Creating Reborn Dolls From Scratch

Creating Reborn Dolls From Scratch!

Reborn dolls are a very realistic, lifelike version of a traditional toy doll. Since the dolls need to be quite realistic, the process to create these dolls is very specific and requires several more steps than a ordinary doll.

Creating a reborn doll takes much time and effort. The reborner, artist creating the reborn doll, does not actually make the actual doll; they just modify it. Therefore, if you are trying to make a reborn doll, you must first purchase a vinyl doll to tweak appropriately.

Next, the reborner must purchase a reborning kit. This kit includes almost everything the artist could possibly need to make the doll look quite realistic. The reborning kit typically includes many of the same items. For example, items like arms, faces, legs, heads, eyelashes, weigh, paints, cable ties, nose bits, crying tears, and other similar supplies are usually provided in a starter kit.

While the actual process of reborning can be different from artist to artist, there is a process that has been accepted as the standard. Each reborn doll starts with ah factory vinyl doll that has the factory paint on its skin. This paint needs to be removed because the realistic quality is not good enough for a reborn doll.

Next, a color wash (typically blue) is put onto the doll. This blue wash will give the reborn doll a skin undertone. Dolls with open eyelids must have more natural looking eyes put in, but if the doll appears to be sleeping with its eyelids shut, nothing further needs to be done to the eyes.

In order to create lifelike skin tones, several layers of skin-toned colors are applied to the doll. The combination of these layers create the illusion of wrinkles and other imperfections that are associated with human flesh. When the skin layering is finished, the color wash that was applied previously should give the look of human veins.

The nails of the reborn doll and the nostrils needs to also be worked on by the artist. The appearance of these features on a typical vinyl doll are anything but lifelike traditionally. Hair is also added to dolls by either wigging or micro rooting it onto the doll.

Micro rooting is the more difficult of these two methods because it requires the reborner to add the hairs individually and can take well over 30 hours of work for one doll. Finally, weight pellets are added to the doll to create a realistic weight for the reborn doll.

Sources: http://rebornbabydolls.org