Question for Tonner's Arwen owners

[kenaiqueen]

I've just ordered an Arwen because the price was so irresistable, but I was wondering if she has elf ears? You can't see from the pictures. Also, it says her feet can be replaced with high heel shaped feet. Have you done this? And is it easy?

I'm also looking for some good information on the kinds of products you can safely use in the Tonner dolls hair like gels or sprays for styling and de-tangler.

Thanks for any information! I'll post pictures of her and of Phin when he arrives.

[magkelly]

Yes, Arwen has nice elegant elf ears. They're not large, but they are definitely pointed. She comes with 2 sets of feet, flat and fashion, and you just pop them off and on. It's not that hard. The costume is a lot nicer than it appears in the pics but watch the boot zippers. Make sure they don't get caught on her stockings as they slide down. I actually bought 2 of her and both pairs of boots had issues. Between them I basically got one pair of working boots. I was not too thrilled. They're cool looking boots but if the two pairs I have are any indication the zippers on them are a bit iffy.

I'm redoing one Arwen as I type for fun. Did you know there are several Elrond cousins and even a couple of siblings on Tolkien's character tree for Arwen? They never really talk about it in LOTR. It's mentioned elsewhere in his writings, but there's one character of Elrond's generation a brother or cousin of his (I forget which at the moment...) who apparently leaves the elves to wed a human woman. While we don't know if this character had any children with her I sort of made up a female cousin for Arwen based on that info. Obviously since I am using an Arwen doll for the new character I wanted them to look plausibly alike but I wanted the cousin to have red hair and slightly different features to Liv Tyler.

I'm going to call her MirRhian which is something like flame jewel in Elvish in as near as I can figure it from what I've read online anyhow. I figure when I finally get my hands on the too pretty for his own good elf archer she can be his girl. I'm really ticked actually that they had Legolas for $35 and I missed him. I really wanted that doll. He and Arwen have always been my two favorite LOTR characters. I almost got Aragorn for her but I had to choose between getting him and an Andy Mills and Andy was a doll I'd been wanting for a long while.

[kenaiqueen]

Thanks for the info! Your custom girl sounds wonderful! I hope you'll post pics when you're done. I'm a little too chicken to get into customizing yet, but I could end up with trying a different lip color for her as I don't love the way they look in the pics. I'm looking forward to sewing some new outfits for my girl when she arrives. I've not decided on a new name yet, but I'll be looking through Barbara Hambly's books since I named my Strider after one of her characters already. Thanks again!

[magkelly]

I will. I'm still debating on her hair at the moment. Part of me wants to keep the hair she's got because it's gorgeous but I really want it red and doing the Sharpie bit just really isn't getting it to where I'd like it to be. I've been carefully layering the Sharpie for a month now leaving her to dry laying down with her hair spread out in back of her head just putting in deep red and orange streaks. It's not bad but it's not as fire-like as I'd like it to be so I'm thinking I'm going to have to make her a wig maybe instead.

I refuse to re-root her head. She would be a bitch to re-root. She's got a slightly narrower skull than some dolls because Tyler has a distinctively narrow face shape and her head is built like a brick even compared to another Tonner head I have. Even with a heating pad I think it would just be too hard for me to do a full root. I've got like 7 shades of red hair in house right now so maybe I'll just choose a few shades and make her a wig. I don't want a flat shade of red anyhow...

The face I've been tinkering with in Photoshop for a while. I've got a good idea of what I want her to look like. It's just a question of getting her to look like the image in my mind. I'm not particularly good with re-paints so I have to be careful and take my time on this stuff otherwise it can end up looking very bad. Last full re-paints I did were two Antoinette mannequins a while back.

My vampire came out great. I actually had a woman on another doll board I am on offer me good $$$ for that pallid girl. I was so proud, though not tempted at all to sell her, labor of love that doll, but the other one I'm still not happy with. I have a feeling that doing an Arwen will be even harder than that Antoinette though. What's interesting to me is that I don't think people are repainting her except as a better Arwen. I have yet to find one re-paint of the Arwen doll as anyone else. It seems everyone that re-paints her just wants her to look more like Liv Tyler in the movie, that's it.

[kenaiqueen]

This morning my dog alerted me to danger! I opened our door to find a box:

And in it was a box:

And in that was a box:

And in that was a MUMMY!

And here's my lovely girl, all unwrapped and set up:

By kenaiqueen2007 at 2012-04-02
So my dog was right...dangerous to my bank account!

She really is pretty and I love her hair. I'm planning on putting in some braids to hold it back some so you can see her elf ears better. Her boots were both fine, but I was careful to make sure they didn't snag her hose. I'm happy to see she has some panties, so now at least one of my girls has some unders!
To steal a phrase from 'Say Yes to the Dress,' I jacked her up before bringing out my Strider, Antryg:

By kenaiqueen2007 at 2012-04-02
She has on two of my bracelets for her necklace and her belt. Of course, since she's an elf, she must have silver roses in her hair.

I think my Ellowynes are jealous, but they'll feel better when Phin arrives later this month.

I have yet to find the perfect name for her. I was thinking about Gil-Shalos before she arrived, but it just doesn't seem to fit her. I think I need something more girly.

[magkelly]

Is it just me or is the fabric for those long sleeves all wrong? I love the dress. I think it's very pretty with the subtle beading over stuff, love the color and all but whenever I take them out it's all I can do not to just snip off those sleeves and make a regency dress out of it. I envy you your Strider. He's pretty too.

[kenaiqueen]

I was thinking the same thing about the sleeves! I really liked the way they did the gathers along the top of the sleeve, but the material just leaves me cold. I'm sure it's meant to look like silk, but it's too stiff and the gray color just doesn't look wonderful with the dress velvet which is more light blue than gray. I was tempted to take her with me today when I go shopping and take her into JoAnn Fabric to see if I can find something else that would be prettier. If I do, I'll probably just use the old sleeve as a pattern. I may look for more of the silver braid trim that's on the neckline and add it to the hem.

[magkelly]

I still haven't quite decided what I'm going to do with mine. I have two of them because I got two Arwens. Between them I only have one good pair of boots though. I think I might list just the two dresses for sale eventually. I like them but I could live without them. I've already got a nice selection of stuff like this to choose from. I went through a medieval period where a lot of the OOAK stuff I was buying was like this.

For now I'm refraining from redesigning them. I put them both in a plastic baggie. Every now and again I take one out, contemplate the possibilities, but then I put it back in and try not to get too tempted. I'm about to scalp Arwen #2. I've pretty much decided the hair is going to have to go. Pretty as it is I need to change it up. See what I meant about her having a narrow head though? I can't imagine anyone voluntarily doing a root job on this doll. It would be a total hand breaker to do even with heat.

[kenaiqueen]

Truthfully, I cannot imagine trying to re-root anything because I'm just too chicken to try much in the way of modifying a doll. I did buy some medium blue chiffon to re-do her sleeves. And I'm still searching for the right new name for her too!