The Mad Scientist's non-OOAK or Finished Dolls

[WhiteDove01s]

I thought I'd give the whole showing off my dolls thing a try, tho I am not good with the whole process of getting pictures onto the internet. Rather than show off any in-progress or OOAK-fodder dolls, tho, I am going to limit this to dolls that are already the character I want them to be (including the ones that mostly came out of the box that way). Grabbed the nearest one to start with and took some photos. This is Cherise Flair.



I hope it's ok to post her here, as Cherise is, or at least started as, a Ms. Flair doll, which was one of the more common dollar store Barbieclones back when I was a kid. I picked her up because I absolutely loved her skin tone and cute short bob cut. It was very un-Barbie-ish for the time. I've done a bit of work on her, adding the gold highlights to her eyes and filling in her smile to make her lips fuller while changing her lip color. She also had a fairly junky body, very thin plastic with joints that could just pop off. But the problem was I couldn't put her on a better body - she has a cooler toned skin color than any other AA doll I could find anywhere. Until about last year. I got some cheapo chinese dolls off Aliexpress with the intention of checking the joints, tone, and mostly to steal their hair for reroot projects. And wouldn't you know it... finally, a match. Cherise is so happy she can sit down now without spreading her legs in a big v-shape.



(If it's not ok for her to be here because of the rules about 'knockoff' dolls, I'll take her pics down and stick to my official barbies and big brand stuff.)

[maywong]

I never saw jointed dolls at the dollar store.

[WhiteDove01s]

I can't go to physical stores due to lack of transportation. Her cheap Chinese body came from Aliexpress for under $5 counting shipping and a very fully rooted head (which is in a bin as a hair donor for OOAKing). It's kind of thin/junky by today's standards (about half the weight of a fashionista in terms of plastic thickness, I think), but still loads better than her original body. Cherise herself, or rather just her head, probably came from either Dollar General or Family Dollar decades ago, and her body was nearly unposeable. Side turn on the neck and a turn to the shoulders and hips only. (I have trouble thinking of a doll as really poseable unless they can, at minimum "sit in a chair and touch their hair")

Speaking of her neck and head, the Ms. Flair dolls had a big ball knob that the head went on, which was very easy to decapitate but means she doesn't really fit on the barbie-compatible knob these have (molded straight on the neck), and her head is kind of just stuck on. If I held her upside down by her ankles it would fall off. But I don't really mind, because she finally has joints.

Update/next doll:



This is Marnie Bobbin. Marnie was... a bit of an unexpected accident. When I first saw some cheapo poseables on a certain Chinese site I decided to get one to see how well it was made and if it matched skin tones for any dolls I was having trouble finding or affording matches for. I fully expected the doll would go into the OOAKing parts at best, with maybe a slim outside chance of ending up with the Liv dolls (the inset eyes and a misjudgement of scale on my part - I thought her head was larger than it turned out to be, which is just a smidge larger than Barbie standard, about Jem size).

Anyhow, when she arrived, for some darned reason Marnie was just too cute to decapitate for parts and ended up sitting on my desk for a while. She acquired her name because she ended up being my yarn holder when knitting (and Yarnie isn't a name, so Marnie it was). Here she is with her kitty, Thimble, who was also not planned for (I needed something to hit a free shipping minimum and this blind-box cat thing was the cheapest option)



Marnie actually has no hair, or root holes for it, so I'll probably make wigs for her someday. For now she has one of my early attempts at knitting a 1/6 hat.

Just for the record, her skin tone is very pale and would decently match Peace-tone Barbies. I went on to buy some more with no heads, and some that did have rooted heads for the hair as well. Most were Peace-tone but some were Nostalgic-matches instead. And then there was the one that matched Cherise above. None of the rest were somehow too cute to be parts.

[WhiteDove01s]

I feel weird double-posting, but I was going to try to get a pic up a day until I've waded through at least most of the crowd... except I still have more to photograph anyway, so I'm just going to skip fast through a few of the probably more "boring"(?) ones (well, possibly to anyone else, since they're non-modified (for now, some may need repairs...)

My LIV doll box:

When getting these for bodies I decided I liked them enough I wanted a full set, and then had a little frustration over the issues with Alexis. I ended up deciding she was triplets. The paler one on the left is Alexis, the darker Wonderland one is Rochelle, and I still haven't settled on a name for the triplet in the middle. I also have three other Livs in my OOAKing bodies pile in case I need anyone to be petite and jointed (I really like these bodies), but this box contains the ones I'm keeping as they are. I did pose them all with their arms sticking out to help with OOAKing tho. If I needed to, I could take a head and see who it matched so I'd know what body to search for.

