Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Cho

Things have gotten interesting here in Maine this past week.  We've had a snowstorm, high winds, tree branches on the roof, and several power outages mixed in with the underlying pandemic situation.  The nice thing is that none of this actually slowed my progress on the next Harry Potter doll: Cho Chang.  However, Cho's makeover process did plenty to slow itself down!  I'll tell you the whole story, of course.

I added Cho to my mix of Hogwarts girls because I really like this character from the books and movies, and also because I had a re-pour Pearl head on my hands that I was excited to use:

My Twinn re-pour Pearl head.
I got this head on eBay for a pretty high price, but I felt it was worth the money because the mold is so rare and beautiful.

The head arrived with a lot of dark smudges all over it, but these seemed superficial:


I paired the head with a nice Denver body that I got for a great deal.  The only down side of this match was that the body came with a lovely Wendy head still attached to it!


As reluctant as I was to separate Wendy from her body, this body was the best match I could for the Pearl head.


If you look closely, though, you can see that it wasn't actually a very good match.  I was hoping that adding paint to the Pearl head would make the colors more compatible, but that was probably naive.


In the end, none of this actually mattered.

I cleaned off the head and then tried to insert the brown glass eyes that I'd chosen for Cho.  They didn't fit.  They weren't even close to fitting.  I made sure the head was as soft as possible, and I tried and tried to get the eyes pushed into place, but they were simply too big.

I know that these re-pour heads can be smaller than the originals, but still.  Usually glass eyes slide in with absolutely no trouble at all.  This was strange.

After I gave up on the glass eyes, I noticed some discoloration at the edge of the right eye socket--a little bit of white caused by the vinyl being stretched by the eyes.  The discoloration wasn't too obvious (and I'm stubborn) so I persisted.

I got out a pair of brown acrylic eyes because they seemed slightly smaller than the glass eyes.  I was hopeful that these eyes might magically fit into the sockets, but I should have known better.  They were even worse than the glass eyes.

In fact, trying to push these eyes into the sockets caused actual, irreversible damage:


Not only is there a tear at the outer corner of the eye, but there are several micro cracks all around it, too--like the vinyl was crumbling.  

I'll often get a small tear at the corner of the eye during eye swapping procedures, but in a Denver doll these tears are very self-contained and elastic.  They don't look crumbly and they don't radiate away from the eye.

Also, this kind of eye socket crack in a Denver doll would shrink back down when the eye was in place or after the eye had been removed.  However, in the Pearl head, the cracks remained just as large even when there was no longer any stress on the socket:


This kind of damage is a deal-breaker for me.  There's no way I can sell a doll with an eye socket that looks like this and might disintegrate over time.

So, I had to pick a new doll to be Cho Chang.  This was great news for Wendy (who gets to keep her body!) but difficult because I didn't have any more Asian face molds to pick from.  The Asian heads (Pearl, Berkeley, Micale, Cai) are quite rare and hard to find--especially at prices that I can afford.

I looked at some pictures of Katie Leung (the actor who portrays Cho in the Harry Potter movies), scrutinized my collection of available dolls, and settled on this girl:


She's a pale-skinned Teresa from 2011.


Teresa might not seem like a very obvious choice for Cho, I'll admit.  But I knew that I didn't have another doll with eyes like Katie Leung's, so I focused on trying to match her beautiful, full lips instead.


The Teresa mold has distinctive lips and a really nice overall shape:


This doll was in decent condition, too, with a sturdy body and well-matched head and limbs.

Her cloth torso has very few picks:



But she was pretty dirty and scuffed:


And her 2011 body has some squeaks in the armature (especially in the arms), which surprised me.  I think of the Denver dolls as being more squeaky than the post-Denver girls.


The biggest problem with Cho's body was that it had a powerfully musty, mildew-like odor.  Yuck. 

This doll came from an eBay seller who has great dolls to offer at great prices...but they're all moldy.  I've purchased several of these girls and all of them are currently in various stages of decontamination.

Cho's head had quite a few issues, too.  Her eyes had turned bright pink:


There was a lot of dirt (and mold) stuck into her facial crevices:


There was gash running from just under the right eyebrow all of the way down towards the cheek:


And there was some missing lip paint:


The first thing I did with Cho was to remove her head and disassemble her body.

