Blythe & Fashion Dolls

Blythe & Icy

Helena

Helena is a factory Blythe doll that I got on Aliexpress. I sanded her face and customized it with Schminke pastels and Prismacolors watercolor pencils. All her clothes except shoes were made by me.

Cherry

Cherry is an Icy doll, a popular Blythe knockoff, and was actually one of the first dolls I got for my collection. I've re-done her face a few times (I learned the hard way not to use acetone to redo these dolls' faceups!), and I'm very fond of her

Dotty

Dotty hasn't been customized yet, but I needed her when I saw her dark skin and lovely hair. I have a weakness for dolls of color, and have always collected the ones I can find. You might also notice she's wearing a dress very similar to my other dolls. It's made from my favorite Blythe doll pattern, which you can find here. I've made several of these since I like them so much and you can combine so many patterns to make it look different.

Group Shots

Hujoo

This is Mr. Boots. He's a Hujoo Nano Freya in white (I don't have a link for this one, sorry. Hujoo's dolls are hard to get in stock), and although he has ball joints and is strung, he isn't considered to be a true BJD since he's made from ABS plastic instead of resin. I love him all the same, though. Isn't he cyoot?

Off-brand dolls, experiments

This little doll, who doesn't have a name yet, is one of those knock-off plastic dolls that you can find all over AliExpress, like the ones here: Cheap AliExpress doll. I'm pretty sure they're a clone of some more expensive doll brand, but I've been unable to identify it so far. Anyway, she was super cheap and I wanted to see if I could do anything creative with a doll like this, so I purchased her and painted her face. I actually ended up making a wig for her since the reviews said that the hair they come with was pretty badly plugged. I'm not sure if I'll be getting any more, but I like how she came out! You may notice her eye wells are a little wierd, because her eyes aren't really meant to be modified. I intend to find a fix for that in the future, but I haven't gotten around to it just yet.

Ever After High Raven Queen head + Obitsu 24

This doll started as a customized doll head without a body, because I had picked up the only Ever After High doll available at my local Target, a Raven Queen Magic Arrow Doll, which turned out to have minimal articulation and wasn't really suitable for posing. Fortunately, the Obitus 24cm white skin body was an almost perfect skin tone match, and not that expensive at the time. The neck ends up being a bit fragile, but the finished doll looks great. This was one of my first forays into customizing, and I've actually re-done her a few times. I also made her yarn wig, and her clothing is made by me using some modified Blythe doll patterns from one of the Doll Coordinate Recipe books, which you can find PDF versions of all over Etsy. I'm really, really fond of her clothes, by the way. The DCR patterns are so small and intricate, and look lovely when they're sewn up. I also ADORE the little bag I made for her. Both her bag and outer shirt were made from old, discarded napkins.

At first I felt limited by Raven's little smiling face, but after re-painting her a few times, I think she has a cute little personality in her face. Also, it took me quite a lot of work to get to a point where I was happy with this doll custom. If you try your hand at this hobby and end up not liking the results, keep at it and revist some of your older work from time to time. You'll improve eventually, and with enough work I think it's possible to come up with something you really love.