The Disembodied Heads

First of all, thank you to everyone who weighed in on the fate of Teresa's eyes!  I added the results of that poll (and the decision I made) to the original post.

I'm currently hard at work on a new group of dolls.  There will be seven dolls total in this collection, and the first few of those should be ready for sale in the next week or so.  I'm really excited about this group!  I started working on most of these girls after I started this blog, so I'll have consistent before and after pictures (finally!).

In the meantime, I have two very special girls to share with you today!  I've been working on these two for a while, so I don't have pictures of every step, but--once again--a generous eBay seller gave me permission to use her photos of the original dolls...or in this case, the original heads:

Re-pour Clementine head, picture courtesy of az-duo on eBay.

After My Twinn went out of business, the factory in China that had been pouring vinyl parts for the dolls continued to make several of the heads on their own.  These re-poured heads included a lot of older molds and rare faces.

I missed the initial introduction of these heads to the market (it was back in 2016, around the time I was just starting to get really interested in My Twinn dolls) but I bought a few of the heads recently, just to see what they're like.

In particular, I was drawn to Clementine.  I wanted a Clementine head because it's a very distinct face, and one that's eluded me for ages.  I just missed the chance to buy a gorgeous Clem from Peggy Foggio many years ago, and I suppose the loss has always haunted me.

I ended up with a Berkeley head, too, because the same eBay seller was offering both heads...and Berkeley is ridiculously cute.

Anyway, by the time I was taking pictures of my progress on these heads, this is what Clementine looked like:

Her freckles came out looking a little different than my normal freckles, but I was happy with them.  These first few pictures were taken in a darker room, which somehow makes the freckles look darker  and more distinct than they are.

Clementine's eyes are Secrist acrylic eyes and her eyebrows were drawn on with watercolor pencil:

The shape of the eyebrows was ok, but the color and texture were bad.  Notice how the individual hair lines are broken up--like a line drawn with crayon:

I could have avoided this by wetting the watercolor pencils before I used them, but the watercolor medium isn't durable enough for my liking, anyway.

For some strange reason I thought that paint pens would be the perfect way to create flawless eyebrows, so I bought two of those:

...and within about three minutes of trying out that plan, I realized it was a bad one:

Um, no.

In order for the paint to run freely through the pen, it had to be super watery, which eliminated all chance of precision.

So, I buckled down and worked on getting better at painting eyebrows with a normal brush.  This involved buying a nicer brush (with a long, fine tip) and putting effort into getting the paint consistency just right.  It's an ongoing challenge for me.

Here's Clementine's second set of eyebrows:

It was at around this point that I decided that acrylic eyes were probably not the best choice for these re-pour heads.  I can't imagine that the vinyl is top-quality.  I don't know for sure if plastic eyes react with lower quality vinyl or not, but as I mentioned in Teresa's post, it's one of my working hypotheses for why so many modern dolls have fading eyes.  That, or there are just some really low-quality eyes being made these days.

These re-pour heads definitely behave differently than the Denver heads, though, that's a fact.  There's no mistaking that the vinyl is not of the same quality.  As an example, when I heated the heads to place the eyes, it took about half as long as it does on the Denver heads, and the heads got about twice as squishy.  I could touch Clementine's nose to the back of her head!

Anyway, I decided to try some glass eyes for these heads, leaving zero chance that the eyes would fade or react poorly with the vinyl over time.

The only high-quality, round, flat-backed glass eyes that I've found in the United States are the Lauscha eyes from Germany that places like Dolls by Sandie and Dolls so Real import.  These eyes are pretty, but they're not great for My Twinn dolls.  

I tried to place a pair in an old Ariel head a while ago, and it was a disaster:

Oh, dear.

Not only are the irises way too large, but the eyes don't really fit into the sockets--at least not on this head.  I was never able to get that right eye aligned.  And the eyes won't come out, either, at least not without cutting off the back of the doll's head.

So, I ordered some glass eyes from Hand Glass Craft in the United Kingdom.  The ones I chose are D400 low lens, flat back eyes in light blue.  The eyes took about three months to arrive and are, if you ask me, the most beautiful eyes available for My Twinn dolls:

Clementine with D400 low lens, flat back glass eyes from Hand Glass Craft.

I thought the eyes looked a little funny in their online stock photos, so I was nervous about my order.  There's something odd about the swirly iris pattern, especially if you're looking at it in an extreme close-up.  

In real life, though, the color and level of detail in these eyes is perfect.  The eyes also shine in a realistic, sparkling way that neither acrylic nor silicone eyes can replicate.

Pictures don't really do these eyes justice.  They're wonderful.  If they didn't cost $60 per pair, every My Twinn doll I restored would have these eyes.  No question.

I think Clem's eyes look a bit wonky in some pictures, but I don't notice the asymmetry in real life--she's always looking right at me.  And the eyes are in the same position as the Secrist eyes I placed the first time around.

After the success of the eyes, I picked a wig for Clem and then had to tweak the color of her eyebrows to match the wig a little better.  Here are her final eyebrows:

And here she is with her eyelashes freshly applied:

It was really difficult to place the eyelashes on both Clementine and Berkeley.  The lashes kept falling down into the eye sockets.  I've never worked with either of these faces before, so it could just be a feature of their particular eyelid shape, but maybe the thin vinyl in these re-pour heads makes the eyelids thinner.

