Liriel

I feel like in every collection I put together, there's a troublemaker: a doll whose makeover has a bunch of rough patches.  The Ariel repaints had been going so smoothly, I suppose I should have been anticipating some trouble at this stage...and yet it always manages to take me by surprise.

Meet my latest troublemaker, a 2002 Ariel with a beautiful skin tone and the hint of a smile:

2002 My Twinn doll with the Ariel face.

The ironic thing is that I named this girl Liriel before I even started working on her, and the name Liriel means "perfection." 

She turned out far from perfect, but let's go back and start from the beginning.

My whole idea with this doll was to try and bring out the smile in the Ariel face mold.  It's not one of the happier faces (it can even look a little sad sometimes), but I thought I could emphasize the cheeriness.

She looks like she could be happy, right?

Liriel came to me in decent shape, but she had a broken neck, a messy wig, and a lot of picks and snags on her cloth torso:

The cause for the loose head was pretty obvious once I opened the body: there was very little glue between the neck joint and the vinyl head.  Sadly, it looked like most of the glue had, instead, leaked down under the neck joint and onto the foam body.  It took me quite a while to clean all of the old glue away from the armature and foam.

I don't know if it was because of the glue leakage or not, but Liriel still has some limited mobility in her neck.  She doesn't look downward quite as well on her right side as on her left.  It's not a huge problem, but it's still worth noting.

Here's a look at some of the picks and snags on the front of her body:

The snagging on her back is much worse, and unfortunately there's nothing I can do to fix this:

Liriel's face was in good shape, with a just a scuff on her nose and a lot of dirt:

Underneath some mangled eyelashes, Liriel's original eye color was a pretty yellow-green, but the scleras were grey:

I removed Liriel's head (super-easy given that it was completely detached...) and took her into my workroom:

I removed the matted wig and plucked off the eyelashes:

This revealed a few more blemishes, like some white scratches across the left eye area:

And some loss of color and definition in the bottom of the (very dirty) left iris:

Here's a closer look at the scuff on the tip of Liriel's nose:

I also found a new blemish in between her eyes.  This one looks like a scratch from a mini cat!

Many dolls with the Ariel face mold have their mouths painted with exaggerated points in the bow of the upper lip.  Liriel was no exception:

I gave Liriel's head a thorough washing, which did a good job of removing all of the white scuff marks:

I stripped the original paint away and removed the old eyes.

After I sanded the scratches on Liriel's face (a step that apparently I did not photograph) I found a small dark spot on the tip of her nose, so I applied the tiniest little bit of Remove-Zit to that area:

Once the spot had faded and the vinyl had recovered, I sealed the face and got ready for some new eyes!

My vision for Liriel included bright blue glass eyes, so I gave her this lovely pair from Hand Glass Craft:

The pupils on these eyes are a little large, but I still think they're beautiful.

With the eyes in place, I set about trying to make Liriel's mouth look really happy.  

To do this, I emphasized the upward curve in the mold of her mouth on the left side, and I repeated this paint pattern on the right side, even though the mold on this side does not turn upward.

Doesn't she look happy?

Um...yeah.  If anything, I made her look less happy than she was at the start.  Great.

The only way poor Liriel looks happy is if I tilt her head back and look at her from the chin upwards, like this:

Not sad, at least.

I like the color of these lips and I didn't have any better ideas for how to create a happy expression, so I abandoned the smile idea and moved on.

All of the Ariel dolls in this collection have basically the same skin tone, but there are small variations from doll to doll.  Liriel has the palest skin tone in this group, so I tried to keep a very light hand with her blush:

I also knew that I wanted to give Liriel a pale wig, so I painted her eyebrows using a very light brown:

This layer of paint didn't show up very well...

...so I painted on top of the brown with a whiter shade: 

Here's a closer look:

I chose a ZaZou Custom wig for Liriel (the platinum Caroline wig), but this wig has the same length and curl pattern as the Meredith wig that I used for Sari.  I didn't want both dolls to have exactly the same long, curly hair, so I straightened the Caroline wig with a boil wash.

I paired this wig with some blonde lashes, and figured I was done:

Not what I had been imagining.

I wasn't thrilled with the result.  I couldn't really put my finger on why, though.

So, forging ahead, I dressed Liriel, made her a necklace, and took 500 pictures of her.

Once I got the pictures onto my computer and started looking through them, though, I realized that Liriel's eyebrows made her look angry...and were also pretty lopsided (her right brow is much higher than her left).  On top of that, her wig was set too high on her head.

Bummer.

I took Liriel back into my workroom so that I could re-paint her eyebrows and re-set her wig.  I've never done this kind of modification on a doll after the eyelashes were in place, and it was tricky!

I used the same colors for the second set of eyebrows, but I changed the shape a little bit:

Here's a GIF of the change in Liriel from the first repaint to the second:

I think that the lower hairline and less severe eyebrow shape give her a brighter look.

