Poor Things: Making A Custom Doll

Hey y'all!

Since I've recently become obsessed with doll customization, I thought about doing something not Monster High related. I've seen so many cool and creative customizations online through Instagram and Reddit that I decided to do my own,

But who?

Well, first thing's first; who do I like? And honestly, who would be fairly easy to make? I'm new to this after all, so taking on a huge project is a little overwhelming.

So, after thinking on it for a little while, I came to the conclusion: Bella Baxter from Poor Things. She has everything a doll could want; sharp bold features, long thick hair, and an incredible fashion sense. So it was settled - a Poor Things custom doll was my goal.

Being a Yorgos fan, I thought it was a great idea. The only difficulty I could see happening is with her giant puff sleeves. Emma Stone did an amazing job in this film and her character is iconic.

Image Source: Medium

Isn't she beautiful?

So, I had purchased some hair from Shimmer Locks in the shade 'nightmare' for my Grape Draculaura, which I didn't end up using for her, so I had plenty to use for Miss Bella here.

So, to begin, I selected a doll head and body from a lot I got on eBay to use for her. The head is definitely not a Monster High head, but it fit and was close to the skin tone of one of the MH bodies I had, so I thought it'd be fine. Maybe the big head would give her character lol.

I didn't need to boil the head since it was already bald and whatever paint she had on was long since removed, so I grabbed my re-rooting needle and Shimmer Locks hair and got to work.

I didn't do too well at first - I kept putting too much hair on the needle and subsequently broke 2 in the span of an hour (read the directions!!! don't be like me!!!) so I called it quits for the night. I ordered more needles because I only had one left and I left her to chill while I waited for the needles to come in. Once they did, I pulled out the hair from my previous attempts to paint her scalp black and to have a fresh start.

I put on Sabrina the Teenage Witch and got to work. Five hours later and a lot of trial and error (but no broken needles this time!), I had most of her hair in! I honestly found it so soothing to do this repetitive but rewarding task. I didn't do a great job making sure the hair was the same length because I really just wanted to get it rooted. A haircut comes later lol.

So here is Miss Bella with her crazy but freshly rooted hair. I boiled her and stuck her on the body right before this pic. Can you tell I love taking pics on my bar cart?

She was due for a haircut, so I cut her hair to the length of the shorts strand. I did kind of a rough job but I think it looks ok.

Since my wife paints minis for D&D and Warhammer, she let me use her paints for the face. Some of the paints were really thin, so I ended up using a thicker acrylic for the whites of her eyes and her brows & lashes. It's not perfect, but I think it's a pretty good first try.

No one warned me that my hands would be so shaky lol! I tried to water down some red for blush and mix red and white for her lips, which I think turned out really pretty! I added little freckles to her, too, but I'm not sure I'm in love with them.

Here's the finished product! My lines aren't amazing or crisp, but I'm happy I was able to move towards improvement and just dive in to the world of doll customization. She honestly looks better in person, so I think I need to figure out how to photograph dolls better, too. Practice makes perfect, after all.

See you soon!