Reborn Dolls And Doll Collecting
The creation of dolls that appear more realistic, lifelike, and more similar to a human child has become a current trend for collectors and hobbyists. Known as "reborn dolls," this trend is paving the way to a new market for hobbymakers and others involved in the collectable world. Being able to create lifelike dolls is consistently spreading throughout the community of craftspeople who have grown bored with the more traditionally-sold retail dolls.
The reborn dolls market has really boomed in the last five or so years thanks to the wider adoption of certain artistic techniques that allow the dolls to be enhanced and made to be more realistic. Much of the reborn doll craze can be attributed to the berenguer and preemie dolls that have been sold for years, which have lifelike attributes and other realistic expressions and shapes that resemble human babies.
A doll can go through a process in which it is upgraded and, in a sense, reborn. This requires the disassembly of the doll. The doll is stripped from its artificial appearance and the paint is removed to reveal a plastic shell. If necessary, the shell can be altered. In the end, a doll can transform into a more appealing and realistic model.
When you are working to create a reborn doll, you will need to add a purple color to the inside of the head, arms, and legs, so that you can start to achieve a realistic baby skin color. You will then paint the outside of these pieces with several different skin tone paints and colors, adding real skin color, and then to bring the doll a lifelike look, you will use other tones and techniques, creating skin lines, blemishes, and other effects.
From here, hair and eyelashes are added to the doll using real human hair or soft, humanlike mohawk faux fair, allowing the reborn dolls to have human characteristics. This process often is done by hand and by strand, which can take dozens of hours. Once this is completed, the doll is reassembled with a softer filling and underbelly, and then may have other additions made to create an even more lifelike appearance, such as a breathing or heartbeat sound box to create a realistic appearance of living.
For individuals who wish to make their own, and for those individuals wishing to put in less work, there are reborn doll collections available that able the customer to create their own reborn doll without putting in as much work. A lot of people are willing to dish out their money (paying as high as a few hundred dollars) to buy one. Newborn mothers have come to be one of the most popular receivers of these gifts, frequently imitating the condition of their children after birth, to have as a keepsake.
The Berenguer and Preemie Dolls are partly to credit for the new trend in creating more lifelike dolls. Dolls can be taken apart to create Reborn Dolls which takes dozens of hours of work including painting the interior purple and using many shades of paint to create the same coloring as a human baby. Each strand of hair is added by hand and the doll is reassembled with softer filling. People are willing to pay as high as a few hundred dollars to have one made instead of making one from Reborn Doll Kits. New mothers are the typical recipients as a keepsake imitating their newborn child.
Published June 19th, 2008
Filed in Kid