While we're in GIF mode, I might as well show you the final transformation GIF, too:

Liriel certainly looks less frazzled now, but she doesn't look any happier.  Maybe it's not possible to dramatically change the expression in the mouth without using darker or more opaque lip paint?  I'd love to know if any of you artists have tips for how to achieve a successful expression change!

The other frustrating thing about Liriel is that her pale hair and face paint made her extremely difficult to photograph.  My camera wanted to make all of the pictures super-dark, so I had to enhance the exposure manually.

Anyway--enough complaining.  Here are some pictures of Liriel:

She's wearing a rose pink satin sash and a pink ("tourmaline") October birthstone necklace:

The Caroline wig is really long and silky-smooth after being straightened:

I'm not sure I'm crazy about this wig, though.  It's a platinum blonde color, and despite what it looks like in some of my pictures, it has very little golden blonde in it.  It's white blonde, with some greenish hues in certain lighting situations.  I think that the picture, above, is pretty accurate.

I tried this wig on Liriel when it was still curly, too, and I definitely prefer it when it's straight.  It's less pageant-like and really fun to play with!

Clips don't work for Liriel's straight hair as well as they work for some of the more curly-haired girls, but I think they look nice when they're right at the front of her head:

I also like how her pale hair looks with a flash of color, so she'll also come with this pink rhinestone clip:

Despite the strange way that Liriel impacts the exposure on my camera, I ended up taking a ton of pictures of her.  I think I was just trying to get her to smile!

I tried every angle I could think of, and Liriel is definitely at her happiest when she's looking upward a little bit--and when she's seen from her left side:

Happy or not, let's see how Liriel measures up to my other Ariel dolls.  Here's the cumulative GIF:

I think Liriel might be the most typical-looking of all the Ariels, but she has a bit of a different vibe from the other girls.

Liriel's coloring takes on a completely different feel when she's outside in the natural light:

Her hair looks much more yellow, and the detail in her eyes is so pretty!

We went outside on a slightly cloudy day.  Liriel went hunting around the yard for flowers, but could only find blooms that had gone to seed:

When she found this magnificent seed cluster, I suggested that she blow it and make a wish!

She ended up wishing for the sun to come out...

And it worked!

When all of the seeds had been blown away, though, the sun retreated back behind the clouds.

I was happy about this, since a shady day is better for photography.

And we still got a glint of sun here and there:

I love how Liriel looks against this brownish-pink mossy background:

In the comments section of Cassiel's post, I mentioned that, since all of these girls have angel-like names, perhaps I should have leaned into the angel theme a bit more.  Dr. Jones suggested I add halos and wings!

This sounded like a fun idea, so I ordered some inexpensive feather wings and some fairy light wires...and I made Liriel wings and a halo!

The wings hook into the velcro of the dress, and the battery pack for the halo tucks into the ribbon sash.

These accessories aren't anything special, but I thought they might be a fun addition for anybody who wants them.  I would just recommend not leaving the halo lights on when the doll is left alone.  Reviews suggest that the lights are safe, but I'd hate it if they started a fire or singed a wig!

The wings are small and want to disappear behind all of Liriel's hair (they won't show very well on the girls with long, curly hair), but tying the hair back helps a lot:

The halo is really fun to use in photographs! 

Nothing about Liriel's makeover process turned out the way I'd envisioned it, and so it's been hard for me to look at her and see anything but failed efforts.  However, I'll admit that by the time I was photographing her outside and trying on her angel accessories, I was beginning to feel some real affection for this girl.  She has a bit of an ethereal, elfin quality that brings to mind fictional characters like Daenerys or Galadriel.

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

-her head was removed from her body and all vinyl parts were thoroughly cleaned

-old glue residue from around the neck joint was removed

-the wig, eyelashes and eyes were removed

-the head was cleaned with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and all remaining factory paint was stripped away

-scuffs on the face were sanded down

-her face was sealed with Mr. Super Clear

-she was given new D400 glass eyes from Hand Glass Craft

-her face was repainted, including lips, blush, and eyebrows

-she was given new blonde eyelashes

-she is wearing a straightened platinum blonde wig from ZaZou Custom Dolls

-her eyebrows were re-painted after an asymmetry was observed and her wig was re-set

-she is wearing a white peasant-style dress from Doll Clothes by Carole.  The dress is accented with a pink satin sash and a matching crystal birthstone necklace

-she will come with optional angel wings and a light-up halo

Liriel's cloth torso is covered with picks and snags and she has a small bit of glue residue near her neckline.  She also has slightly limited mobility in her neck joint, but can still strike most poses.  She has some very mild squeaking in her armature.  Otherwise, she has only minor scuffs and shiny marks from being old.  I do not recommend leaving the fairy light halo turned on for extended periods of time or when the doll is left alone.

I've long-since forgiven Liriel for her makeover shenanigans, but it's definitely time to move on!  Next up will be the non-Denver giveaway Ariel, and then I'll finish this collection with the doll that I'm the most excited about.  Be back soon (I hope)!