I’ve received several comments/questions about my blog’s subtitle “Doll Play Isn’t for Sissies!”.  It pretty much sums up my attitude about collecting dolls, playing with them in scenes and photo stories, and creating OOAK’s.  A lot of what I do to and with dolls would be painful if vinyl had nerve endings.  Fortunately, plastic is mostly immune to my evil ministrations.  One of my favorite movie lines of all time is from Aliens.  “Ripley, she doesn’t have bad dreams because she’s just a piece of plastic.”  I’m relying on that, Newt.  Don’t let me down, girlfriend!  I’d hate to have been mistaken and wake up some night with a scene from Chuckie playing out in my bedroom.  Dolls might not HAVE bad dreams, but I think they often cause them.  I have a few friends whose doll rooms double as guest rooms.  Kinda creepy to think of all those painted eyes staring down at you from the high shelves, isn’t it?

So much violence goes into creating doll art.  The tools of my trade include pure acetone, a hand-held sander and drill, x-acto knives, dental tools, hammers, wire cutters, needle nose pliers…   The list is lengthy and reads like a torture device checklist!  At any given time, there are disembodied heads on my desk (there are 2 of them today), bodies without heads (an original Gene body today), and often doll parts too gruesome to mention.  Suffice it to say that Dr. Frankenstein and I would most likely have a lot to discuss.

My most recent OSS offering, presently on Ebay, is a prime example of what happens in the OSS Spa.  Agent Ginger Fontaine began life as a non-descript action female figure’s head.  I really enjoy the variety of head sculpts to be found in the action figure realm.  They lend themselves to more realistic repaints, and I just love the attitude I am able to give them.  Ginger’s head was first augmented with additional hair, nearly doubling the hair volume and adding in some nice auburn lowlights.  I have to pause here to give major kudos to those who root dolls full time!  It’s not an easy skill…even after having rooted many dolls myself, it’s not a job I relish.  It’s hard on the hands and the eyes and the neck and the shoulders.  It’s a JOB.  I am trying to talk my daughter into taking over the re-rooting end of my business, but so far, she isn’t chomping at the bit.   …sigh…  Okay, back to Ginger…  After her hair was rooted in, I stripped off her face.  I told you doll play isn’t for the faint of heart!  I then repainted her face, refraining from giving her any scars.  That’s not an easy thing for me to do with these tough female characters.  I always want to give them battle scars.  LOL  After her repaint, I washed and razor cut her hair into a long, layered style that can be worn in a variety of ways.  And then, I had to face the prospect of photographing this gal with her drop-dead glare with nothing but a pen for a neck.  It’s no easy task to dress a pen.  I decided to customize the neck knob of a Model Muse Barbie body in order to fit the Triad head.  After a major amount of trimming, the knob fit nicely into the head’s neck opening, and voila!  A hybrid was born!  And that’s a pretty typical day around here.  Ripping off heads, removing faces, boiling water baths for hair styling…  In doll art, the end almost always justifies the means.  But I am still praying that Newt was right.