My Blythe Customising Experience

Hey

As you might know I am have finished my first ever Blythe custom! It is SO exciting and I just can't believe I customised a Blythe doll! So I decided to show you my experience with customising - this will be an overview of me working on her, but I hope to do some tutorials when I customise my next Blythe (I don't have one planned but you never know when I could start).

The first thing I did was open her head, remove the eye mech then sand her face. This was quite daunting, but I made it through and I am so glad I did, this was my main goal, to sand matte her face. Sand matting also removes all her makeup so you have to redo it, I was all up for this, I had a plan worked out to go nicely with my lids (well, I made the plan after I did the lids).

I also carved her lips, nose and that area to make her look realistic. I didn't really do anything to special, I just went for it and hoped it looked good (I know, so professional, hehe). After I carved it I went back and smoothed it out and went over it with rubbing alcohol one last time. Since I would be adding layers to the lids I also sanded the top of her eye socket so the lids would not rub.

I am all about easy things that still look wonderful, so for the eye lids I wanted to cover them in fabric. First, I removed the lashes by soaking the whole eye mech in hot hot for 10 minutes then plucked them out and removed excess glue. I then sanded her lids to prep for the fabric. I used watered-down PVA glue instead of Mod Podge and it worked perfectly. I coated the lids with glue then stuck on a small piece of fabric and cut off the excess carefully. I would recommend taking apart the eye mech so you have the lids free of everything else, this will make it easier to do she decorating the lids, I did not do this and I had to be extra careful not to scratch the eyes (P.S. I didn't take it apart because I didn't know how to).

 Next I decided to face to eye chips. I used hot glue sticks to remove the orange and pink chips, I had trouble removing the orange chips so if you have the same issue just keep trying and trying until it comes out. I have a pair of clear and sparkly chips from Blythe Fest I planned on using but I think they wouldn't go with her white hair, so I was left with the four stock chips. I really like the blue and green chips so I keep them in, I really wanted to test painting over and behind the eye chips, there was no better time therefore I did.
I really really dis-like the orange chips and wanted to paint over them completely, I used a mix of metallic paints and I think the brush strokes look like a fabric button, which I think is cool, although this is defiantly not for everyone. For the pink I painted behind using a gold and silver mix then finishing with black, this does't change the colour to much but makes it stand out and look really nice.

Its lips time! I eventually did paint the lips using a mix of pink paints, water and gloss. I really like the look it has and the brush stokes unusually made it look natural. I quite like her lips, they look glossy and 'plump' :)

Here is here faceplate with her complete makeup on! I also put her eye mech in because I didn't need it out. Here you can also see part of her lids, I'm really happy about how they turned out.

The last few things I did to her were: wash her hair, it feels SO soft now; correct her gaze, which I didn't do enough because I was scared of doing it to much, might fix that later; and attached her pull strings, I used bricklayers line in plain white because they didn't have any blue there, I haven't added any charms to her yet because I don't have any (good reason). Then I put here all back together.

I am SOOO happy with how she turned out and I love very very much, not that I didn't before but I just think she is more me now than before, after all she was a surprise present and I never planned on getting her, but I'm so glad I did.

This is the before and after shot!

Thank you so much for reading this, let me know if you would like tutorials because I'm more than happy to customise another :)..... But which one? Hmmmm... let me know who you think I should customise.

Also, it is my birthday on Saturday (27th) Yay!!! I'm really excited :)

Have a SUPER GREAT day!
Ruby xx