A Very Delicate Process: The First Custom Doll I WANTED to Make!

Boy, this was a journey. 

I went through several doll projects (enough to list them for effect--Shrika, Alice, Marcia, DiDi, and Tinny), before this one got finished, and the delays weren't just because the costume was shipping from so far away! I developed a whole custom-doll practice while this was in process, and so the idea that motivated me to customize also ended up being quite the beneficiary of my customization education!

So.

This is the Monster High custom doll idea I first had, before I even got my bag of doll heads in late December 2022. This was an idea vaguely floating around in my brain for a significant amount of time before I re-entered this hobby. It's also the idea that's taken the longest to execute. 

One of my favorite horror antagonists or monster archetypes is the haunted evil doll, preferably of the cracked antique variety. And I've long thought it would be kind of funny if MH went a little meta and made a doll of a haunted-doll character. 

I was also inspired by one of my favorite dolls--the nearly life-sized China Girl from Jakks Pacific, which was merchandise for the Oz: The Great and Powerful movie.

I was always tickled by the way the China Girl toy was a doll of a doll, and her convincing simulated porcelain effect and the design based on the aesthetics of blue china pottery were really attractive to me, on top of her being a wholesome, sweet, and charming toy. 

So, when I got my bag of doll heads, I thought of the creepy doll character in my mind-- a blue china-themed creepy doll with cracks...and maybe floral patterning on her body in a porcelain version of tattoos! I'm not a tattoo enthusiast myself and I don't imagine ever having one, but I always thought it was cool how G1 MH displayed more edgy and alternative forms of self-expression, and I thought a dainty porcelain doll who made it clear she had a tough side would be fun. I enjoy kind-faced dolls--enough that a few have convinced me to make purchases I shouldn't have!-- but MH can provide some legendary glam fierceness as well.

Here's the profile.

Dahlia Glazer

Monster Parentage: Antique dolls
Killer Style: China-blue delicate wear...but not too prim and proper.
Freaky Flaw: I tend to surprise people by being a lot harder than my soft appearance might suggest. I stand by it, but sometimes I should be more gentle.
Favorite Activity: It's a little old-fashioned, but I love hosting tea parties. And they don't have to be stuffy and quiet if I don't want them to be.
Biggest Pet Peeve: People underestimating me and being very protective or delicate with me. Breakable? Sure. But I am not fragile. 
Favorite School Subject: Art. I love ceramics and glaze…and I'm my favorite canvas.
Least Favorite School Subject: Philosophy. I really don't like to wonder how much "me" I still am whenever I have to replace irreparably-shattered pieces.

Favorite Food: Glazed donuts. Sugar glazed.   
Pet: None right now. I'm not sure I'd be as delicate as I'd need to, and I don't think it would be fair to make an animal out of pottery.

Best Friends: Twyla Boogeyman, HooDude Voodoo

The name is chosen to sound antique and like the word "doll" and refer to the floral designs I want to give her. It's treacherous to use the name in a horror context because it's often in reference to historical murder victim Elizabeth Short, but that's not my intention here and I find that kind of invocation in horror media tasteless and trivializing. 

I ordered some pieces for Dahlia pretty early so I'd have a better vision while I worked on the body.

For a costume, she needed something blue and frilly, so I turned to unofficial Etsy offerings and found this blue maid dress by WitchiWonderlandDoll on Etsy that I thought felt modern and old-fashioned alike. In the style of blue delicate doll-wear, it seemed like the best option.

WitchiWonderland, as the name suggests, specializes in 
frilly and quirky antique doll dresses. 

The grey section of the dress gave me pause, but I can make this work.

And I ordered a mostly-complete Thronecoming Blondie Lockes EAH doll, as I remembered from previously owning her that she had antiquey pieces that had blue and bows. The pieces weren't too themed and could easily be repainted for Dahlia. I first thought of Blondie for her blue antique shoes, and the rest of the doll had enough useful parts that I figured getting a mostly-complete copy would be worth it. I didn't get her bag or her collar. 

I also ordered a white long wig on Etsy.

For a body, I ordered a nude Catrine DeMew doll, who I think was the Fangtastic Fitness release. Catrine is the only MH doll character with a fully stark-white body, and I got a release of Catrine with bare ungloved hand sculpts. Her signature doll had biker's gloves as part of her hand sculpts. This Catrine's neck peg broke off its anchor rod, so it pulls out whenever you try to take a head off. I had to cut her head open to remove the peg, but I didn't need her head, anyway. 

The Catrine body had yellowed with time, so I set it aside to see how I could treat it. 

With those in mind, I worked on the face with one of the doll heads I got.

