Tangerine Teresa

Well, I finally found the perfect cable ties and was able to complete Teresa!  She's been here since April, so it's high time for her chance in the spotlight.

I'm excited about this doll because she has a fairly rare face that I'd never seen in person before, and also because she has a darker skin tone.  I've been wanting to work on a doll with something other than a 01 or 02 skin tone for ages now, but they're hard to find and can be quite expensive--even the non-Denver dolls like this Teresa.  Judging by the 2010 skin tone charts at Logan's Ladies, I think she's "light brown," or 04.

This girl's nickname, Tangerine Teresa, came about not so much because of how she looked when she got to my house...

My Twinn Teresa from 2010.

...but because of how she looked in her main auction photo:

Like a blurry tangerine.

I don't put a lot of stock in the appearance of eBay photos.  They're all over the map and tend to involve some guesswork.  I've been fooled by dolls like Lucy, who looked great in photos but was orange in person, and I've also been surprised the other way, by dolls like Teresa who looked awful in photos and were fine in real life.

The orange hue of Teresa's vinyl was not even her biggest problem, though.  You can also see in the photo, above, that she was missing her middle finger on the left side.  She's a newer doll, so this type of injury is not uncommon.

The nice thing is that because of her citrus complexion and missing finger, nobody else wanted this Teresa.  So, I got a really good deal on a doll that usually prompts some competitive bidding.

Teresa came with no wig, but with an underwear set: 

I struggled the whole time I was photographing this doll to capture her true coloring.  It's not as dark as it looks in these first pictures, but not as light as it looks later on.  It also definitely has some orange hues, but nothing like what was in that auction photo.

I hope the cumulative effect of the pictures will give you a decent sense of what she looks like.

Teresa's body was in pretty good shape overall.  In addition to the missing finger, she had a dark stain on her left wrist:

The opposite side of this arm also has a thin white scuff that I was not able to remove.

Her back seam had come partially undone at the neck, and one edge of the cable tie loop was falling apart:

But her cloth body is very clean and has virtually no picks:

Here's a closer look at the full back seam.  It's a little sloppy and puckers up at the bottom:

Teresa's face was in decent shape, too, although she did have some scuffs on her forehead, nose, and upper lip, and some fine white lines around her eyes.

Her factory eyes were big, with a rich, dark brown color:

There was some white dust around both eyes, but they otherwise looked fine to me--at least at first:

As I was looking through these photos, though, I started to feel like the irises were too big, and also that maybe the right eye was lighter than the left.  

That's when I engaged your help in figuring out what to do:

In keeping with the poll results and all of the helpful comments I received, I decided to swap out the eyes.

I ordered a few different eye options and then waited for them to arrive.

In the meantime, I got to work trying to fix the missing finger.  This process still intimidates the heck out of me.

She's giving me the inverse of the middle finger.

The vinyl on these newer dolls is thin, so the bottom part of the finger is completely hollow:

The ring finger on this hand also looks like it has a small crack at the base.

The first thing I did was use Plastic Paste to fill the hole at the bottom of the middle finger and put some super glue into the crack on the ring finger:

While those things dried, I made a mold of another (non-Denver) My Twinn's middle finger:

This mold actually had too many little air bubbles, so I made a second mold that I didn't photograph.

I'll spare you all of the details of the molding process.  If you're curious about that you can always read Lenora's post here or over on Toy Box Philosopher.

Here's Teresa's new finger after the first round of sanding:

You can see that she also has some Remove-Zit on her wrist to take care of the dark stain.

To flash forward for just a second, the Remove-Zit took care of the dark stain very quickly, but it left behind a slightly pale patch which you can just barely see in this photo:

But back to the finger.  Apparently I'm still not very good at molding fingers.  Also, sanding marks look really obvious on darker-skinned dolls:

Here's the hand after I did some finer sanding and cleaned everything up a little using Formula 9-1-1:

Next, I painted the finger--trying desperately to match the color of the vinyl:

I haven't found any good way to mask the seam between the new finger and the old vinyl.  No matter where the paint/vinyl border is, there's a dark line that appears just beneath it.  I have no idea why.  I've tried blending the paint into the rest of the doll's hand, layering a zillion times with super-watery coats of paint--I even tried fashioning a ring for that finger to mask the seam.  I guess this is the best I can do for now.

I found it hard to completely get rid of stray sanding lines and little bits of paint.

The palm of the hand was the messiest:

Here's the hand after I cleaned it up a little more:

Once I was reasonably satisfied with the paint and the clean-up, I coated the hand with some Mr. Super Clear sealant.

I don't know how durable this fix will be over time.  I've been interacting with Teresa like I would any  other My Twinn doll, working on her body, dressing her, posing her, etc., and her finger has stayed strong.  I've also pushed on the fingers a little to test their strength, and they feel solid.  However, this is surely a weak point on the doll and would probably not survive any kind of strong force or rough play.

