STOCK BOX Doll Customizing: Busted up mermaid doll Sirena Von Boo

[Music] welcome to delightful this is the stock box series where we pluck a sad forgotten doll out of storage and throw together a new character on the spot without any prior planning it can be inspiring it can be disastrous i often waste a lot of time doing things out of order because again no planning but no matter what happens we have fun i let you guys pick the base and who did you vote for the mermaid this is serena von boo a monster high doll quite a broken one in a previous life she must have been well played with and gone on many adventures but now her hair is matted her joints are floppy and goodness she's missing her forearms if a doll ever needs some tlc this is it bring her in now as promised i do no planning ahead of time but i have been incredibly inspired by the work of april rose a doll customizer i discovered on instagram well actually i've been following her for ages just look at these masterpieces i love the chunky horns and ears the bold and striking design choices she employs in her face ups and those bright rich color palettes are like candy for the eyes very much inspired by her style i knew i wanted to channel her for the next doll i made which happens to be this mermaid i guess to the workstation first things first let's ditch that matted clump of hair dunk the doll into boiling hot water to get the head nice and squishy sirena probably doesn't mind because she's a mermaid you don't mind do you serena with the head softened up it should easily pop off the body with a firm tug remove the remaining stubble by running a pair of pliers around the inside then extract the hair from the neck hole nice and clean she's such a pretty doll like most dolls i work with i really love the original character back in their heyday monster high was constantly hitting them out of the park okay so arms i realize now that perhaps you were expecting me to make some new arms from scratch or maybe you anticipated the construction of some sort of tentacle limbed monstrosity well i'm sorry to disappoint but i took the easy way out this time yeah i just found some loose arms in the bottom of the stock box although oddly enough they feel a little rubbery and don't stay connected as well as they should which tells me these are likely knock-off doll arms sometimes you get less than stellar supplies when you buy used toy lots to use for customizing so i guess i'm getting what i paid for i was so hyped up after looking at april's work that i couldn't wait to bust out my acrylic paints and cover this doll from head to toe in a fresh color scheme what looks good together you know it's hard to go wrong with purple skin tone purple always looks cool yes i didn't even bother taking off her factory face it gets painted over anyway also i'm out of acetone the body can be purple too but while the acrylic is still wet i work quickly and throw down a gradient to blue and then mint green acrylics dry quickly on the doll's plastic surface so you gotta go fast guys look at that all i did was throw down some paint and i'm already in love i can't believe how beautiful cyrena looks in color i'm so used to seeing this doll in black and white however i got ahead of myself there i should have fixed the broken tail and sculpted the horns and ears before painting the doll oops i was just so excited about color well time to get the clay out i guess i modify the fit on her back slightly to look chunkier and more visible then i patch the broken area at the front of her tail there's a huge crack running down her fin where the pieces have nearly separated obviously glue alone would be too weak because there's not much surface area there to hold it so i drill oh so delicately into both sides of the broken fin i wanted to drill neatly down into the plastic so i could hide the wire but oops well a little wire showing won't be so bad it'll be worth it for the strength of the repair job a touch of glue will further secure the new armature wire in place nice that's never coming apart again if you've ever watched a video from me before you know i love my armature wires i don't think i've ever made an ear or horn modification without an armature wire well we're trying different techniques today friends i want a smooth soft set of horns coming right out of the forehead so i sculpted them directly on the face pop them off to shape them a bit then stick them back on the forehead to make sure they dry with the correct curvature at the base something like this maybe thing for the ears big chunky shapes formed out of air dry clay then stuck to the doll i reckon her natural ears will help anchor these to the head i thought this time around we could give our mermaid a classic starfish bra so i mold that directly to the doll too once the clay fully dries i scratch off and tidy the edges same goes for the other clay additions they get a nice amount of sanding to buff out my fingerprints and even the surface along with bold design choices and great color palettes april's great about using high contrast with her dolls for this reason i chose dark black hair this is black magic from dollyhair.com a gorgeous nylon hank that i've used for many past projects i found that the nylon hairs from dollyhair.com really do behave in style quite well take a plug's worth of hairs flip them onto your re-root tool which is just a needle eye cut at an angle and insert the plug into one of the holes on the doll's head i generally block out one full day to get the reroute process done it tends to take about that long fill the head with glue to secure those loose plugs on the inside of the head and let it dry overnight i filled in the normal amount around the hairline