Custom doll #18: Nonnie

I tackled a very special girl this time. This is one girl I've had on my mind already since last summer, but I needed to find just the right base for her: dark tan skin and luxurious mahogany hair. She needed to be cute and dazzling at the same time. My vision of her was very vivid and strong, so I was a bit hesitatious to start her, because I was worried I would not be able to quite realize my vision the way I'd like. Most of my custom dolls have kind of turned out the way they turned out, rather than that I would've had any particularly detailed idea for them, just more like guidelines. Well, I gave it go and I'm glad I did. I think with my currect skill level, I was better equipped to do this project than I would've been last summer. :D Nonnie turned out pretty close to how I wanted her, even if she did throw me a couple of surprises along the way. ;)

OK, on to Nonnie's custom works report:

Here's the base doll I chose. Already rather pretty as she is! The hair colour is absolutely gorgeous deep reddish brown.

The bits after the first round of sanding.

I took some more WIP photos this time. The carving with the tan is brutal looking business, when every stroke of the knife and the sanding mark shows so well. The plastic turns white when carving and it's hard to see what you're doing. I need to sand and clean in between quite often to see what I've done.

This looks sooo scary! Hehe! You would not think anything even half way decent would come out of that mess, now would you?! Hehe! It looks horrific.

Some progress there...

And the final face has emerged. I still don't seem to be able to get the nostrils and the corners of the mouth always completely clean, but I'm getting there. The sanding finish is improving!

Nonnie's face-up turned out a bit different from my original plan, but the overall expression is just right. She got a lot lighter lips and more blush than I'd originally planned. I also changed her eye shadow to blueish hues instead of the regular brown I'd planned to use.

For once I'm relatively pleased with the eye lids! My friend Izzy's dolls metallic blue eye lid work was so inspiring, I wanted a bit of blueish shade to Nonnie's lids as well. I didn't have any metalic paints so I had to work with just the pastels and black acrylics. I like the effect though! :D Nothing too fancy, but maybe that's my thing with the eye lids - something simple!

Here's the girl now then with her eye chips. I had reserved for the prettiest custom eye chips, browns and lilacs... yeah, she didn' want any of them. Nothing looked as good on her as her very own original eye chips. They were just so razzle dazzle in their sparkly way and radiant colours, that I decided she gets to keep them. Hehe! This has never happened before, that I would've chosen factory chips over custom ones. Nutters! But the girl wants what she wants and I needed to go with my gut feeling there. But I think the vision came through anyway and I have to admit just love how she looks!! :D

What's been done:

- face and back plates sanded

- nose and mouth, surrounding areas carved (a lot!)

- new face-up and eye lids painted

- teeth installed

- sleepy eyes and boggled eyes

- gaze correction

- new pull charms and cords (coming)

- hair wash and conditioning to smoothen it

Character

Nonnie's got a lot more jazz in her than I anticipated. She's very popping with her colourful sparkly eyes and there's a temper in her look than I had not planned or expected to find there. In my own eyes at least, she still retains a certain delicateness and the sensitivity that I originally wanted to see in her features. So, she's definitely my Nonnie, only a more confident and outgoing version of the initial plan

Nonnie loves dancing and moving around. She's got the beat of music running in her veins. She enjoys the sun, the summer and she has an incurable sweet tooth. ;)