Time for a Facial

I'd finished plugging the new scalp, I took one look at it and shoved it away in my kit bag to deal with later as all it looked like to me was a matted rat's nest. I'd wash it later, surely that would fix it?!

So, on to the face.

The previous owner had carved out the eyes a little too much I guess but it didn't really worry me that much. you expect small imperfections in a doll made from spare parts. I like big eyes anyway.

The previous owner had sand-matted her face beautifully so I decided that I would use normal human eye and cheek make-up and apply it and remove it when I wanted for photo shoots.

I wanted to give her hot pink lips and a cheeky grin though so I pulled out my paint brush!


I just used cheap acrylic paints and mixed the color I desired then I used good quality gloss varnish and mixed it in to the paint. I used a 1:1 ratio which worked perfectly. The gloss varnish thins the paint making it easier to get a smoother finish a s it spreads and settles like liquid avoiding rough brush strokes.

Ok ok, so we all make mistakes! I loaded my paint brush up too much and had to remove some of the paint form her lips, but because I started in the middle of her lips I didn't accidentally push paint out over the outline of her original lip color.


There! I got my perfect lips in the end. It's not that hard at all. I also added a tiny heart-shaped beauty spot under one eye to give her even more character.

If you remember, I've been trying to make my own eye mechanism as it is so hard to locate a spare one and get it before someone else does.

My first attempt failed but I have got confidence that if I had something to go by I might be able to create a mold for the eyelids. They are very delicate though. I have found a broken eye lid part of the mechanism for sale from a member of TIB so now I have something to go by.

However, I want to see what Frankie is going to look like so here you can see me making temporary eyelids from polymer clay which I painted a metallic purple and stuck eyelashes (from cool cat) on the underside. I moulded the eyelids to the shape of Blythe's eye sockets by pressing them in position and then backing them in the oven. the I painted them, attached the eyelashes with a tacky glue and temporarily glued them in place inside the face plate.

New Locks for my Sweet Frankestein

"Here's what I prepared earlier..."

The tools and materials I used to plug the new scalp for Frankie. I used my own hair which was a long fat pony tail mum has had of mine since I cut it off in high school. I used regular permanent dyes to color 2/4 Black and 1/5 Mulberry. The rest I left my natural hair color (which I hate and dye blue/black anyway...you never like your own hair color :p). I shampooed and rinsed twice after the dye process to make sure no staining of her body and clothes occurs later.

while the hair was drying, I prepared the scalp that I bought from Cool Cat.com. First of all I used masking tape to protect the lower 1/4"from the paint. Then I used good quality acrylic paint to color the scalp black.

When the paint was dry I took off the masking tape and punched the final row of holes in the skin tone part to create the hairline just a fraction below the paint line.

I then used a silver gel pen to mark the scalp to indicate where I wanted the part. I read on Punchi Collective that the part needs to be thicker and that 4 lines are better than 2!

I then used my stiletto to punch the tiny holes for the plugs along the lines. Ouch! my hand was sore already!

From their, I used a damp paper towel to wipe off the pen marks after I'd made all the holes. I then worked by drawing 3 lines at a time, punching the holes then erasing the lines and drawing the next 3 lines and so on. I started from the base of the scalp and worked in a spiral , doubling back when I can to the part, untill I reached the crown.

Following the advise from Punchi Collective was absolutely invaluable but I'd also add that each hole should be no more than 1/16" apart.



Time for pluggin'!

Human hair is thicker than Kat Silk and it can be very tricky to use as it matts VERY easily as you will see later. The Punchi Tutorial recommends about 8 strands of hair and that works well for human hair too but I just tried to cram as many hairs in each plug as possible because some of my plugs were a little to far apart on some rows. I practiced on a piece of cardboard first too, that helped a lot.

I started at the part, finished it off by tyeing the last two loops together with cotton thread and then a little daub of tacky glue. YOU MUST KEEP HAIR DAMP! I wet each group of strands with a bowl of water I had on my bench. It is almost impossible to get the hairs through and make a nice chain stitch if they don't stay together.

After completing the part I moved on to the rest of the scalp starting at the crown and working my way down in the spiral. I worked mostly with the black hair but every now and the I would put in a couple of plugs of mulberry or dark blond.

as you can see in the photo I was very messy to start with but got a lot better as a went on with beautiful neat rows of chain stitch.

It took me a total of 9 hours spread over two nights. I had holes punched in my thumb from the crotchet hook and hairballs all over the table.

I tied the last two loops off like I did the part and secured the whole lot with a light brushing of tacky glue, left it to dry and went to bed!

The Dreaded Eye Mechanism

I have been searching everywhere online for an eye mechanism for Franky for months and to no avail.

Lots of other people are searching for them too, also with little or no success. So, after posting many WTB's on TIB (This is Blythe.com Forums) and nearly getting one but they decided not to sell after all; I decided to try and make my own eye mechanism.

I new it would be difficult and would take several attempts especially since the only thing I had to go by was pictures on the web (thanks to Gggroovydolls) . The photo above shows my first attempt at making the eyelids which is the most important part of the eye mechanism.

I'm using Femo which is an oven-bake polymer clay. It's reasonably cheap for small projects and very easy to mold. You can also carve it and sand it after baking to fine-tune your shapes. I made two balls of Femo slightly bigger than Blythe's eye balls to use as a support mold for the lids.

I was happy with the shape but alas, I forgot to spray the pre-baked balls that I have the eyelids on so they stuck and were too fragile to pry-off the balls without breaking them. That was it, I realized this was not the best method and maybe it would be better to have at least a broken eyelid to use as a template.

I have one coming in the mail thanks to another Blythe Fan on TIB. So 'Making Eyelids take#2' will not be far off. I'll start on something else in the meanwhile.

Let's get CRACKING!

The first thing I have decided to do is replace Franky's eye chips with brand new ones from Cool Cat. As you can see in the photo I had 6 sets to choose from as Cool Cat sent me two free pairs. I ended up using the blue large pupil eye chips that they gave me free instead of the dark green ones as they were just too dark for Franky when I knew I was going to give her dark hair.

Removal of the existing eye chips was so easy with the glue stick method. I was lucky enough to get SBL eyeballs from Jasmine when she sold me the head. I thought that using the gluestick would damage the existing eye chips and that I would have to throw them out. However, I found that if I waited for the glue stick to cool down a little longer after pulling the chips from their socket; I could also pull the glue stick off the eye chips without any damage. It only took half of one gluestick too; I just trimmed off the end after each eye chip removal so it was nice and neat for the next chip. I did use a few matches though...oh well :)

I then painted the pupils on my new eye chips and put foils in the Blue & Green chips since Cool Cat gave me free foils with every pair of chips. The Dark brown chips I left as they were for a more earthy look. I backed the clear chips with the peel-off paper from the foils after I'd painted it in a gradient magenta metallic paint.

I will take photos of her eye chips when I put her head together so you can get the full effect first-up.

Happy Blything!

Awakening Soon

This blog is dedicated to my freakish creation of my first custom Blythe (and my first Blythe for that matter!). I have ordered her parts from all over the world and she is now ready to be assembled!

Thank you to all who supplied me with the necessary ingredients for 'Frankie', I hope to do you all proud.

I hope that this blog will also help others that are new to customizing whether it be a lesson what-not-to-do or just to help you with ideas and resources.

So, WELCOME TO MY SCIENCE LAB and stay tuned for ongoing progress.