but look closely and you'll see i kept it very thin and sparsely rooted everywhere else i've got an idea that calls for a thinner reroute i'll show you what i mean later on when we style the hair okay now's when i should have painted the body instead i'm going for round two to patch up the areas i damaged sculpting the clay on and of course paint our new clay pieces i love the gradient but it is a rather large swath of uninterrupted purple so let's make the design more interesting with little dots or scales that trail up her tail to her hips i think this came out really cute the mint color i used almost makes the scales look like lichen so sort of a nature theme creeping in i bet the dots would look cute on the horn tips and ears as well and heck let's fill in the eye whites while i've got the paints out why not it certainly saves you time trying to build up whites in the eyes later on with the adorable scales all dotted on it's time to seal in the paint using matte varnish you saw how quickly the acrylic chipped off before with just a bit of rough handling this stuff will lock down the paint and stop that from happening as well as keep the colors bright shake it up real good cut it with water and apply two to three coats on to the face up if ever you are curious a list of materials i use for any given project can be found in the description box below this video before we begin i place the horns on the forehead and lightly trace around the bases i've made the mistake before of doing a face up only to have the horns touch or nearly conceal part of the face i've drawn then i start things off with a dusting of dark purple pastels over the cheeks nose eyelids and a little on the forehead in makeup terms this is like contouring although for dolls you can also introduce different colors into the skin like red to breathe a realistic color variation into the lifeless plastic you can then use a needed eraser to shape the shadows further with the basics in place i give the doll its first spray of mr super clear sealant think of this stuff like making a new layer in photoshop [Music] using watercolor pencils i begin to define the lash lines eyelid wrinkles eyebrows and lips because i gave her dark hair it's only appropriate for her face to be equally sharp and contrasty i really love dot shaped eyebrows for some reason in this case they match her round scale pattern so it's appropriate but i honestly have to stop myself from giving dot eyebrows to every doll they're just so cute one of the best parts of stock box is feeling out where the project is taking me i found myself enjoying the hard contrasting black lines of the eyes and lips and i started thinking those blank white eyes might stay blank she could look like a deep-sea spooky mermaid or something i would have sprayed a fresh layer of sealant on at this point but i'm running dangerously low i think i've got maybe one more sprays worth in there first acetone and now msc i need to go to the store i got out micro glitter pigments and filled in the eyes to see how that looked neat effect but doesn't feel finished does it it needs something more well i've got lots of fun sparkles maybe we could work some of this stuff in there alright am i nuts or do you think we could use these holographic sequins for eyes it's so crazy it just might work i trim them down at the top to match the curvature of the eyelids i've drawn then place a generous dot of glue on the eye the sequins are slightly 3d so we want to make sure they adhere [Music] oh my gosh i can't believe that worked how gorgeous is this they look like inset glass eyes or something but they're just sequins i should have done this with luna's face up i was not satisfied with how her jewel eyes came out this looks way better once the glue is thoroughly dry i delicately drill into the center of the sequin to widen the pupil and create a concave dent there's a couple more details i want to add with paint but i don't want her eyes to get any more 3d than they already are if they start popping off the face too much it's going to look weird with a touch more black paint i fill in the new pupil and delicately outline the sequins to define the edges of her irises a touch of white highlights enhances the contrast even more lastly i continue the scale pattern down from the ears to across the cheeks it might have made the face up a bit busy what do you think does it draw too much attention away from the eyes next add a layer of grey mush over the sequins just kidding i'm only temporarily masking off her eyes with sticky tack i don't want the matte sealant to take away any of that glossy sparkle and now we can finally use that last remaining spray at the bottom of the can to seal the deal now we can stick on her horns ah catherine no i know you want to make an armature wire but this is just air dry clay glue alone should be sufficient right i have my reservations about the strength and longevity of glue-only horns but one thing that can be said about them they're much easier to place on the doll whereas i had a hard time sintering gwynevere's horn glued on horns are much more forgiving and can be nudged around into position before it dries oh my word i am in love with this doll she might be my new favorite let's style that hair check this out i've been meaning to make some sort of styling stand for years now because it's already hard to style doll hair without a proper stand and even harder to keep that stand in frame if you're filming a video about it because you're tugging the hair all over the place so let's clamp this sucker to my work table there we go okay so you're probably wondering what my idea was for her hair well blame pinterest i fell down a rabbit hole after