With that task out of the way, I turned my attention to Teresa's head.  The fun part!

Here's a look at her face with the eyelashes mostly removed:

The right eye is definitely lighter than the left:

I popped the old eyes out and considered my options.  I ordered a few acrylic eyes for Teresa, and also one pair of Lauscha German glass eyes, even though I've had bad luck with these in the past.

I've already shown you a picture of my poor Ariel with the Lauscha eyes that are way too big (and won't come out):

But, in Teresa's case, the Lauscha glass eyes somehow worked fine!  And, miraculously, these were the first eyes I tried on her:

These brown eyes have a smaller iris size than the eyes I used for Ariel.  I think they look pretty close to perfect!

They're very dark, but I really like that on Teresa.  Also, they're not quite as monochromatic as they look in this photo.  They have a subtle mix of colors that I'll show you at the end of the post when I take Teresa outside.

I ordered these eyes from a different shop than I normally use, so perhaps they're a completely different type of eye from the Lauscha company?  In any case I'm thrilled with them, and they're about half the price of the gorgeous Hand Glass eyes that I love so much.

Here's a GIF of the change in eyes:

At this point I noticed that Teresa's neck joint felt loose.  I cut the cable tie to inspect it, and found this:

The neck was coming unglued on one side, so I removed the head and stripped off all of the old glue.

It's a lot easier to paint a head when the body is detached, so there's always a part of me that's happy when a doll needs to be decapitated! 

With the newly-free head, I was able to wash Teresa's factory paint off and do some light sanding around the scuffs and shiny spots on her face:

Although sanding these areas made them look even worse!

Whenever I get obvious sanding lines like this, I go through a ritual with fine grit sandpaper, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, and then a wet paper towel.  Eventually the lines become less obvious, but it's especially frustrating with the darker-skinned dolls.

Teresa has a few white spots on her face that I did not try to sand away.  The most obvious of these is at the corner of her right eye:

Here's a slightly better view:

These small lines are still visible on the completed doll, but they're not super-obvious.

I also noticed that Teresa has some white marks and dark staining on her left ear, but I decided to leave this alone, too.  It will be covered by hair most of the time:

You can also see in this photo that Teresa has holes for earrings!  This is pretty uncommon in my experience--maybe because the Denver dolls never had their ears pierced?

In any case, I immediately bought her some pretty rhinestone earrings:

She wanted to keep wearing the earrings while I painted her face.

I don't blame her.

I painted Teresa's lips first, trying to de-emphasize the exaggerated bow in her upper lip:

Next, I gave her some blush.  And, because of an orange stain just below her right eye:

I also gave her freckles!

The orange spot is now just a large freckle.

Teresa's factory brows left behind some faint markings that I wanted to cover, but I also wanted to slightly change the shape of the brows.  In order to do all of this at once, I had to make the eyebrows pretty big.

Here's the initial sketch of the shape:

And then they got even bigger as I started to fill in hairs to cover the old brows:

...and then they got even darker!

The brows were pretty heavy by the time I was done, but I decided to keep them as they were.  I think they add a lot of character.

Maybe you can also see that the eyebrow region looks pretty shiny in those last few pictures?  This is in part because acrylic paint has some shine to it when it reaches a certain thickness, but also because I'd smoothed Teresa's forehead quite a bit with all of the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser scrubbing in that area.

In an attempt to reduce the shine, I sprayed Teresa's face with a very light coating of Mr. Super Clear (matte) sealant.  The technique was marginally successful.

Here's Teresa with her face paint completed and her eyelashes in place:

I glued her head back onto her body, attached a cable tie, and thought I was almost done!

But, of course by now you know that when I moved Teresa, the cable tie popped open and I realized that it was too small to make a secure connection.  Then I realized that I didn't have anything in the house that would work, and then I realized that Amazon doesn't even sell the right thing!  Ugh.

Anyway, flash forward to the arrival of my new, ultra-thin cable ties (I got some from Dolls so Real and some from eBay seller preciouscargotooyou--both are perfect) and I was able to finish things up.

I re-sewed Teresa's back seam and repaired the damaged parts near the neck, then I inserted the new cable tie to finish the body:

I wish I had thread that matched the cloth torso a bit better, but this color was close to what had been used originally.

In anticipation of Teresa's makeover, I actually purchased three dark textured wigs.  One of them (Beri Giggles by Monique) was much too small to even consider.

The next was a Clementine wig in size 14-15, also by Monique:

The Clementine wig looks good in this photo, I think, but it has a very strange style.  There are lots of shorter tendrils around the face, and a large section of hair is poofed up and then pulled back into a ponytail.  I couldn't really figure out what to do with the style, and I didn't much like the texture.  It doesn't feel as soft as it looks.

