First Disney Repaint.

I’ve got dolls, they’re multiplying. And I’m losing control.

Well. I have more than one Disney doll now.

Before Craftsmas an online friend contacted me about two Disney Animators dolls (Belle and Lilo ) she picked up for about 5 USD each. She’s planning to send them to me, but some holiday called Christmas has delayed her.

One of those dolls I have serious plans for.

I figured I needed to actually do some test repaints to learn the craft better, as it’s not coming easy for me and I can’t expect my first Disney repaint to go super smoothly.

Repaints I’ve done so far:

Secret Barbie (in time I shall share)
Archie

That’s not many.

Japanese resale shops haven’t had a great selection of cheap dolls. People either keep the boxes and get the dolls back to very good condition (and then charge near-new prices or higher than new for dolls only a few years old) or just junk them.

Browsing Yahoo Auctions Japan, I found a Tiana “My First Princess Toddler” doll for 900¥ . In America these seem to be around 9 to 11USD new but in Japan I see them new in Toys R Us for about 2,800¥.

The toddlers are slightly smaller than the Animator dolls with less range of motion on joints and head and no visible eye shape once the makeup is removed. They’re not as nice or sturdy.

In the future I’d like to give a doll a boil perm to create tightly curled hair, but it looked like no child had tried to comb out Tiana’s hair so it still retained good curls for her two hair puffs. The Ariel and Cinderella doll I saw for sale by the same lister..half-combed out messes. Did not want.

The first step in these doll repaints is to remove all the face with acetone. Then, cover the body and hair in some sort of protective wrap. Finally prep the face surface with a light coating of sealant to create a slight tooth/texture on the face for media the adhere to. This is what Archie taught me.

Mr.Super Clear seems to be the brand of choice and it’s Japanese in origin. Repainting supplies, if not the dolls themselves, are cheaper and easier to score here. Japan LOVES making models.

Then I worked with a variety of chalk pastels, colored pencils, and acrylics

I’m having the most difficulty getting a really good eye white, as you can see.

I think in the future I will contour with chalk pastels, spray fix, slowly built up the whole whites of the eyes with thin layers of white acrylic, spray fix, and then use a variety of chalk pastels, water color pencils (w and w/out added water) then do a spray before adding liquified lacquer to the lips and eyes.

These are the stages Tiana went through.