discovering this style called festival hair or like elaborate hairstyles people do for music festivals and stuff there were some really awesome examples i ran across that used colorful hair extensions so i'm going to try and recreate that look on this doll that's right i'm going to try and weave in actual extensions just like you would on a real person which is why i kept the re-root thinner and more realistic i guess the question is what hair should i use for the extensions i get a bad feeling that more nylon hair will be too slippery and difficult to work with well you may recall i received this massive hank of hair in the mail from fellow doll customizer h ollie crafts at the time i had no idea what the heck he sent me it's huge and it's a very coarse fiber but now i know this is indeed the exact kind of hair extension one uses for festival braids obviously it's human size but we can cut a portion off of it and use it the same way yeah this little chunk should work i also mix in a couple lengths of glow-in-the-dark fibers for fun okay now to dive right in uh i'm already having flashbacks to say shell why do i suck at braiding so hard if you want a much better tutorial on how to do this i'll drop a link below to the ones i watched the idea is to weave the extension into the front by the forehead then dutch braid your way around to the back of the head this was my first attempt not great if you don't succeed at first try and try again ah several attempts later i got this acceptable i hope although somehow i ended up with french braids instead of dutch braids i think oh well i'm gonna move on i wrap one strip of colorful extension around to hide the elastic then thread it through the center using a big plastic needle now the fun decorating stage can begin i section off clumps tying some into bubble braids and others into traditional braids i think what's so appealing about this style is not only how voluminous it makes the hair but the splendor and richness of colors and textures is just so fun to look at and get lost in i also thought bubble braids work for a mermaid you know once all the elastics are in place i work through all the braids one more time and poof up the bubble parts basically i tug some hair out of place one segment at a time working from top to bottom that's looking poofier the coarse hair texture definitely made this possible i really don't think nylon can hold a shape like this it's not quite as voluminous as i was expecting to be honest i don't think i could have added a thicker hair extension it's pretty large and poofy at the top of her head i guess extensions just work differently on a doll scale still i'm pleased with this you know at the very least i gave it the old college try heat up the head and reattach the body what say we give her a modest sash or some minimal clothing hmm is black too matchy matchy the white's too opaque i think this light blue tool looks good i take a simple rectangle scrunch up and gather the ends and sew them together what else have we got here stock box isn't only about using up doll fodder i have other supplies as well there's some neat stuff in here that matches her color palette coincidentally many of these also came from holly crafts so he's helping me out a lot with this doll how do you feel about sparkly crystal accents i'm really leaning into the music festival aesthetic now aren't i how about a necklace and these crystal pendants are so neat i wanted to use two more for earrings at this point the doll is so extra it just felt like something she wanted she's so over the top and sparkly she wants to be the center of attention i swear these projects take on a life of their own sometimes you artists out there know what i'm talking about sometimes the character just makes themselves and with that our mermaid doll is finished i couldn't be happier with this mermaid i feel like i really knocked it out of the park with this one so i hope you guys are satisfied with her as well once again i'd like to point you in the direction of april roseart and encourage you to visit her instagram because this doll was so heavily inspired by her work i feel like studying her style helped me create a more dynamic and striking character than i might have otherwise on that note thanks to you guys as well for voting for the mermaid doll i wouldn't have chosen sairina on my own but i really enjoyed working with her i wish i could take this doll to a dramatic ocean cliffside for a photo shoot because that's honestly the backdrop she so desperately needs but alas we're not always in the position to travel to the best places for our photo shoot are we i guess i can try and photoshop her into a stock image nailed it don't forget i need your help choosing the next stock box doll you guys have pointed out that so far all the dolls this season have been animal based a total coincidence i'll admit but what do you think should we keep that theme rolling sounds fun to me so let's mix it up a bit leave a comment with what animal or fantasy creature you think i should use for the next doll take a look at what other people commented too and if you liked their idea give it a thumbs up i'll take a look through your comments and choose a couple that are both popular and sound fun for me to make then i'll put together a poll you can vote on in a couple days time thank you so much for joining me see you next time stay artsy you

Channel: Dollightful

Views: 1,082,940

Keywords: stock box, dollightful, doll, mermaid, customizing, ooak, custom, repaint, reroot, festival hair, braids, broken, sequins, sequin eyes, monster high, sirena, sirena von boo

Id: OOdDuV-n7V4

Length: 22min 4sec (1324 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 23 2021