A few months ago I saw the cutest Corpses Bride Ball Jointed Doll. At first I thought that you could buy them like that but later I realized that it was a repainted custom instead of a factory doll. In the following weeks I saw more and more of these dolls until I eventually thought of trying it myself.

At first I had absolutely now clue how to even begin. I did lots and lots of research and watched countless videos before eventually ordering my first doll and repainting supplies. I bought 3 dolls, Draculara, Lagoona blue and Dayna Treasura Jones. My plan was to create a repaint of Harley Quinn but after seeing some other first time custom face-ups I decided to go for something simple at first.

Here is what I did. First I needed to get the supplies needed to start the venture so this is what I got.

• Dolls
• Acetone ( I used basic nail polish Remover)
• Cue tips
• Cotton balls
• MrSuperClear
• A gas mask ( Mr Super Clear is toxic)
• Gas filters
• Vapour Cartridges
• Watercolor Pencils
• Soft Pastels ( I had the hair pastels so I just used those)
• Some makeup and paint brushes

The hardest part for me was removing the factory paints.

All the videos make it seem so easy but I guess its only because they’ve done it so many times. For me it took quite long, the acetone made me feel nauseous and a lot of the paint smudged over the dolls’ face so I had to try and remove it over and over again.

In the end her face was still kind of smudged but workable. I have to admit that when I removed my second doll’s factory makeup it went much better, I will share her with you as soon as I’ve finished her 🙂

After removing all her factory paint, I washed her face with warm soapy water and left her to dry. I then sprayed her with Mr Super Clear and left her to dry. It didn’t take too long for her to dry, about 5 minutes and I then started drawing her face.

First with very light pencils. Then going in with darker colours.

She came out much better than I expected although her eyes weren’t dark enough.

I then decided that she probably needs a new dress, so I took her factory dress apart and pinned it to an old jean, cut out the pattern and hand sew it back together. I also used the Velcro that was on the original dress and stitched it onto the new dress. So here she is.

My father also loves collecting “dolls” although he has a collection of action figures not really dolls, have a look at his collection….