My first custom doll!

We had a blackout today that lasted for a couple of hours. And so I wasn't able to do any Uni work for that time, instead I decided that it was finally time to try my hand at doing a custom repaint of one of my Monster High Dolls. 

(Source)

I decided to go with my Dead Tired Ghoulia doll. Since she was the cheapest and I thought I could make something amazing from her.

Since I didn't have the internet I was flying blind so to speak. I removed her face with my nail polish remover (acetone) I then washed said face because acetone melts plastic, or so my childhood taught me.
(Also a fun fact going around the repainting tutorials is that if you soak a barbies head in acetone over night it will shrink several sizes.) 


Anyway, I'd been dressing Ghoulia as a Snow Witch for a while so I figured that's what I'd repaint her as. 

I also decided to sculpt some deer horns for her so she could be more shaman-y and also made myself a pair, as that was a DIY I was supposed to do before Halloween. 


I lost all of my good small brushes in the flood which is a bit of a shame because they were expensive, so I only had super cheap $2 store brushes to work with, and it shows which sucks. I also don't have many colours in my acrylic paints; Black, White, Dark Brown, Golden Brown, Red, Bright Green, and Silver. Woo-hoo. But since Ghoulia is a grey-based doll I figured I could manage. 


But enough excuses here are le photos:

I forgot to take a proper before shot. But here she is with one eye. Also the paint wouldn't come completely out of her lips even though I was using cotton tips for the paint removal.

Here she is without any paint. It's easy to see how you could easily paint them with eyes open or shut. 

By this stage I've painted a lot. I mixed up a pink and dry-brushed it over her knuckles, toes, elbows, nose, cheeks, etc, since she's a snow witch I see her being pink with cold. 

(also painted tiny nipples) 

Added basic shaman markings in white in various patterns, will refine later. 

Added the face details, took me a long time to get the her left eyebrow even with her right, but I got there.
Please note that by this time about half the hairs have ripped out of my smallest brush and were falling everywhere. Not easy to work with. Trust me.  

Used a bamboo skewer to add tiny dots all over her and fix the highlights on her lips/nose and her eyelashes. 

You can see the silver paint I dry-brushed over her. It kind of failed and I hate it so...

Anyway, with that all done and the power back on I got back to uni work while my fimo deer horns baked. And then cooled to room temperature, then I took a break to watch Once Upon a Time and paint the horns. 

With the horns painted and dried I set about attaching them to her head, I basically just tied them on with thread and secured them with her own hair, but they're still a bit finicky. Also the paint needs to be fixed but she looks good enough for now.
Also converted my old Myscene doll scarf into a white fur skirt for her. Hope she likes it.

Here are some photos of the finished product. Which will also be appearing on my deviantart. 

Sweet dreams lovelies....

 All images copyright me, obviously, taken on my phone and edited thereon in Little Photo, a free app for Android phones.