The foam core of her body didn't come apart as nicely as some of the Denver bodies do, perhaps because Cho isn't as old as a Denver doll, or perhaps just because the My Twinn company was using a stronger glue for the bodies in 2011.

In any case, once the body was disassembled, I washed the foam core with bleach two times and soaked the rest of the body in a bleach solution for about 20 minutes.  I let everything sit outside on my deck in the sun until it was dry, and then I moved the body pieces inside to dry for another several days.  There's no hint of a musty smell on this body anymore.

I also lubricated Cho's armature with some WD-40.  The squeaking in her arms is better than it was, but it's still noticeable.

While all of that was going on I was also working on the head:


Here's another peek at the damage over the right eye:


And here's a look at the eye itself (after the eyelashes were removed):

Spooky!
I'd love to know what color that eye used to be!  Brown, perhaps?

The lips weren't missing a lot of paint, but I wanted to re-paint them anyway:


I gave Cho's head a thorough cleaning (with bleach, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, and lots of soap and water):


Next, I inserted the brown glass eyes--admittedly feeling a bit nervous that they wouldn't fit into the sockets!

They fit perfectly:


These are German Lauscha glass eyes.  They're not quite as nice as the Hand Glass Craft eyes, but they also cost half as much ($40).  They have a bit more iris detail than the pictures show.

With the eyes safely in place, I shifted my attention to the gouged vinyl.

I sanded the damaged areas and was able to lessen their appearance, but could not completely remove the marks: 


I also stripped away all of the factory paint so that I could have a fresh start:


The first thing I wanted to do was see if I could paint some shading around Cho's eyes to make them look more like Katie Leung's eyes.

I used watercolor pencil to outline the shape I wanted:


And then I filled in that shape with grey paint:


Here's a closer look:


I don't think this was very effective.  Looking at it now, I think I should have only shaded the upper eyelids.  In any case, the effect is extremely subtle with the eyelashes in place, so it's not a big deal either way.

I moved on to painting Cho's lips:



And I gave her some new blush:


I made an attempt to replicate the shape of Katie Leung's eyebrows by tracing in their rough shape with watercolor pencil...


And then filling in the details with acrylics:


Here's the completed head:


Withe a close-up of one eyebrow:


At this point I reassembled Cho's freshly-cleaned body.  Because the foam core didn't come apart smoothly, gluing it back together was a bit of a hassle.  As a result, some of the seams feel hard because of the amount of glue I had to use.  This is not a big deal, but I wanted to mention it.

I used small stitches to re-sew Cho's back seam:


While I was photographing the back seam, I also documented a few of the picks and snags in the cloth torso:



Cho also has some lingering ink marks on her toenails (and even more subtle marks on her fingernails).  I think she was given some ballpoint pen nail polish at one point!


After reattaching Cho's head to her body, I gave her some new black eyelashes and a silky black Dollmore wig.

As I was attaching the eyelashes, I noticed a very small shiny spot on the bridge of Cho's nose.  This is most visible when looking down on her face from above.  It's hard to photograph:


Here she is with the lashes and wig in place:


I'm not sure how Asian she looks, but she's a pretty doll.  She reminds me of Deanna Troi from Star Trek.

Finally, it was time for Cho to get ready for Hogwarts!  In the books, Cho is a year older than Harry and is the seeker for Ravenclaw house.  I was delighted to set aside my Gryffindor yarn colors and knit a new variety of sweater!

Here's sweet Cho:


I chose this Dollmore Forest Straight wig for Cho because the bangs are not as heavy/poofy as they are on all of the Monique wigs.

This is a lovely, silky-smooth wig that hangs down past Cho's waist:


The hair is fine, without much body, but it hangs beautifully, brushes out nicely, and is fun to play with.




Cho's sweater vest came out a little tighter around the neck than Ginny and Hermione's sweaters, but it can still be pulled off over her head.

Here's what the uniform looks like underneath:



With Ginny and Hermione, I never bothered to show you the vest that originally came with this outfit, so here's Cho modeling the vest that Carole made:


It's very attractive and closes down the back with velcro for easy dressing.  

All of my Harry Potter dolls will come with this vest and the one that I knitted so that you can swap them out or choose your favorite.

Here's Cho back in her knitted vest:


There's not much that can be done to style this wig differently, but the bangs can be pushed to one side:



I also tried putting the hair in ponytails because I thought it would be cute.