The third wig is Monique's Moesha wig, which also looks amazing in photos:

I adore how this wig looks.  It's pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.  But oh, man.  The quality of the wig is garbage.  It feels like a cheap costume wig from a Halloween store.  I could not stand the feel of it.  It's also really thin.

So, in the end, I dove into my wig bin and found an old friend.  

This is a gorgeous, silky, thick, pure black wig from Doll of a Kind (the same wig I used on Pearl):

I really wanted to try a different style of wig with Teresa, but I find it hard not to love the wig she ended up with.

It fits perfectly and is very fun to brush and style.

I will include the Moesha and Clementine wigs with Teresa's sale (free of charge), just in case her new owner thinks I made the wrong choice with her hair.  Her current wig is glued only at the front and in the back, so it wouldn't be too difficult to remove.

Here are some headshots of Teresa with her new hair:

Her repaired finger tends to disappear into the background of most pictures, so here are a few shots that deliberately showcase it (and the scuff on her lower arm):

The spot left on her wrist by the Remove-Zit never completely disappeared, either.  This area looks slightly lighter and a bit shinier than the surrounding vinyl:

Teresa's finger is still her biggest imperfection.  Other than that, I've also noticed that her neck joint still has a slight wobble, but it has nothing to do with the seal between her head and her armature.  It's just that there's some wiggle in the neck joint of the armature.

The only other major flaw is that re-sewn back seam:

I was so excited when it was finally time to dress Teresa in her new clothes!

In the rainbow of dresses that Carole Anderson made for this collection of dolls, I always knew that Teresa would get the teal blue dress.

It matches the hat perfectly and looks great with Teresa's dark eyes and hair:

It's my new opinion that every doll should have a hat.  It's such a fun accessory!

I wanted to get a few pictures of Teresa without her hat, too, so she reluctantly took it off.

She's pretty good natured about everything.

Here's a front-facing portrait: 

And the inevitable before and after GIF:

And of course her skin tone didn't change, it's just the effect of the colors surrounding her.  I kept all of the camera settings identical.

I love how Teresa's face mold looks happy and eager from the front...

...but more serene and pensive from other angles:

(with another peek at that pesky finger...)

And goodness, how I adore this wig:

Teresa's hair also looks cute when it's pulled back from her face:

This is especially good for showing off her earrings!

I let Teresa wear her hat again for a few more indoor pictures, just to see if it would fit over the hair clips:

The clips actually help hold the hat in place, which is great.

This girl sure loves her new hat!

In an effort to give you the best idea of Teresa's coloring, I also took these two photos of her with my phone:

My phone (an iPhone 7) brings out the red in her vinyl while de-emphasizing the yellow--pretty much the opposite of my Cannon.

At this point the camera in my phone is probably better than my actual camera, so I'm not sure why I don't just switch.

Teresa's coloring gets pretty washed-out in the bright sun:

But in the shadows she looks true to life:

Here she is in the direct sunlight...

Tangerine Teresa returns!

...mostly so that I can show you the colors in her eyes, as promised:

I've gotten really attached to this sweet beauty in the last few days!

I hope you've enjoyed getting to know her, too.

Teresa's broken finger and orange-looking vinyl made her a fairly risky purchase, but I'm so happy that I bought her.  Her vinyl is actually a lovely color, and while her repaired finger is still unsightly, I think her pretty face distracts from it most of the time.  I feel fortunate to have had a chance to work on this face.  As with many of the less-common My Twinn molds, I never know if there'll be a second chance.

Here's a summary of all the work that was done on Teresa:

-her missing finger was re-molded using Plastic Paste

-her back seam was repaired and re-sewn

-a dark stain on her wrist was removed with Remove-Zit

-her head was removed and re-glued to the armature

-her eyes were replaced with new German glass eyes from the Lauscha company

-scuffs on her face were sanded down

-her face was fully repainted, including lips, eyebrows, and faint freckles

-her face paint and finger repair were sealed with Mr. Super Clear sealant

-she was given a new wig from Doll of a Kind

-she is wearing a dress and hat made by Doll Clothes by Carole, with white sandals from Simply for Dolls

Teresa's biggest flaws are:

-her finger looks like it was repaired

-she has a shiny spot on her left wrist and a few white scuff marks on her limbs

-her back seam is obviously re-sewn

-her neck armature has a tiny bit of wiggle (her head is not loose)

-she has some small while lines and marks on her face that were present when I got her and that I did not remove

On the positive side, Teresa has a lovely, rare face with beautiful glass eyes and a silky, high-quality wig from my very favorite wig designer.  She and I have been through a lot together, but she's ready for a new home that's worthy of her new look.

Teresa has sold.  Thank you!