The LOVING Dead Dolls, Part 2, Part 2: Valentine's Monster!

The Bride of Valentine is all well and good, but her existence loudly screams for a more Karloffian counterpart, and he just never arrived. The closest we got to a classic LDD-original doll of the Monster was the Resurrection Bride, fusing traits of both characters.

I'm really disgusted that this post got set back so badly because I so wanted for it to be timely. Why does it feel like early-in-the-year projects tend to get dragged out by scheduling problems and setbacks until I don't want to be working on them?

I had planned to have this post finished by Valentine's Day, then to have it finished the day after. The dye I ordered was marked delivered on the 15th, and I got to the door like a minute after, and...I found an empty envelope with a big opening in the seam. Either it broke, or it was cut open and robbed by the delivery person, but regardless, they had no business delivering an empty envelope. They'd have known. And I get it, it sucks having that job, "not paid enough to care", and all that. But it also sucks for me too and I'd rather a disgruntled employee take advantage of their company rather than its customers. I made a report and got a free replacement on its way, and had my fingers crossed that this whole dance wouldn't happen again. It didn't help that the dye delivery window was longer than I'd been previously trained to expect, both times. Anyway, never working on anything early in the year again, I guess. Last time, it was my Old-Skull Clawdeen restyle hell tormenting me. I hate when a project stops being as fun, but I also will not give up.

So. It's March. 

Back on topic.

LDD did not do a full sweep of original characters based on the classic Universal Monsters. No Phantom of the Opera, Gill-Man, or Mummy, and if you're uncharitable, even Mishka could be called a very tenuous take on the Wolf Man without her Halloween mask. This incomplete representation is disappointing, but that's where I can come in. I could probably make customs for those roles (Translucent Kreek is primed for an Invisible Man, for one), and why couldn't I make a Valentine's Monster doll for myself?

Since no LDD originals have a flat-top head shape, and because the S3 Bride goes more grim and Gothic than the campy Elsa Lanchester design anyway, I thought I could build Valentine's Monster off Menard, who uses the "deformed" Jason Voorhees head sculpt. I thought I could use that head to liken the Monster to a human heart, and set to scrubbing the copy of Menard I had. If I really regret it, I can replace him later, but he was not a major collection darling. Here's the doll as paint-scrubbed as I could get him.

I then decided to cut a hole in his chest which the heart could fit into. I was disappointed the Tin Man version of the Bride couldn't store her heart inside, so I added a hinged door on the torso, but making a hole for the regular Bride would be too distracting and intrusive and damaging. On this custom character, though, it can create multiple stories of the two monsters with one heart between them. Did Valentine's Monster take his heart out to complete the Bride in a Biblical parallel to Adam's rib? Mary Shelley already played on the creature and the unfinished bride as a perversion of Adam and Eve. Did the Bride instead steal the Monster's heart for herself? Did she, after getting her heart, decide to give it to her true love and use it to complete the Monster instead of herself? Or do they romantically, metaphorically, and literally share a heart?

The heart can be pushed and popped into the torso completely, but it falls down into his belly, and I think it looks good resting halfway out of the hole like so. It's not the most secure display, but it works.

Fortunately, it was possible to remove the heart after it fully entered the torso, but it was annoying enough that I'll keep the display like this rather than engineering a full entry.

The other main thing I knew I needed to make a Valentine Frankenstein was an arrow in the head in place of bolts. I thought this would compound with his head being done like an anatomical heart to add a Gothic Valentine lens to the classic monster and Cupid iconography. I like the idea of him being animated by the arrow shooting through his head, or else of the Bride just making his head electrodes in an arrow shape because she was feeling romantic. While the original Monster's bolts are in his neck, it's since become very common to see them in the temples, and even the Res Bride of Valentine does this, so I thought it was fitting. I bored some holes in his temples.

While I'm pleased to have gotten the holes pretty parallel so the arrow is flat across through his head, they aren't fully straight from a top view, meaning the arrow looks a bit diagonal from above. 

The arrow itself is made of wood pieces painted like iron, and the arrow fletching is cardboard pieces that will have to be glued on after the doll is dyed and the arrow shaft is slid through his head. The arrowhead and fletching were made to loosely invoke heart shapes, but the overall aesthetic of this doll didn't permit rounded cute Valentine contours, so it's a very loose comparison. 