My Jem doll box:

I only started building this up from a lone Jem doll this year, to try to get all of the characters that had dolls for them. I had a Jem once as a kid but never got the rest (this is not that doll, however, but one I picked up a few years ago.) I'm not really picky on condition, because I have some plans... My Stormer is missing a hand (technically - I have the hand, in a drawer, so repairs would be theoretically possible if not for other ideas below that would be even better), Aja's bendy arms don't bend and someone gave her a haircut, and Jerrica has some yellowing that I never quite got all sanded off. Also someone seems to have chopped all the pink hair out of her 'do rather than have to shove it into that hat one more time... (I can understand, really), and the rest is kind of frizz, so I'm considering her for a reroot too. Rio's actually in the best shape of the lot, and I lucked out getting him cheap because the ebay auctioneer didn't bother to give him a bath first. He was so dirty most folks probably figured it was permanent mold and gave it a pass, but I was willing to scrub and find out. I also have heads for Kimber and Clash, with a neck peg stuck in Clash's that I'm not sure how to get out, and a body with an undamaged neck but no neck peg. Kimber's neck peg is somewhere up inside her head. My current idea, thanks to some playtime with Kimber's decapitated head, is that - since I found these WILL fit on Mattel/Barbie type bodies, to try to get some of the WWF superstars girls for all of them except Rio (He'll just have to remain a nicely tanned brick, as the odds of finding a matching poseable body are much less there, at least for now.) I've checked them against some of the WWE girls (be warned I do not know wrestlers' names - the last time I did Andre the Giant and the Junkyard Dog were still around) and the twins are too dark, and the one with the orange hair is a pretty close match but still a little too dark/not pinkish enough. I haven't checked against the blond because the EO took that one, but I might get a chance tomorrow. If anyone has both Jem dolls and WWE girls and can tell me who might be the best skintone match, it would be appreciated. Also if anyone has ever rerooted an Aja and would know what color hair I'd need. Honestly, Jerrica/Jem's will be easier (and I'm tempted to either use wigs to do the hair change instead, or maybe get some of the temperature color change hair... someday. There is a LONG line of OOAKs and repairs pending around here, and these guys don't even have the parts together to be on the list yet.

Spectra, and NOT the Monster High one:

These were the first fashion dolls I really liked as a kid (I had a thing for robots and decided they HAD to be because of the shiny, also they have JOINTS). These aren't my originals - I had Tom, Spectra, and AstraGold back in the day, but all have gone missing. I replaced these two so far via ebay and hope to someday have the whole set. No OOAKing plans here, just sheer nostalgia.

Rose Petal Place:

Ok, can't see all of them well there, and I really need to come up with a better display spot for these girls. I had Rose as a kid (lost along with so many, there is a difficult story behind that), and started with replacing her and then trying to get the others. I ran into some huge problems with that as apparently this doll line is prone to the dreaded Sticky Leg Syndrome, the one thing I can't treat or do anything with. (I've cured Cabbage Pox, mold stains don't scare me, etc, but that I won't have near my other dolls - an incurable CONTAGEOUS doll disease! Ick!) As you can see, I'm still missing one. Mostly. I have her head plus a couple spares (Lily and Daffodil) of the others on my head shelf, but finding a body to match is highly unlikely at this point in time. I've also found these little ladies can wear Barbie Chelsea clothes, even the shoes, with only some small fitting issues. Can you spot the one wearing a Chelsea top? Someday I want to sew them ballgown dresses that look even more like their flowers than their official outfits, but that's low on the to-do list for now. No plans to OOAK these girls, unless all the rest of them get sticky-leg too and I am forced to find new bodies that the heads will fit on and that I can afford. (In which case I will hope for poseable.) I have, however, bounced around an OOAK project in my head to do "older" versions of them using EH High dolls (due to the similar rounded face shape), but except for some side-eye glances at spare Apple White and Maddie Hatter parts (left over from another in-progress OOAK) it's not actually on the project list yet. It's also a temptation to consider how to OOAK the missing girls, as they introduced a whole extra run of characters to this but the dolls never made it past the prototype stage.

And I think I've about swamped this enough for now, so one last image:

Let's see if anyone can guess the theme of this section, and why two of these guys are over there and NOT in my Star Wars/Star Trek section. (Yes, I make my Star Wars and Star Trek dolls share space. I don't know if that counts as evil, but the thought of Picard and Qui-Gon playing chess makes up for it.)