It is cute...


...but the wig isn't really designed for ponytails and so the wig cap shows quite a bit in the back!


Still, this style looks nice from the front:



It's tricky to clip Cho's fine hair back at the sides, but I like how she looks with one tiny decorative clip:


The bangs can also be parted in the middle to show off the eyebrows, but this works better with gravity helping to hold the hair in place!



Here are a few more picture of Cho running around and showing off her silky wig!






I got to the point where I was ready to shoot Cho's portrait...


...and then I noticed two things that bothered me.  Maybe you've noticed one of them already.

The first thing is fairly obvious, but I didn't see it until I was looking at these pictures: Cho's right eye looks much bigger than her left eye.  You can see it in the portrait, above, but it's especially clear in this shot:

Super-wonk.
Part of this is because the Teresa face mold does not have symmetrical eyes.  But Cho also had one eyelash that didn't match--either it wasn't glued in correctly or the lash wasn't a good match for its partner in the first place.

The other little thing I noticed was that Cho's wig wasn't symmetric--it was glued on slightly twisted to one side.  This is hard to point out in any specific picture, but I noticed that the hair didn't hang as well on the right side of her face as it did on the left.  Maybe that's why most of my previous pictures are taken from the left side!

You can kind of see the asymmetry here, where the right side of the wig doesn't look as full:


So...I took Cho back into my workroom and replaced her right upper eyelash:


I think it's easiest to appreciate this change with a GIF.  The bangs move in this comparison, which isn't ideal, but try to focus only on Cho's right eye.  The before shot is marked with a "B," after with an "A."


I like the eye much better now!

Next, I removed the wig and re-glued it.  This change is really hard to appreciate in photos, but here's another GIF anyway:


So, this is Cho's official portrait!


And here's the most important GIF--the full makeover transformation:


After I fixed the wig and the eyelash, I found Cho much easier to photograph from different angles!



She doesn't have a "bad side" anymore, which is a relief.


At this point I felt like I had already photographed Cho quite a lot, but I wanted to take a few more pictures of her with the wig and eyes in their current state.




Rather than getting tired of the camera, Cho seemed to be having a lot of fun with this session!




I like these last two shots of her the best:



I almost threw in the towel on this character after I ruined the Pearl head.  I could easily have done a three doll series with just Hermione, Ginny and Luna.  But I like the Cho character (especially her Scottish accent in the movies!) and I liked the idea of making another Asian doll...although I'm not sure how successfully I managed to do that in the end.

Switching from the Pearl head to a musty, dirty, red-eyed, non-Denver Teresa was certainly an odd choice, but I really like working with this face mold.  I've only had the chance to repaint one other Teresa, and she was also a joy.  The features on this face are refreshingly distinct and I find them very appealing.  So, even if I didn't end up with a perfect representation of Cho Chang, I think she's a pretty doll with lovely glass eyes and a sweet smile.

Here's a summary of all the work that was done on Cho:
-her head was removed and her body was disassembled
-her foam core was washed in the washing machine (twice) using bleach
-her fabric torso was soaked in a bleach solution and then washed and rinsed thoroughly
-her vinyl limbs were cleaned with bleach, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, and soap
-her body was reassembled
-her old eyes were removed
-her head was washed, bleached, and scrubbed with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser
-a gouge near her right eye was sanded down (it is still visible)
-her factory paint was stripped away
-she was given new dark brown Lauscha glass eyes from Germany
-her face was repainted including lips, blush, eyebrows, and small shadows at the corners of her eyes
-she was given new eyelashes
-she was given a new black Dollmore wig
-she is dressed in a simple Hogwarts uniform that includes a blouse, tie, vest, and skirt from Doll Clothes by Carole.  I have added black tights, black shoes, and a knitted vest

Cho's flaws are that she has a sanded gouge over her right eye, a very small shiny spot on the top of her nose, squeaky arms, faint ink marks on her toenails, and various small scuffs, shiny spots, and picks on the rest of her body.  I also think that her wig--while silky and smooth--is a little funny in the bang region.  The bangs extend into the longer hair.  She is from 2011 and is not a Denver doll.

Cho has a lovely, serene presence that calms me amidst the storms--literal and figurative--that are swirling through Maine (and the rest of the world) at the moment.

