Beyond Ennui
In February of 2022 I started buying filthy dolls on Yahoo Auctions Japan for the express purpose of cleaning/restoring them up and selling them. They quickly took over my home.
In September of 2023 I made the choice to return to America the following March after 21 years in Japan.
I had to flip a lot of dolls: custom, stock, and restoration/cleaning projects.
This was one of the two dolls I purchased during my Feb 2022 Covid.
I had vague plans to make her into “a Victorian girl consumed with ennui”.
She wouldn’t be the first doll with ennui or even the first doll marketed as having ennui (Robert Tonner’s Ellowyn Wilde dolls famously suffer from the vague ailment/condition).
My first task was to replace missing fingers.
I crumbled away any weak sections, drilled into the finger stubs to add wires for structure, and then built up the fingers with Apoxie sculpt.
Once the Apoxie had dried I carefully sanded to blend the new fingers in with the old.
Then I started airbrushing the whole body, both to cover the work I’d done and to give the body more depth in hue. I wasn’t trying to simply restore a doll to her original condition, instead it was my goal to make an original looking doll with personality
I began altering her facial structure with more Apoxie sculpt to give her more personality. I also airbrushed this once finished
On the face, because I was adding to a smooth surface, and to the main focal point of the doll, I had to be extra careful blending seams. This is when I learned of primers that prime AND fill minor dings/gaps.
Then I started searching for a good wig. This was a much larger head than anything in my stash.
I checked Mercari Japan periodically until I found one with ringlets that worke
And then the doll languished until November of 2022 when I was feeling high stress about if I’d ever be able to get rid of enough dolls/items to move.
I debated throwing away this doll and the Madame Alexander baby doll from hell…but as soon as I voiced that I might just throw away some items my friend Ebony offered to take them for her son who likes spooky stuff as much as his mom does.
That inspired me to make the dolls CREEPY as swiftly as I could.
There is a world or folks who remake dolls into creepy haunted looking dolls.
Many of them rely on turning the doll ashen-white and using a crackle effect. It’s not an aesthetic I like.
I wanted layers of color to create depth, bruising, and a flush of “that gal ain’t right”. I wanted the feeling of time, decay, and rust made flesh.
The acrylic and glass eyes I had on hand looked too nice for our girl.
I took iris printouts I had for making eye chips, added glass/acrylics cabochons (can’t remember which) over the printouts and built the rest of the eye from Apoxie sculpt. I then painted it all.
I wanted her eyes to look more illustrated than realistic…if that makes sense.
Then I restrung her body.
She came with no wig BUT multiple dresses. I set to work dying them a dark red. The different fabrics and trims each took the dye in a different manner, creating a nice depth to the dresses.
The ribbons her wig came with weren’t quite right so I made some black bows and added some black trim to the dress bodice to tie the accents together.
I didn’t have shoes for her but I no longer cared, perhaps a lack of shoes would be her source of ennui.
I promptly listed her on Mercari and, before I could second guess my price and maybe raise it, she sold within ten minutes.
Goodwills and thrift store in America are full of a type of bisque doll I find horrid. I’ve long wondered if I can do a similar (albeit smaller) haunted makeover of one of them…but I haven’t bought one yet to try because…I hates them and I need no more dolls.
…but should i?
