Squish-Faced Scarlett

I changed a few things around with the design of the blog, and honestly it was just to try and make my dark pictures look better.  I hope you don't hate it!  I miss having real photography lights.

In any case, I'm delighted to introduce the first girl of my next collection to you!  I call her Scarlett.  When I saw her pictures online I knew she had the Rosemary/Caitlin face...but something was off about her.  Can you see it?

1997 My Twinn Rosemary/Caitlin doll.

Her whole face looked broader than a typical Rosemary, and her eyes seemed unusually wide-set.  I was so mystified that I had to buy her to find out what was going on!

When I saw her in person, it was clear that she'd had her face squished in somehow.  I've never seen anything like it.

Other than the facial deformity, this doll was in excellent condition, though!

Her armature doesn't squeak, she has few (if any) picks in her cloth torso, and she doesn't have loose ankles:

She had a few rubs and dirt marks on her limbs, but nothing that took much effort to clean.  

She also has a bit of a scuff along one shin, but I only noticed it when I took her outside for photographs.

The weird thing is that part of me actually liked this face mold better when it was slightly squished...at least from the front:

The damage did not look quite as good from other angles, though:

I think this picture shows the caved-in face the best:

Scarlett came with beautiful, original brown eyes.  They're slightly wonky, but I was determined to keep them because I find it quite difficult to replace My Twinn brown eyes with anything comparable:

There were a few white scuffs on her face that I thought would just wipe away, but in fact these spots were hiding minor scuffs that had to be sanded.

I'm thinking she was kept in (hot) storage with something heavy resting on her face:

Ow.

Here's one last picture of Scarlett with her (slightly cute) squished face:

I removed her wig and tried to get some better pictures of the face before I fixed it:

Here's her profile against a darker background:

All I had to do to fix this problem was heat Scarlett's head.  After about two minutes under the blow dryer, the head suddenly *popped* back into its original shape!  Easiest repair I've ever done.

Here's the head afterwards:

That's the Rosemary I know!

And here's a GIF comparing the two--the change is subtle:

Here's the change in profile:

After I'd fixed the squished face, I set about sanding away the scuffs on Scarlett's cheek and lip.  I ended up having to remove all of the lip paint in the process.

For some reason I really struggled to re-paint Scarlett's lips.  This isn't something that typically gives me trouble, so I'm not exactly sure what happened.  I finally ended up with lips that are ok.  They're slightly pinker than I'd have liked, but they're fine.

I added some rosy cheeks to go with the bright lips:

I also gave Scarlett lots of freckles and enhanced her eyebrows with some reddish-brown--all in preparation for transforming her into a redhead (of course).

Here she is with one eyebrow enhanced and the other in its original state:

And here's her face paint fully-painted:

One of my missions with this new collection is to offer a wider range of prices.  Berkeley and Clementine are at the high end of the price range because of their rare faces and glass eyes.  To counteract listings like that, I'm hoping to offer a few dolls in the $50-60 range.

The easiest way to reduce the final price of a doll is to simply not put too much money or time into the restoration.  Because I was able to leave Scarlett's original eyes in place, and because her body needed so few repairs, she was already on track to be a good bargain doll.

To continue that trend, I chose a used wig for Scarlett.  This is a short wig from a Denver-era (2001) Ariel.  The wig was tangled and dry when I got it, so I gave it the boiling/conditioning treatment to make it silky and smooth.  The hair still sheds a bit, but I think the style and color suit Scarlett nicely:

It's an interesting shade of red, with very little orange in it.  I think the My Twinn catalog called this particular shade "auburn:"

The wig got a little stretched out from being removed and then washed, so it was difficult to glue down.  It still has some bumps, creases, and glue spots along the hairline.  It's very hard to see these imperfections with the short hairstyle, but I did want to point out that it's not a perfect wigging job (typical for me).

You can see in these pictures how pristine Scarlett's body is.  I don't see a single pick in the fabric:

I really like how the shorter hair looks with this face mold:

And I love how the color of the hair matches the color of the eyes.  The lips are too pink and the eyebrows are not quite dark enough, but I think she's pretty cute overall:

Here's a GIF of her transformation:

This hair is fun to swish around, and I like how it falls asymmetrically around Scarlett's face:

I'm really excited to show off the new outfits that Carole Anderson and I came up with for this group of girls!  

The theme of this collection, if there is such a thing, is color!  I'm trying to make all of the dolls bright and cheerful--dressed in a rainbow of colors perfect for summer.  Most of the girls will come wearing knit dresses, sandals (from Simply for Dolls), and the same awesome sun hat.  No two dolls will be wearing the same color dress, some of them will have colorful hair (!), and three of them will come with a special companion.

I want to thank Carole for taking so much time and care to pick the fabric colors that best matched the fabric of the hat.  I could not have done this without her help!

I paired Scarlett with an orange dress.  This color brings out some of the yellow in her vinyl, especially in photographs.  She's not an especially yellow doll overall (maybe an 02?) and the dress works pretty well with her coloring in real life.

Here she is!

The hat is a really fun accessory!

I asked Scarlett to take her hat off for a few pictures, though, so you can see her hair and face more clearly.

She was happy to be able to flip her hair around again!

I asked her to stand still for a minute so that I could get some close-up pictures of her face:

The freckles always look a bit more intense in my indoor pictures than they look in real life.  Scarlett has a lot of freckles, but they're pretty faint:

There's not much to do with this short hairstyle, but it does look cute with a single clip on the longer side:

As usual, I took Scarlett out into Mosquitoland so that I could show you how her coloring looks in the shade and in the direct sun.

The sun hat was doing its job a little too well at the beginning!

And then the wind picked up and blew Scarlett's short hair around...

But I finally got a decent partly-shaded picture:

In contrast, here's Scarlett staring directly up at the sun:

...burning out her retinas.

After I got the pictures I needed, Scarlett took a moment to rest in the wonderful soft moss that my husband is cultivating in our yard:

(you don't have to mow moss) 

Scarlett should have been a really easy doll to work on.  Her facial deformity was super-easy to fix and her body is in great condition.  However, I managed to make her face paint challenging by messing up the lips six times, and then, because the wig cap was a little stretched out from previous use, I struggled a bit to glue it on smoothly.  So, Scarlett has her issues (as do all of these old dolls) but she's a cute, happy little redhead and I'll be able to offer her for a decent price.

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

-her head was heated to fix the smooshed face

-all vinyl parts were cleaned

-her old wig was replaced with a used auburn red My Twinn wig from 2001.

-new face paint, including lips, freckles, and eyebrow enhancement

-new eyelashes

-new custom outfit from Doll Clothes by Carole (dress, hat) with sandals from Simply for Dolls

Her eyes are original.  She has a few minor vinyl scuffs, no stains, no armature squeaking, very few pulls in her cloth torso, and tight ankles (not elastic-strung).

I have to hold on to Scarlett for a little longer than usual before I put her up for sale.  This is just so that I can get a group picture with a few of the colorful new girls together.  That should happen within the next week.  

Scarlett sold moments after I posted her for sale!!  Thank you.