I hope this post finds all of you healthy and sane.  Cho has sold!  Thank you.

20 comments:

  1. Lovely transformation! I love my Teresa (and her prosthetic finger!!!) Happy to see you working on another mold of her. : ). -Micah

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    1. Thank you so much, Micah! Isn't it a lovely face mold? I wish these dolls were easier to find because I adore painting them. I hope your Teresa's finger is holding up!

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    2. I love the spirit in it! And her finger is as good as new even now, thank you! -Micah

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  2. I think you managed to pull her off quite nicely! Harry Potter fans should have no trouble recognizing who she is, even without an Asian facemold. If you want to attempt an Asian face in the future on a similar doll, I would suggest using air-dry clay to alter the eyelids... you would probably have no issue achieving a hooded effect, even though skin-matching the correct paint shade would be rough!

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    1. Hi Breanne, that's an excellent suggestion, but I fear that you put your finger on exactly what my problem would be: matching the paint! I struggle with this when I'm making replacement fingers. Still, it's a compelling thing for me to thing about for future projects. I've seen some really cute elf ears on My Twinn dolls and would love to try something like that one day! :) Thank you for the suggestion!

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  3. If I may ask, what is a "repour" head? Is it a reproduction made from the original molds? An extra head from the Denver era? Also, did whoever you bought it from totally rip you off? Because I don't think you ruined the head, I think the head was bad to begin with - but I also don't know what one would expect from such a head, so my indignation may not be well-founded. XDX

    I definitely see the resemblance to Counselor Troi. Maybe that should be your next series - Troi, Crusher (a redhead!), Janeway, Kira (you'd have to do the nose wrinkles with paint? IDK, maybe not her), Dax (freckles! sort of!), Uhura, Chapel, Michael and Tilly (another redhead!) from Discovery, Seven without her implants. (What, me, a Trekkie? Nooooooo....)

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    1. Hi lurkins! Yes, you got it exactly right--a repour is a reproduction head. After the My Twinn company closed, the factory in China used some of the molds (especially the rare ones) to make extra heads. The vinyl is definitely not of the same quality as the regular My Twinn dolls, especially not the Denver dolls. So... I knew that there were risks involved, but I'd had really good luck with the two other repour heads I bought, so I decided to take a chance. It's not the seller's fault at all. And it's not my fault, either, it's just what can happen with eye swapping and bad vinyl.

      Eeee! We are *total* Trekkies in this house! Just finished Picard last week and have started Discovery (I'd love to make a Tilly doll!!!), but our hearts are very much with Next Generation. It would be SO FUN to do a Star Trek series! There's a Beverly Crusher My Twinn doll on Etsy right now who is fantastic. Nora from Sew Unique Dolls made her. :)

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    2. Is there any way to save the head? Can you fill the cracks in with epoxy or something? :/

      I looked up the doll and she's pretty adorable - she even has a tiny tricorder. XD I haven't seen Picard yet, since I've been watching the new Treks with a friend who has CBS All Access, and... obviously that's right out for now. My major complaint with Discovery is the Klingon redesign - but so long as I just think of them as a new species, it's fine, lol.

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  4. I love this transformation. She looks like a porcelain doll. I like to think you'll be able to reengineer the first head into another project.

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    1. Thank you so much, BlackKitty! I do like her complexion with that hair and those big eyes. I assumed that the Pearl head was a lost cause, but Breanne's suggestion, above, makes me think perhaps there's something that could be done with air dry clay?? We'll see. :)

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    2. Here's more food for thought. Someone described fixing a missing nose on a Barbie like this: she made a mould from a mould making set (two compounds mixed together, but I think hot glue could work in a pinch) and set it over a head with the same sculpt to get an imprint of the missing parts. She powdered the inside and filled it with household silicone, pressed to the mangled face, wiped the excess and let it set. I thought it was an ingenious idea because the result would be soft and flexible like the rest of the face, but I came across this tutorial after I fixed my own Barbie with epoxy putty, which was very difficult to make seamless.

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    3. This sounds a lot like what I do with missing fingers! And I still have a little bit of my molding materials left (although they've been discontinued so I can't get more). I think that the compound I use to mold new fingers could be used to mend Pearl's eye cracks, but then I still have the problem of the sockets being too small for any of my eyes. I could remove the pate and glue the eyes in from the back, I suppose, but I really dislike that process because it involves super-strong (stinky) glue and then I worry about the long term durability of the eyes. *Sigh*
      Maybe I'm still in a defeatist mood right now? ;D But it is definitely a shame to lose a Pearl head. I truly appreciate your input!!