At some point during my attempt to heat the head and get more into the crevices for further paint removal, I noticed some of the vinyl of the face starting to split. 

Fingers crossed the doll survives the dye. I really can't handle extending this any further.

I actually took the cover photo at this stage while I waited because I thought it would be fun to show the Bride building her mate as if she were the doll customizer. This is my first cover photo of a custom doll that's unfinished. Other customs have had stylized or incomplete views of the final doll for their cover photos.

At long last, I got my dye package with dye included this time, and set to dyeing the doll. I was concerned the plastic pegs might warp or loosen, but I didn't try to take them out of the torso and the dyeing process went smoothly.

I kept the color dark because I didn't want it too orange or to reveal the brown base color, but it does make the doll a deeper color with less visual clarity in indirect or cooler lighting. I did wipe off excess surface dye as best I could, but the doll still gets a little visually murky outside of warm lighting.

The head cracks didn't get any worse, but there are some odd darker artifacts and zones of color after dyeing that didn't scrub into an even color. Maybe it had something to do with the head's position inside the pot or the dye inside and outside the head. It's not that distracting, though, and shows most from the top and behind.

To paint him, I started with blue to create veined designs in his head's comparison to a human heart, and followed several of the grooves and indents of the sculpt. I painted the eyes white. I also inserted the arrow, which stripped the paint off the dowel and made me repaint in post. The fletching pieces were far too large to read well, so I trimmed them and only used two instead of four.

The leftover orange shading on Menard's head which I couldn't reach to wipe off got covered in blue.

His eyes got painted with mismatched colors like the Bride's, though he has one red eye and one beige eye, with the latter to coordinate with the costume I had chosen for him. I used a brownish color to shade around the eyes, and filled in the mouth black with white teeth.

The outfit I had was a tan houndstooth dressing gown, which I already had before this project idea, and I thought could work with the Bride's nightie. I paired it with pants cut short and spare LDD boots.

I guess this worked, but I wasn't fully sold. I was glad I chose not to shoot photos and finish the post the same night as finishing the doll, because this didn't get me where I wanted. Something about it felt a step too far toward pop and away from the grotesque anatomical Gothic I wanted to invoke with his pairing to the Bride. I think the body and paint work, but with the robe, it was a little too vibrant primary-themed and less moody. I wanted something more grim. I decided to use the copy of LDD Series 29 The After's robe I had, and cut off the hood and cut open the chest in a deep V to expose the Monster's chest cavity. I think the V opening has a rawer, more striking look than a fully open robe, and it works for a grotesque lover-boy of a monster. The color of the robe corresponded well to the eye shading and darkened the look and set the tone of the doll much closer to the Bride, and the laced stitching works for a Frankenstein theme very nicely. This robe is super thin linen(?) that can unravel very easily, so I was as careful as I could be.

The robe had no opening for undressing at the start, requiring The After to pop apart to remove it. That hasn't changed, though I believe I'd now be able to get away with taking out the arms and not the head to slide it off. The shorts stayed on under there.

The Monster is wearing the boots just so he doesn't look too small next to the Bride. His head and eyes feel a bit smaller proportionally and his height being too short makes them look too different as dolls, but I realized the boots I had to spare actually are a different mold with a shorter lift than the Bride's!

Most of my LDD round boots seem to be this shorter version. Taller platforms were used for the skate boots (ice and roller) worn by a few characters, and the roller skates were normal boots with a wheel chassis glued on, so they'd be the same as the Bride's, more or less, and there are other LDDs with the taller regular boots now that I look through the archive. It's a full other option within this shape. Huh.

I kinda wish the two Valentine monsters both could be as tall, but I'm not going to disrespect the Bride and swap boots on them. Maybe she likes a short king.

