My Love for baby dolls that really resemble children started with the Lee Middleton Dolls in 2009. They captured my heart as their little personalities were shown in each ASC sculpt. I became a successful retailer offering the full line of Lee Middleton dolls. My first introduction to Reborn babies was when Lee Middleton came out with their first kits to reborn. I was fascinated by the idea of painting my own baby. But before starting, Lee Middleton Dolls sold out to Madam Alexander Dolls and my business went in a different direction. In 2012 Madam Alexander Doll sold out to KLL Dolls (Kahn Kucas) and they changed the whole concept of the Middleton Dolls then basically dropping the line. At that point I started putting together my own dolls offering custom orders using the Apple Valley Dolls. AVDolls offer pre-painted (air brushed) vinyl doll parts for making your own dolls. They come in many different expressions. AVD owned by Secrist Doll company that specializes in providing soft vinyl Baby sculpts for reborn artist along with their own painting supplies. Secrist paints are pre-mixed and pre-thinned, no guess work. Wonderful for beginners. Starting with these and began adding more detail to the AVDolls and painting some of the un painted ones. Their paints I found easy to work with and instead of baking the vinyl parts, Instead of baking I used a heating tool. Purchased very good quality wigs from Monique and provided some very cute dolls.
Then I found Bountiful Babies and fell in love with the realism of their sculpts. They do a wonderful job of providing pictures of the finished dolls, reborn to perfection by reborn artist. Bountiful Baby has their own brand of paints which are also pre-mixed Genesis heat set paints and they also sell the standard Genesis Paint for mixing your own shades. Thinner is required for both. These are a little harder to work with because you need to thin to the right consistency.
By now I'm hooked, buying glass beads for weighting instead of poly pellets, premium poly fill for stuffing, investing in oven for baking (3 to be exact until I found the best one), spending hours viewing how too videos, Practicing, Practicing, and Practicing- now comes the art of rooting hair- harder than painting. Oh, forgot to mention before Lee Middleton closed their doors I bought up lots of their reborn kits and tucked them away in storage. Smart move on my part. Thank you God for the insight.
My next post will be on the differences in painting with Secrist Reborn Paints and Bountiful Reborn Paints.
