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uberwekkness posted:Took the plunge and got a doll! I won a gift card at work, so I figured nothing was holding me back. The glitter on her face comes off with acetone, but you can replace it with a mixture of glitter and sealant. Anyway, congratulations! Abbey is a lovely doll. Oh, by the way, what hair are you planning on giving her? I've rerooted about a dozen Monster High dolls, and I love seeing what people can come up with. They're so customizable. sunsweet fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Nov 13, 2012 |
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Nov 13, 2012 04:00
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uberwekkness posted:A little embarrassing, but I was thinking of trying to make her into an FFIX Shiva. Aww, that's not embarrassing at all! If it makes you feel any better, my very first custom attempt was an Andorian girl from Star Trek. I didn't have the good sense to start with a blue-skinned doll, though. What I do when I'm changing the part is get some small straight pins, stick them wherever I want them, and then heat them up with a hairdryer for a couple of minutes. You probably don't even have to heat them up; you could just let them sit in the doll's head overnight.
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Nov 14, 2012 00:50
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Little Miss RKO posted:Take sun's advice over mine. She's done this a ton more, and her reroots look good! You are basically my best customer, so I think you're a bit biased. Not that I specifically mind, though! Here are my last two Monster High reroots, if anyone's interested. My hair colour choices are a bit tame, in general, but I like how they've turned out. I'll admit right now that I'm rather rubbish at cutting hair, though. The first is a Rochelle Goyle doll. She was rooted with Foxglove Lavender and Silver Bullet saran in the front, and the back is a mixture of Phthalo and Midnight Blue saran.  The second is an Operetta doll. She was rooted with Golden Blond on the top and 24k Blond underneath.  My advice to anyone buying a Monster High doll to repaint but not to reroot is this: avoid getting a doll with curly hair, like Lagoona Blue or Operetta. Unless you plan on never touching the hair and leaving in all the thick, crusty gel that Mattel uses, curly hair just turns into a frizzled mess almost immediately. The quality of the saran used on curly haired dolls is a lot lower than that of their other dolls. You might also avoid getting a doll with tinsel in their hair, like Abbey Bominable or Cleo de Nile. Again, if you plan on doing anything at all with their hair, the tinsel's going to fray and break and end up looking shoddy. Lastly, the werecat dolls (Toralei, Purrsephone, and Meowlody) (what names these things have!) have stripes just painted onto their hair, and those will wash out immediately. You could simply paint them back on, of course. I would say that the dolls with the best hair right from the factory are Ghoulia Yelps and Spectra. I've read that Mattel uses kanekalon for their hair. It's very soft and luxurious, so I believe it.
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Nov 15, 2012 15:17
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Wow, those are gorgeous, Sunsweet. I also admire your photography skills. Thank you! I don't feel like I'm super good with most creative outlets, but doll photography is pretty fun for me. I have a flickr, if you want to see more of my reroots and the like: http://www.flickr.com/photos/j_leoriane/ Monster High dolls are really lovely to work with. They're inexpensive enough that you can play around with customising them in any way you want, and also popular enough that people will buy your customised dolls that turn out less than stellar. 
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Nov 16, 2012 01:51
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Avalinka posted:- How do I get rid of the gel in her fringe? It's crunchy and weird. I just use my own shampoo (and conditioner) to wash doll hair. It's unlikely that you'll damage the face-up this way. You could always just use plain water, and I've read that some people just brush it out. How much of her hair is looped? I'm not too sure what to tell you, in honesty; I'm sincerely not that good at styling hair. Little Miss RKO might have an idea of how to remedy it or better hide it, though.
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Nov 20, 2012 14:40
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CRAlvery posted:Are the re-rooters using Katsilk? Is Restore-doll still The Place to get it? Katsilk is just saran, which I personally always use. I've never purchased hair from restoredoll. I get my hair from dollyhair, and so far, I haven't had any problems with ordering from there.
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Nov 21, 2012 15:34
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MalaInSe posted:I have really enjoyed reading this thread. My daughter is 10 and loves dolls, including Monster High. I would love to get her some this Christmas, including a kit and a custom torso from someone that makes them. I sew and I think that making clothes would be a good activity for the two of us to do together. The quandary is that we stopped getting Monster High dolls shortly after they came out because some were extremely fragile. Can anyone tell me if the quality has improved? From what I've noticed with my recent purchases, the overall quality of the line is on a bit of a decline -- it's a bit harder to find a doll now with a properly painted face as well as a full head of hair. They are built a bit more sturdy these days than they used to be, at least. The legs used to be held in place with elastic, but now they're held in with a plastic rod. The hands are harder to pull out of the arms, and the lower arms stay in the doll reasonably well. The dolls in the Create-a-Monster kits are usually fairly good and sturdy due to the nature of their design. They're made to come together and pull apart fairly easily, but they won't fall apart during simple play (unless your child were to violently throw it against the wall or something). The thing about them is that the wigs that come with them are notoriously poor quality. In my experience, the basic versions of the main character dolls (the ones that come with little pets) are usually the best quality versions of each doll, as far as hair and face-ups are concerned. I haven't noticed a difference in body sturdiness between the budget dolls and the more spendy ones.