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    4. I did the pate kind of eye replacement on both a MyTwinn and an AG doll before. The AG doll I was able to only partially cut the back of her head open and lift up the vinyl like a flap! (That sounds icky in and out of context).

      Anyway-what I did was cut an x in the back of the eye sockets, and peel back/remove only two pieces of the resulting pie. (So two empty parts of the x and two filled in, mirrored)

      This helped hold the eyes in without glue!

      The process is both intensive and traumatic in my opinion, but I was too nervous to try a normal frontal swap on the MyTwinn, and the AG doll was a Kaya that gave me too much trouble during her eyeswap. (I use the boiling water poured into the head method for AG dolls, which I have eyeswapped more than my fair share of.)

      Just in case you ever go that route! - Micah

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  5. I was so happy to see the Pearl head...and utterly devastated when I saw the cracks! D: But I think you did a creditable job with Cho and I'm glad you didn't give up on her.

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    1. Oh, I know, Esther! I was really sad, too. In fact, I debated leaving out the whole Pearl chapter of this story in my blog post (why do all of you have to suffer that disappointment, too?) but I always like to tell everything. Can't help myself! ;D
      Thank you for your kind words. I like this Cho more and more each day--as my vision of how she would have looked with the Pearl face fades away.

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    2. Oh no, I think I speak for everyone when I say I really love the fact you do include the "failures" of a project. Gives each doll so much more character that we know her full story and really shows how much heart goes into each one of them.

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  6. Thank you very much, Linda! I like your avatar :)

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  7. I think she turned out lovely, I especially love the wig. And I'm still amazed by your knitting job <3

    Another fixing recommendation for the lovely Pearl: you could try sanding down/carving the eye socket (with an exacto knife and a rotary tool) - for both eyes, to create matching shapes). This would change the appearance of the eye socket's shape and thus the overall appearance of the face, but at least it would resolve the issue, moreover, the bigger socket size would probably allow you to add new eyes easier.

    I'm talking like a pro here - unfortuantely I am not. I have never tried this, but I know it is a technique used in certain doll collector/customiser communities, probably it's most commonly seen on Blythes. I still don't really have a thing for Blythes, but I usually find that when I find a pic of a Blythe that's appealing or standing out to me, it almost always turns out that it's because the doll's face has been carved, changing the appearance. I know Blythes have a hard plastic head, but I've definitely seen this done also to soft plastic dolls (even to the point where people can create eye sockets for dolls that originally came with painted eyes). The process certainly doesn't seem easy, but if you have the equipment, probably it might be worth giving it a chance - I know how you like salvaging everything that is possible, and it would be a shame to let this cute head go, epsecially considering you got her at a relatively high price. I also believe you've got the skills, maybe it's the best opportunity to try a new technique out :)

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    1. Hi Loona! I've sanded and/or used a Dremel on a few eye sockets in my day, and it works pretty well for small cracks, but there was something about these cracks that made me feel really insecure about the whole head, like the vinyl was just crumbly and no good. But you're absolutely right--in Pearl's case the larger sockets would be a huge bonus since the eyes didn't fit.
      You've given me a good idea for the future, though: as lame as it might sound, I get a little tired of painting certain faces over and over again, so it would be really fun to try and carve out some slightly different features on a doll with a common face! Maybe I should spend some time looking at Blythe mods to see what is possible? I find this really exciting. Thank you! :)

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    2. Hi Emily! Ah, I'm sad to hear those further details about this particular head and the crack :( I still hope you'll find a way to salvage her - if not for sale, at least for your personal collection :)
      And I'm so happy to hear I've managed to offer some sort of inspiration! You totally don't sound lame: any given/fixed feature will limit your possibilities, and will hinder your creativity after a while. I remember hearing and reading Monster High repaint artists complaining about the "reboot" dolls' more prominent molded features limiting their possibilities in creating a more unique face-up. I imagine this must be even worse and limiting with a doll where you don't paint the eyes, only the area around it&the rest of the face.
      I'll be looking forward to see your creations if you decide to try this sort of customisation out on a MyTwinn! :)

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