved by colouring the head and limbs in such a way with special permanent paints, to give a very realistic human skin effect. I use many thin layers of paint to achieve the skin effect, with mottling which is often found on newborns, and blushed areas like soles of feet etc. I also add tiny veins, typically subtle blue veins on the head and red spidery veins on the face or on eyelids. Some people even add tiny scratch marks on the face or birth marks. I prefer to leave these off as they don't always enhance the look of the baby, but that is my personal style.
I have reborn
'Tommy Awake' sculpt Margaret Mousa
To create the most realistic looking hair I use quality mohair and Angora mohair. To do this I use a very fine rooting needle, which has minute hooks and grabs the hair as you push it into the vinyl, and I root each hair individually which is part of the most time consuming element of reborning a doll into a baby. It does take days to root a head and patience is essential. Eyelashes for a 'sleeper' doll are rooted this way, and on open eyed dolls I usually judge whether to add eyelashes or not, as on a very new newborn, they are sometimes tiny, or very fine and hardly noticeable. I use specially prepared eyelashes which are glued in place, very fiddly ! I also paint the fingernails and toenail tips in an ivory colour ( so that baby does not look like they have had a manicure) which is very near the colour of our own nail tips. I add cuticles too, and lastly the nails are given two coats of satin varnish to protect them.
The doll will typically have a special cloth body which can vary from cotton, to doe suede, which is what I prefer to use, which has joints that allow you to move the arms and legs freely like a real baby. The doll is stuffed and weighted also the limbs are weighted for an overall realistic comparable weight to a real baby. I also weight the head, so this needs to be supported as you would do with a newborn, unless the doll represents an older baby, that can be sat up on its own, I then weight the head accordingly. The doll then feels soft and cuddly similar to a
real baby.
The above picture is of a doll unpainted, and is just to give you an idea of the head and limbs attached to the pink doe suede body. Amelie sculpt by Joanna Gomes.
'Amelie'
sculpt by Joanna Gomes
Reborn by me.
My photography all rights reserved