As a review, the generic doll heads are slightly smaller than an MH one, and not the most characterful or pretty to me. 

I thought the right faceup could negate that.

The big problem was changing the color. Serious doll repainters have a serious method-- clean the head of factory paint (none here to clean), seal it with a spray sealant (Mr. Super Clear is what most swear by), and paint on top of that and seal again, with body color changes being done with an airbrush or perhaps a spray paint. I stumbled my way into doll customizing and didn't intend to go hardcore, so I'd thought I could just manually apply the paint and seal it. I learned much through my extreme hubris.

The first attempts weren't working. No matter how subtly I tried to dab on the white color to avoid brush strokes, it still came across as a rough ugly finish, and my painting of the face didn't help matters. The gloss varnish having its own roughness only hurt it more. Even the design wasn't great, since the crack on the first faceup looked ugly to me and I missed the opportunity to do classic doll lips with a tiny amount of paint on the middle of the lower lip.

Not-so-fine china.

I wanted this to be an attractive fake-porcelain doll and a good MH doll, so I had to try again. This time, I thought of working like ceramic by pouring the color on in a diluted form so it'd be uniform and free of brush strokes. This took an agonizingly long time due to drying and pouring on more layers, but it worked!

I then went in with more delicate painting. I wasn't as precise as I wanted to be, but I had something okay that made the best of a sculpt I didn't love.

I gave Dahlia subtle cracks above and below her eyes, a thin lower lip in classic doll style, grey makeup with blue to work with the dress I'd ordered, a beauty mark, and dahlia flowers and cracks on her cheeks.

Pouring the gloss over this head created some more issues, though. I'd tested out some marker for drawing her irises, but then covered it up with acrylic. When I put the gloss on, however, the marker leaked out from under the paint. Liquid varnish will bleed out anything that's really water-soluble or loose on the surface, so I had to tidy that up. 

And then this faceup got completely wrecked when I tried to squeeze it onto the body. The paint cracked and peeled and lifted up and I got so frustrated I just wiped the whole thing off.

I realized I was being taught a lesson--go pro because that works. I'd been wasting my time with hand painting and varnishing. I needed sprays for the body color and the sealant. It was the only way to get the clean results I wanted. Using a spray would also negate the issue of the yellowed body altogether, since a spray paint would guarantee the head and body ended up the same. 

I also found myself with a Draculaura when I ordered her for her clothes, and wondered if maybe using her head as the base would help. An actual MH head would fit the wig better and make the character more visually interesting and authentic. I prepped the Draculaura head and set it aside. Her head was super gluey inside, and after trimming it down, I found it easiest to cut out a circle out of the top of her head to better get inside and pull out all of the gluey sticky roots. Since the doll would be wigged, a hole on top wouldn't make a difference.

Meanwhile, I repainted the Blondie jewelry pieces and shoes from the Thronecoming doll, plus the headband from the Enchanted Picnic Blondie doll I'd gotten. I just used a medium basic blue paint with white accents and gloss varnish.

Before, the headband was a muted lighter blue, the cuffs and bracer
were pearl gold, and the shoes had an iridescent blue color.

It's super helpful to remember Monster High had a large sister franchise with compatible shoes, accessories, and clothes that will pretty much all work on MH! There's a lot of antique and fantasy potential in EAH pieces that MH's typically modern and edgy aesthetic won't give you. I wish the compatibility was mutually equal, but at least all EAH stuff works on MH if not vice-versa.

I tested out a basic pen faceup on the Draculaura head and put the wig and headband and earrings on her to visualize things, but I was feeling that her lip shape was too plump and downturned. 

So I tried the CAM Vampire head instead with the spray, since I'd liked the sculpt so much on Amanita Nightshade.

The spray paint I was using calls itself matte, but it dried quite glossy on the head. Not a problem for this character, though.

I think I could have been spraying from further away, because the finish isn't even and left some bubbles and texture in. It wasn't unworkable, though.

Here's the setup with the head and body both painted and drying.

When I tried working with the Vampire head, however, I wasn't sold. The face sculpt seemed to be leading me to a look that was a little sharper than I wanted, and the lips weren't working either. I wanted her to be a fierce-faced doll, but she was coming out like a Disney villain.

I can understand completely why they gave this
sculpt to the pettiest mean-girl in the cast. But
that's not the vibe for Dahlia.

I didn't finish this faceup and might wipe the head completely clean for something else, but I wondered if maybe the other unused doll I had lying around--my yellowed ILF Scarah--would be an even better sculpt. Since I couldn't feel fully sure if Scarah or the Draculaura I'd turned down would be the better face, I decided to repaint and do the faceup on both heads and see which base sculpt ultimately fit the character better with the wig to complete the view. No harm giving myself the options, and whichever head didn't win the day could be wiped for another character.

