Monster Blues

I still have a box of Monster High girls I want to re-root. I don't do too much with them. Give them away, occasionally sell one. I have a lot of leftover hair from Blythe girls, though, so sometimes when the day is done, I sit in front of the television and root a head of monster hair.

I have a custom Blythe doll I am currently working on, whose hair is blue and pink by request. I haven't finished her yet, but I used the leftovers to put onto a Cleo de Nile Monster High girl. She came out pretty fun. Maybe she will go out as a Christmas gift or something. She is an especially nice sculpt and really doesn't require any monkeying by me. She just wanted some bright hair. The faceup is stock. She normally has black hair with some gold ribbons in it.

I think this bright blue with pink is a whole new look. For the final photo I am taking a bit of creative license, but I do like the washed out look. Hope you are staying warm and the weather isn't giving you the blues. I think high 70s would be nice right about now. Unfortunately, it's been more like 30. Bah!

Ai-Quen

This is Ai-Quen. She is a selkie, which by Celtic legend is a seal who can shed their skin and take human form. Also known as Seal-Fairies or "the Roane." The females shed their seal coat and become beautiful humans once ashore.



The legend says that if a human can capture her skin, the selkie must become wife to the human, but it makes her very sad. If she can find her seal coat, she can return to sea, leaving her husband to cry out for her.



Ai-Quen cannot find her seal coat. She has been very wistful and sad. You can see by her eyes, that she has been crying out for the sea. Poor thing.



Ai Quen is a Monster High Lagoona with a hand-dyed mohair reroot and repaint by me. She has a teal blue dress with netting over top randomly caught in decorative stitching.



This is probably not a doll for everyone, but I actually love this doll about as much as any recent doll I have done. Her fish-face is really attractive to me. Sad, yet amusing at the same time. I like that in a doll. I also love the Celtic selkie legend. I saw a movie a year or 2 back with this theme, and it stayed with me.



Hope you are avoiding the heat, unless heat is your thing, that is :)

More Monster High

Meet Mistress Quickly and William, formerly a Monster High Cleo de Nile and Clawd Wolf. I gave both mohair roots and William got some mohair flocking to spiff up his sideburns and hairline.



I had a blast with both of them. I ended up keeping Mistress Quickly. Had I thought through it longer than I did, I probably would have kept William as well, but he is happy in his new home.



I'll have to do another boy doll and have one to keep. I think William and Quickly actually went well together. Right now she has a Jackson Jekyll, but he is stock and kind of a nerd :)



Right now I am working on 2 Blythes in purple tones. One is mohair. One is a Simply Vanilla stock scalp that I added in a ton of hair in different purples and overdyed some of the white stock hair silver.



I hope to have pictures of those 2 either this coming week or next, so stay tuned. Then I will be doing a blue mohair MH Lagoona.



I have so many stock dolls piled in my office, need to move through them and get them out of there so I have room to walk! It has gotten that crazy.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Monster High Anyone?

I recently tried my hand at Monster High dolls. I had done a boy MH doll for my nephew months ago but had not tried a female character. It took me a couple weeks to complete 3. The time involved is deceiving, or at least it was to me. The heads seem tiny, more Barbie sized than Blythe, so I thought the hair would be a snap. Um, wrong :) Firstly, you have to remove the hair, which is firmly glued on the inside of the head. You have to do that without ripping vinyl that is punched with holes. There are so many holes in those little heads, it is not to be believed. I think hundreds.



So anyway, for the first doll I used a wine colored mohair and laced it with a natural chocolate Wensleydale (sheep) locks. It probably took me about 6 hours to get in the head. That doll is named Wisteria. She was originally a Draculaura and has pink skin. I kept her costume all color coordinated to match her hair. I think she turned out well.



Thinking I now had experience with the Monster High girls, I assumed the second doll would go more quickly. Nope. Took maybe even longer than the first! She was orginally a black and white Frankie. The challenge of gray skin was interesting. I could have kept it gray, but I really wanted more color. So after stripping off her original makeup, I gave her a bit of a pinkish orange cast that is a bit green in some areas, but still definitely has a gray undertone.

I gave her paprika colored hair and a beaded blue velvet costume. She is a lot "darker" than Wisteria. A lot more Monster High-ish, if you will. She has a scar on her face and a dark story. Her name is Alyce in Chains. I like how she turned out.



Finally, a Cleo de Nile. I pretty much changed her completely. No sign of Cleo in there anymore :) For this doll I gave her a multicolor, multitonal blues and greens Wensleydale locks root. The hair is curlier and a bit coarser than the mohair, which is what I wanted for this particular doll.



I gave her a slightly Egyptian feel, in keeping with her origins, but gave her more of a dancer's appearance. I think she came out very well. Her name is Aria Blue.



At this point I am back to Blythe. I have a new doll I just listed that I will show you hopefully this week sometime. I am way way way behind on my blogging and I am sure there are things that I wanted to show you that I have since forgotten. I hope you are all having a lovely spring and getting lots done. The light has been pretty good here on the days that aren't raining. Today, a downpour :)