New year, new starts

Since I really hated how I always kept postponing even starting most of my custom ideas last year, I made a New Year's resolution to change this approach of mine in 2015. A part of this vow was to stop mass-buying dolls and dolls for stock, and rather spend more time with my existing collection. Another aim was to start, and slowly but surely also finish my custom ideas. I had a few thoughts, but no exact plans on where and how to start.

Yesterday, on a whim (actually I was pretty happy I didnt have to force myself, forced creativity never really worked out well for me), I dug out a Monster High doll (the black and white Skull Shores Frankie) I had plans on customising. This release was one of the very first Monster High dolls that caught my eye. Back then I wasn't even interested in Monster High dolls yet, but I'm a sucker for anything monochrome, so she looked appealing. When I finally decided to buy some Monster High dolls, she was the second one I got. My first B&W SS Frankie was later followed by 2 more dolls of this release, both of which I found at really good prices. They were mostly impulse buys due to their price, and when I sat down to think about them I never actually understood why I needed 3 of her. Still, I never managed to convince myself to sell them either.

One day at least half a year ago I had a custom idea for which I wanted to use one of the two extra Frankies I had. This finally made me take my triplets out, decide on which two to keep (my first one was bought new and was deboxed by me, the other two were nude, in played with and used condition, so the first one was sure to stay), and put up the third one for sale.

This could have been a great start of a custom, but Frankie no.2 has been sitting in my drawer untouched until yesterday. I had all the supplies to start rehairing and repainting her, but... somehow it never happened. Because I am the freaking queen of procrastination, that is. I wasn't born this way, I seem to have developed it in the past 3-5 years, and this is currently the number one thing I dislike about myself.

Fast forward to yesterday. Even though I had the supplies for a rehair and repaint, there still was one thing I didn't know how to go about: I wasn't able to figure out how to wipe Fran's stitches off and make her bolts disappear just like they have never ever been there, since I didn't need them for the custom. Yesterday morning I woke up with a realisation that never occurred to me before: while Frankie is the only Monster High doll who was produced in a greyscale version, she definitely isn't the only (sort of) humanoid doll with a grey body. I had a Ghoulia in my box of dolls for sale, took her out to check if their bodies match - and they (more or less, but enough to my liking) did! :happy dance: This realisation seems to have been the spark that was needed to get Frankie set off on a journey to hew new life as someone else: in about five minutes I found myself with either a hairdryer or a screwdriver in one of my hands, and either of the dolls in the other, trying to get the heads off both of the girls.

Dang, was it creepy >_< The soft plastic of the head held up fine, but I could see the harder plastic neck peg giving up, turning white as it stretches, and I was afraid it will break. Luckily, in the end I managed to get both heads off without breaking anything, the doll newly assembled from Frankie's body and Ghoulia's head went back to my sales box (I wonder if a little girl might be interested in a "Freaky Fusion Franlia" XD ), and I moved on to cut stitchless, boltless Frankie's hair.

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She looked kind of cute with a mohawk =)

Upon cutting her hair I noticed that she has a bubble defect in one of her ears, and one of her ear holes is also kind of off (the dot where the hole should have been is visible next to the actual earring hole, and the actual hole is more on her head than in her ear). Well, her new hair will be covering her ear the same way as her original hair did, so that's OK, still, they were interesting discoveries.

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After I cut all of her hair off I went to search for a plier-like tool I use for my bead crafting. I quickly managed to find 2 of my 3 main tools, but my plier-like tool was missing. Why it always has to be the one that you actually need that goes missing in action? T____T I tried to substitute it with a flatter nipper, but it was too thick to fit into Fran's neck hole. In the end I managed to find the plier, and was delighted to see it is thin enough for this purpose ^^

First everything went easy: dear Frankie only had her part and front hairline glued in place inside her head, so pulling out the plugs from other areas was like child's play. Once I finished with the non-gluey areas though, things got harder, I had to pull harder, but at the same time be careful not to tear the head. Tacky, yucky, huge caterpillars came out of her head:

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I was almost done, happily searching for the last blob of glue which I managed to pull out of her scalp already but was still somewhere inside the head, when I realised the handle of the tool has peeled the skin off my left thumb in an 1x1cm area O___O

It was that strange cartoony moment when only when you realise what happened do you also realise it didn't only happen, but it also hurts. A lot T____T I held on until I managed to get that last gunk out, but decided to call it an end after that. There's no reason in making one of my two most important fingers go out of service if I plan to use it again soon, which I definitely do. There went my plans of starting to reroot her immediately*, but that's OK, I guess. I also have to learn taking one step at a time.

*as well as my plans of cleaning the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, sewing, whatever else I had in mind. I never was good at taking care of myself...

While I was washing my tool and the head I quickly took some paint off, but this is as far as I was able to go before I gave in to the throbbing signs my thumb sent me to stop X___X

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Not bad for a start, I guess ^^

 

Today I painted a layer of primary on the scalp, and I might also paint some black on as well to give Fran's future black hair a good base, but I don't think I'll be able to start the rerooting process anytime soon.

My next task for now should be to find out how to protect my hands during a similar process in the future. There are at least 4 more dolls waiting to be beheaded and dehaired, and judging from their hard heads, Frankie compared to them was only a level for beginners.

...and as for who will Frankie become after customising - that will remain a secret for now ^^