But my spray paint made the decision for me. I ran out before I could fully paint Scarah, so the Draculaura head was the one I used. And you know, imprecisions and organic asymmetry discounted, I think it turned out alright!

It is super duper hard to outline symmetrical
eyes on the a white base. It's way easier
 when you can paint the sclerae on before
outlining, but on a white head, no such luck.

I kept the idea from the CAM faceup attempt of the right eye's crack branching into the cheek flower, and decided to have only grey for the eyeshadow like on the first head. The eyebrows became stern enough for the right look, but I kept them from being too severe or gentle. I think this faceup will work. And it kind of has to unless I want to get more supplies!

Here's the comparison between the first finished faceup on the generic head and the final one on an MH head. It's about the same design, but the base sculpt makes a massive difference. The MH heads feel so much more skillfully stylized to be attractive and unique.

The generic head just couldn't hope to blend into the MH shelf. But it feels vaguely
familiar now--a bit more like an Asian fashion doll brand, perhaps.

I think the unbranded head worked for Shrika Redfjord because that doll had a minimalist faceup to imitate the style of the painting she was based upon, but with the more detail I included to try making Dahlia, the more weaknesses of the sculpt ended up being exposed. 

Also, using the Draculaura head had a slight advantage--Drac's head was already pierced for earrings while Scarah's wasn't, meaning I wouldn't need to do that myself.

I then painted Dahlia's body asymmetrically with more china designs to make her look tattooed, plus a couple more blue cracks, and I also painted her claw nails blue.

I believe Skullector Elvira is actually the first MH doll 
to have painted nails!

The arm tattoos were done in two separate spirals, one per segment, to make sure the joint and positioning of the arm wouldn't disrupt the pattern in any way. Her arm will look good no matter how it's posed.

The head and body then got a gloss spray paint sealant over them to make her nice and shiny. I don't think it's a step too far for MH because it aligns with the character so well. 

And oh my gosh, I cannot express the sheer relief and joy when I finally assembled Dahlia's finished, painted body. I had to chop down the disc of the neck peg a bit to make sure it wouldn't pop through too aggressively and wrinkle or peel the paint (I was so worried about that happening again!), but the head is on and the doll body is beautiful and complete. 

This represents a little over a month of stalling finally put to rest. I went more pro and did a body repaint the smart way, and I did a pretty job with a great, convincing gloss finish on top of it. I could display this alone and be happy. I think it's always a good sign when a doll is artistically strong as just the painted base body. 

Then I put her wig on. 

I haven't had the space to talk about it before. The wig is from FnFdollstudio on Etsy. The style came as long with straight bangs and curled-in locks on the side framing the face in a way that I felt was too darling for this character, and the hair was bending forward as well, so I boiled it a little to straighten it and loosen the curled side locks. The fiber is very straight and a little stiffer than playline doll hair. It's almost eerie how tangle-proof it seems to be, and it seems pretty susceptible to reshaping with heat, since boiling the wig on a seated doll made the hair stick in a splayed curved-up shape where it was lying flat against the ground. The doll I boiled the wig with had to be standing to make it straighten properly. The wig cap is very tidy and seems to be stiffened fabric, so the wig just slides onto the head and grips pretty well. 

Then I put the accessories on. 

The headband piece felt a little weird and didn't make sense to me on a wholesome character like Blondie, but on Dahlia, it feels perfect. The strange trio of bows actually makes the headband look a little spiky and punk despite being made all of delicate bows--perfectly suiting Dahlia's tough and frilly personality. The headband and the face needed each other. This is a Monster High china doll!

I decided there probably wasn't room for the cuff pieces on this doll, what with her tattoos and the shape her dress was going to have, so those won't be used, but the hand bracer works well as a pretty-punk accessory.

Here's the first great photo this doll gave me:

Now I had to wait for her dress, which could take any amount of time at this rate, but hey, the holdup's not on my end this time, so I don't mind!

At last, the outfit came.

It's really wonderfully-made with a lot of skill, detail, and passion. WitchiWonderland's craft was worth the long international transit wait! The bonnet and socks weren't useful to me for this doll, so I only tried the dress on her. 

The dress is a well-tailored frilly maid-style costume in light blue with an off-the shoulder shape. Lace, bows, and tiny pearls trim the dress, and the skirt is grey with a doily apron and a lace trim at the bottom. The skirt flares out in a wide triangle shape with a tulle petticoat keeping it puffed.

Here it is on Dahlia.

Hm.