Before I put Clementine's head onto a Denver body, I wrote on it: 

My worry is that at some point down the line a re-pour head could be sold as an original Denver doll--either as an innocent mistake or as a purposeful deception.  I'm not really sure what else I can do to avoid this, other than having all of the information about each doll online and maybe drawing a line through the body tag?  I'm open to suggestions.

Now, let's see how things went with Berkeley!

Here's her blank face:

Re-pour Berkeley head, picture courtesy of az-duo on eBay.

And here she is with her first set of eyes and her face paint:

Again, the freckles are way, way more subtle than they look in this picture.

These are dark green Secrist eyes.  They're a fun color, but not very realistic:

Those eyes would be fun for a fantasy-themed doll.

Instead, Berkeley got some new hazel green Hand Glass eyes, which are a huge improvement:

My son and I both have eyes this color.  I love these eyes!

Berkeley with D400, low lens, flat back hazel green glass eyes from Hand Glass Craft.

Once the eyes were placed, I penciled in Berkeley's eyebrows:

And then painted them:

Here she is with her eyelashes:

I love how this face looks with long lashes!

With the heads completed, I set about finding nice bodies.  My number one criterion was finding a good color match for the heads, which is about an 02 on the Denver scale.  

After some searching and waiting, both Clem and Berkeley got bodies from 1997.  The bodies match nicely and are in excellent condition, but they have a feature that I wasn't unaware of until now: elastic-strung ankles (!).

I think maybe the earliest 1997 bodies all had elastic-strung ankle joints, but I'm not sure.  I have no idea what the ankle joints of the newer dolls look like.  I suppose they could be elastic-strung, too, but I doubt it because they have absolutely no pull in the joint. 

In contrast, a few of the 1997 bodies have joints that I can pull apart wide enough to peek inside:

The picture above is from an extreme case in a doll that I'm working on right now.  You can see that there's a band of very thick elastic sandwiched between two pieces of ribbon.  As with any elastic-strung doll, the elastic can stretch or degrade over time and cause the joint to loosen.  I call this Loose Ankle Syndrome in the My Twinn dolls.  I have no idea how to fix it.  Any suggestions would be welcome!

Berkeley's body has only a mild case of Loose Ankle Syndrome.  She can still stand and pose very nicely on her own:

And the body is otherwise excellent, with very few picks, minimal squeaking, and just a small re-sewn area at the very top of the back seam:

Ok, now it's time to see Berkeley all finished!

I gave her a dark auburn Monique wig in size 13-14.  This wig is mostly dark brown, but it has little hints of red that I think are beautiful.

I dressed her in an authentic My Twinn burgundy velvet dress that compliments her hair.  

Here she is:

The Berkeley face mold is really adorable.  It has an elfin quality to it that I just love!

Here's a GIF of Berkeley's before and after:

And here are some more shots of Berkeley.  She's a dream to photograph:

This picture captures the highlights in her hair pretty well:

And here she is with her hair pulled back a bit:

This is probably my favorite shot:

Ok, now let's take a look at Clementine's body:

She looks so funny without hair!  I think it's because her chin and eyebrows are so strong:

Clem's body is also in good condition, but she has a worse case of Loose Ankle Syndrome than Berkeley does.  She'll tip forward sometimes when I'm posing her because her ankle joints collapse.

She has a few more picks on her body than Berkeley does, too:

And she has a deep scratch on her right hand that I was not able to sand away:

I dressed Clem in a dark blue velvet dress from My Twinn and gave her a red human hair wig from Monique.  The 14-15 size of this wig is a bit too big for Clementine's head, but it's a glorious color and texture!  It's the most realistic My Twinn wig I've ever seen.

Here she is:

My husband calls her Merida. 

I loved playing around with the curls in this hair.  At some point I'll probably put in the effort to tie some loose, wispy braids or something.

Here's Clem's before and after GIF:

I guess it's only fair to admit at this point that I've fallen in love with Clementine and she will not be for sale at this time.  Her $60 eyes, $70 wig, and $60 head would probably make her prohibitively expensive for a re-pour doll anyway.

Here are some more of my pictures of her, just for fun:

These two pictures are my favorites:

I took both girls outside briefly (mosquito season!) to see how they would photograph in the natural light.

Berkeley looks great--as always:

The sun really illuminates her glass eyes!

And you can see the subtle red in her hair when she's sitting near the direct sunlight, too:

Clementine turned a bit green in the outdoor setting, which she certainly doesn't look in real life!

And then she looked a bit yellow in the sunshine:

She may not photograph perfectly, but I still love her!

Here are the two girls together, back in the safety of the indoors:

I'm happy to finally have a Clementine in my collection, and I'm also very happy to be able to offer beautiful Berkeley for sale.

Here's a full list of everything that was done to Berkeley:

*she started as a blank China re-pour head

-new face paint, including lips, eyebrows, very faint freckles, and blush

-new hazel green Hand Glass Craft eyes

-eyelashes

-new Monique dark auburn wig in size 13-14

-used 1997 Denver body with slightly loose ankles

-used (like new) burgundy velvet dress from My Twinn

Berkeley's body is in excellent condition, with virtually no picks in the cloth torso and very few squeaks in the armature.  Her ankles are a bit loose, but she can still stand on her own and hold a pose with no trouble.  She has scattered rubs and shiny spots on her vinyl, but nothing that stands out.

I really enjoyed pulling out the stops with this pair of dolls, and have plans to attempt another re-pour head in the future.  I love the freedom of starting a makeover with a completely blank slate.

Berkeley has found her home!  Thank you very much.