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.