I had worried before receiving this piece that the color would be too light, and I think I was correct in that. The light blue feels too docile and sweet and pale next to her more stark china colors on her body and jewelry. I also think the skirt flares too wide and triangular. She'd look better with a bell skirt.

And so, with many compliments to the artist who crafted this dress, an artist who has a talent that's far beyond me and whose work I absolutely couldn't have done this without, I felt that some changes had to be made so this beautiful piece would be more visually suited to the character than it already was. I always feel guilty about taking another artist's work and changing it, but I mean no offense and acknowledge the debt to the person who made this beautiful outfit. 

I knew the color needed to change, so I diluted some of the blue paint I used for the doll and let it soak into the bodice to darken it. This unsurprisingly bled into the apron and skirt, but in an attractively eerie ombre effect, so I liked it. It reminds me of one of my all-time favorite MH designs, C.A. Cupid, who has a dripping effect blending her bodice and skirt, and a pink ombre within the skirt itself. 

Anything that reminds me of MH Cupid is a good thing.

To reshape the skirt a little, I trimmed out the tulle and I pinched a section at the back of the skirt together and glued it together so the skirt would hang in a more round bell shape. 

I then started trying to find the last touch that would make this doll great, and I remembered I'd saved some arms from excess doll bodies I'd gotten rid of. I'd entertained the idea of Dahlia having arm parts on her person to evoke the imagery of dismembered broken dolls, but I thought I could take that in a slightly different, more practical direction--what if she had emergency spare parts to carry on her person for when things shatter? The arms and hands could poke into the lace of her apron so they'd hang super macabrely around her waist! 

I decided to take one hand and forearm and another hand opposite of the one on the arm. I figured Dahlia would only need to have one spare arm at a time, but she'd need a spare of both hands to account for whichever broke. One of the hands is from the Draculaura her head came from, and the other is from the Scarah who was runner-up contender for her head. I like that the hands are different shapes because it makes them look more alive while they're detached on her skirt. I decided to paint them blue to work better as elements of the outfit and to feel more eerie than grisly. If the arms were white and looked like the ones attached to her, it'd be a little too freaky. Cool, but too freaky. I also think it makes sense for the spares to be a different color as a reminder to Dahlia that she needs to get good replacements. If they weren't a different color, she could pop on a spare and forget it's not a spare. With the spares as a different color, she'll never forget while she wears them that she has to get proper new full-time arms. The hands didn't get any design work, but the forearm got a white crack pattern as a further indicator that it's for breakage emergencies.

Here's the finished altered dress- darkened, ombre'd, bell-shaped, and accessorized with arm parts!

I am so glad I kept the doll arms because oh my gosh, this is maybe one of my favorite doll design touches I've come up with. It's so creepy!

And here's the finished Dahlia, whose look now "clicks" for me!

That's the ghoul.

Since I painted the spare arm parts by hand and the pegs needed to be painted for the display value on her skirt, I can't use these pieces and swap them in on Dahlia's body. But that's okay. The intent was always for them to accessorize her skirt, and I can still take pictures of her swapping parts without connecting them fully.

Need a hand?

Back on the doll, the dress now looks perfectly suited. The darker bodice, ombre effect, rounder silhouette, and dangling doll parts make this delicate outfit less sweet and innocent, and more in line with a real MH/EAH costume silhouette, and that's what she needed for the outfit to work with the edgier elements of the doll. 

Here's the two pseudo-porcelain dolls together! They couldn't look more tonally different, which means Dahlia hit the horror vibe just right!

Of course, the ultimate test of the design's success was sneaking Dahlia into the real blue china on display in the house. 

And she fit right in!

And fortunately, I think she looks good with the other dolls, real, altered, and custom, that I have.

Thus far, Dahlia is the most "worked" custom doll I've made-- literally the only part of her that is both from Mattel and is in its unaltered factory state is her earrings...and those aren't even from Monster High! Everything else is totally repainted or sourced from independent artists. 

I don't think Dahlia quite passes for official, because I think the work of WitchiWonderland's beautiful costume elevates her a bit past the standard of a factory MH or EAH doll, and I'm not sure Mattel would allow themselves to make a doll with such a stark, restrained palette that didn't include pops of at least one other color. But I think Dahlia is right in the spirit of the franchises, and doesn't look overly "OOAK" to me. Besides, she's beautiful, so what does it matter? I love this doll, and boy do I feel vindicated after the amount of time the project took. I think I managed to put together a classic monster type with a fun visual contrast of tough and frilly to turn the blue china look into something edgy and monstrous. 

As far as I'm concerned, this was a success.

Hey...don't call me "doll".