I gave myself the rest of the day to think about the doll now at this stage, and still concluded there was more to do. For one, I moved to shorten the arrow in the head even further because it was reading a little goofy sticking out so far and it didn't work with the tough, meaty, tattered vibe of the Monster. Without the doll being broad and bulky to look like a masculine caricature, I needed the help I could get elsewhere, and clipping the arrow and regluing the fletching one more time helped give the arrow a closer likeness to classic bolts and added a bullish nature to the pieces sticking out of the head. I also extended the forehead vein to cross to his right and on top of the head because that balanced the look better for me, and I hid a heart in the termination on top.

I also decided he really needed something on his wrists to balance the costume more and add even further to a tougher vibe. The Bride has her bandages, and I even bought linen ribbon for the effect to repeat on the Monster, but I ended up setting that aside because bandages were never classic iconography of Boris Karloff's Monster and they didn't suit the design I was making. However, I did think the visual of iron cuffs, as if from shackles, would balance the iron arrow in the head and solidify the Monster's vibe as more industrial than the Bride so each has their own look that still works in conversation. The Bride's visual feels more from the morgue or a lonely crypt, but the Monster can go more laboratory, and I don't think the tone disrupts the design at all. To actually make cuffs, I thought of cutting the tops off some doll boots, because they would have slits in the back that could let them wrap around LDD wrists. The boots I chose were from L.O.L. O.M.G. Fame Queen. I had to cut off the molded zippers, but the rest of the texture worked for metalwork and I dabbed silver paint on easily.

Borrowed boots from MGA's version of Mother Monster, to serve Husband Monster!

Abracadabra, abra-ooh-nana...transformed!

I also painted bright red blood around his chest cavity, put a little red blood on the exit side of the arrow, and pierced his hands so he can hold the heart.

Here's the final final Monster!

The doll's head sculpt is so unusual and it's not the most gelled with the aesthetic of typical LDD. His expression can change from wide-eyed to fierce depending on the angle of his head, but it can feel difficult to read or frame him right. He does, however, look incredible at a three-quarter turn.

While Victor Frankenstein was aiming to create something beautiful and yet looked at his finished creation in revulsion and disgust, I like takes on the Monster where he's some compelling combination of beautiful and terrible; grotesque and gorgeous. A Monster who is majestic but not handsome, awesome but ungodly. I think I've gotten something like that here. I think the colors hit perfectly and the design pulled together with revisions to create a cohesive and yet distinct match for the Bride. It was important that this custom did not feel more modern or more sci-fi than his Bride, and I think I pulled it off, even working the metal industrial/punk aspect in an organic manner with his more anatomical theme. I do actually think it's the colors that do it. My choice to make him red as a heart with blue veins makes him bio-punk in a way that straddles the slight pop/camp element of the metal pieces and the more visceral horror of the Gothic. I feel vindicated in not giving up on that damn dye. It makes the design. I also had misgivings about the Jason head sculpt, and to be sure, I broadly prefer the cuter face most LDD heads are built from, but this design made something out of the head that I like more than what LDD have done with it. Is he the aesthetic I seek most in LDD? Heck no. Is he a killer figurine of a gnarly design? Absolutely. 

Here's his profile.

Valentine's Monster

Death date: 2/14/1935

Chipboard:

To most, he was a hunk of flesh

To her, he was a fleshy hunk

Undead and wed, a gruesome pair

With just one heart--well, who'd have thunk?

Certificate:

Reborn by Cupid's arrow

With cherished Bride, his heart he shares

Formerly of nature's will

He walks now free of mortal cares

Here's a couple of portraits.

And some photos with high contrast to emulate the old movies, showing the Bride offering her heart.

The Monster was awed by the sacrifice.

And some dramatic photos of the Monster in this style.

Because he is red, red lighting flattens his skintone and throws the blue paint into starker contrast.

Here's the groom carrying his partner off to the lab for an evening together.

And on the table as their marriage bed.

I then made a poster in imitation of the classic Bride of Frankenstein piece.

If it was still Valentine season and my things weren't all packed away, I'd have done a grander finale shot with a tableau including more decorations and Rose and Violet from part 1. At this point, though, I'd just like to make like the Monsters and go to bed. The season's passed.

Well. I'm very glad that this project is finally finished, but I stand by my stubbornness in completing it to my full vision rather than rushing it out with less of what I'd planned. I think the design of this custom character turned out better than I had expected!