The Cheerleader Lives!

She's up for auction as you read this! You can find her here!

First Look

I know it's been a while since the last post but here's the first peek of the Cheerleader. The hair has been a challenge to get right. I'm fairly happy with the results. Just have to do a little clean-up and blushing but she'll look essentially the same.

Saving the Cheerleader

Ok, so Hayden Panettiere has a much more unusual eye-color that I at first thought. I've painted her eyes very gray-blue but as you can see they're really much greener and have a bit of a brown/yellow center. I'm sure the lighting of the picture is effecting her eye-color too so it probably falls somewhere between here and there but i think i might want to tweak her eyes a bit before I unveil her.

Also don't want to list her until the Velma auction is done. No point in competing with myself.

Why did no one tell me?

I just got my Peter Parker in the mail last night and was very excited to open the package. (I have him lined up to play the role of Peter Petrelli from Heroes.) And then I took a look at his hair and realized that it's a wig and not rooted! This may cause issues with the rooting in of longer bangs or a part in his hair!. I guess it's an experiment now. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Oh and the other thing is that the hair looks nothing like the picture I have posted. It's not neatly combed over to one side. It looks like a beatles-esque mop. Just so you know.

Velma's been listed!!!

Go here

Even though she isn't hard to find just by looking under dolls by brand/character. She shows up in the featured section.

Eyelashes Ahoy!

Velma's eylashes arrived!!! For the Tonner dolls i can't use human-sized fake eyelashes. They always seem way out of scale. and by the time I trim them down to a reasonable length they look stumpy and weird instead of gracefully curled. So I used the "bottom lashes" from a set of porcelain doll eyelashes. Tah dah! A little exaggerated but not unreasonably so.

So I also had to get the super glue from out of the car and get to work attaching. That process always makes me nervous because it's one of those last-step things that if you f(&*% up you've ruined days of work. No pressure. But I get them on. Now she's ready to go. I'm so pleased with the way she turned out. she's def. a vast improvement on the original facepaint (but really anything would have been an improvement. The original paint is super-unatractive) Compare and contrast...




I also did some work on her hair--giving her bob more of an angled look so that it follows her jaw-line and making the bangs curve around her forhead so that they look more like gradual layering and less like a hard line.

Slow Progress

Ok, so got the sneakers yesterday. They look pretty good. They look like they're kinda built to accomodate a high-heel foot but they look ok on the flat foot. The only issue I have is the chunkiness of the laces. I might need to find a suitable replacement. Otherwise the costume is done from top to bottom.

I also unwrapped Claire's hair from a billion straw curlers yesterday and am pretty pleased with the result. I think for all intents and purposes her hair is done too. Now all that's needed is the repaint. (pics to follow)

Now if only Velma's eyelashes would arrive!

Am also in the process of doing a minor resulpt of brenda to more closely resemble Linds (she needed a nose-job). Just need to smooth her out and add some length to her hair.

Playing catch-up

Just wanted to post some pics. Am still working out hair issues with Claire (the cheerleader) and am waiting for Velma's eyelashes to arrive. So hard to keep up with what I want to get done.

Almost ready...

..to break out the cheerleader. But not quite. finished the reroot last night (whew!) but still need to repaint her. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I tried to give her a darker underlayer and roots to her hair and keep the highlights around the face. Stil have to cut and style. --I'll post process pics soon.

I have the uniform and am waiting on the sneakers from facets by marcia --I hope they look right. Also have to sew on the Wildcats logo. Got the pabric yesterday and ran it through and Epson photo printer (it's the only ink-jet I have access to at work) and the file was only a 46 KB Jpeg to begin with so I didn't expect miracles. It turned out pretty good. Better at the larger sizes.

Either way I've already decided that the next Hero will be Peter Petrelli. Milo Ventimiglia has a not-quite-symmetrical face so I might have to do some resculpting of features but I can't wait to tackle the repaint.

Laurie Leigh beat me to it

Feb. 1st she listed a Rihanna doll. I guess great minds think alike. That doesn't mean I won't be doing one of my own. Just maybe not right this second. Still have La Lohan to tackle anyway. But very nice work miss LL.

After I do a billion other repaints...

..Rhianna would be a good repaint to do. There hasn't been much variety for brown-girl repaints (besides Esme and Violet) until recently with Jac. That might be a good match-up.

To-Do list

For Claire (the cheerleader)
• Get printable fabric for her sweater logo
• Get sneakers from Facets by Marcia
• Finish rerooting Ash blonde hair
• Repaint

For Eowyn
• Get a belt that will work
• Figure out the slippers

For Rachael
• Pick a face-sculpt that looks like Sean Young

• Do photo sessions with Velma Kelley and Sophia Loren
• List them

My new philosophy

A few years ago when I started repainting it seemed that most of the work being put up on Ebay was in one of two camps. Either it was a Noel Cruz style repaint of a Hollywood icon (especially when Gene was the repaint queen) or it was just a pretty face that would serve as a nicer model for the line of available doll clothes.

I did my share of both at the time. Lately, though, I've found the challenge of making a resemblance much more inspiring than just a straight repaint. Some artists are very good at straight repaints --American Jezebel coming to mind immediately--but overall they don't seem to attract as much attention or sell as easily.

So the first part of the challenge is to find that face sculpt that most closely resembles your chosen celebrity/character. It used to be just Tyler and then Sydney but there has been such a proliferation of different sculpts (from Tonner specifically) that it's gotten a little easier to find a match. Lately I see Laurie-Leigh and Noel Cruz taking advantage of the actor-specific sculpts to very nice effect. The factory paint on the 'Spiderman' Mary-Jane and the 'Pirates' Elizabeth Swann are so unflatering that they beg to be redone with a better resemblance to the actual actresses.

I have a Basic Brenda Starr lying around that I'd dearly love to use for a repaint. I'm just having a very hard time coming up with a repain idea for her that isn't Lucille Ball. Would a Lindsay Lohan work?

A Little Background

My sister and I have been dabbling in repaints for the past few years and listed and successfully sold a few on ebay under the name azure rose dolls. We both got caught up in life and work and left the repaint world for a while.

Recently my sister took up doll sewing again and that re-ignited the desire to do repaint/costume collaborations so we're back with a streamlined name and ready to turn out dolls we'd love to see made.

When we took a hiatus we left a few dolls high and dry --repainted but uncostumed and vice versa so the first thing on our agenda is tying up loose ends. Ww have a couple of outfits lined up but the first costumed repaint will be Eowyn from Lord of the RIngs.

Stay posted.