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Dec 9, 2012 16:52
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tFUCKINGmesis posted:Unfortunately, the basic versions of many of the dolls have become rare enough that at the moment, you're simply not going to find one for a reasonable price. Sometimes I find old basics at my Walmart; it's like they find old Draculauras or whatever in the warehouse every so often and put them out on the shelves. I managed to find a basic Abbey last week. I'm sure it's different depending on your area and how frequently they go through their inventory. Then again, to this day I have still never seen Toralei in person, so some dolls are more rare than others.
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Dec 13, 2012 04:03
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Casca posted:Is Toralei really rare or something? I have one sitting in my closet that I picked up from Walmart last year on a whim. I'd had vague notions of sending her off to be customized but never got round to it. There weren't too many of her made -- she's not quite the rarest Monster High doll, but a new one in the box usually goes for at least twice the original retail cost of $20 if you look on eBay. She goes for $113 on amazon, which is just insane. From what I've observed, they tend to make a lot of certain dolls and not very many of other dolls. Basically all of the male dolls are harder to find, for this reason. Spectra, Abbey, CA Cupid, and Toralei were all notoriously hard to find when they first came out. They've made more of the others since then (other versions at the very least), but there's only been the one release of Toralei.
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Dec 13, 2012 04:51
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If anyone actually decides to reroot any Monster High dolls (or any other dolls), you should know that dollyhair has become very, very unreliable in a short amount of time. Starting at around the end of November, orders have been shorted or shipped to the wrong places, and there has been zero e-mail response from dollyhair. I myself had one hank of hair completely left out of my last order. The order before that, I paid for a medium-length hank and received a short-length hank instead. They also combined shipping on two of my orders without refunding the difference to me. So! Here are some alternatives that are hopefully more reliable. I have yet to order from any of these, but I plan on trying them all out soon. http://www.restoredoll.com/ -- Restoredoll is dollyhair's main US-based competitor, and "katsilk" is just saran hair. http://www.mylittlecustoms.com/ -- My Little Customs is UK-based, but they do offer worldwide shipping. http://retrodollsus.weebly.com/ -- Retro Dolls US is a much smaller operation than any of the others, but their prices are comparable to dollyhair. I have to express how disappointed I am with dollyhair's sudden decline. I've been ordering from them for months, and I've never had an issue. Tina, the owner, has been quite friendly in the past and quick to respond to my e-mails. I'm not sure what happened, exactly. The handwriting on the bags of hair changed right around when all of these issues started, so it would seem that they had a new hire. A new hire that apparently destroyed their business 
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Dec 27, 2012 16:24
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tFUCKINGmesis posted:What is the best kind of hair to use for rerooting dolls like Monster Highs, anyway? I've been googling around a little and people do not seem to like kanekalon very much. I'm also hearing good things about saran in general, but I feel like I can't be sure. I've only ever used saran hair, and I like it fine. It's soft, withstands very hot water (which is kind of essential if you're going to set a really permanent part), and styles easily. I don't personally know what the issue would be with doll-grade kanekalon. At any rate, saran is really easy to work with, and it looks in scale with the doll. Mattel uses both saran and kanekalon on Monster High dolls -- for example, Lagoona has saran hair and Spectra/Ghoulia both have kanekalon.
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Dec 27, 2012 22:40
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uberwekkness posted:So is it one hank of hair for one doll head, or what? The reroot I'm planning needs multiple colors anyway, but I've been curious. Each website sells a different amount of hair per hank, so I can only speak to what dollyhair sold. With them, one hank would get you fairly decent coverage on a Monster High doll (provided you're doing a simple part), but if you wanted a thick head of hair, you would definitely need to get a second hank and use part of that. The next time I get some hair, I'm ordering from restoredoll. I have read that restoredoll gives you more hair per hank.
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Jan 2, 2013 15:32
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Lassarina posted:I have been having problems with Dollyhair every time I try to use her. It takes about 2 months to get anything at all, and the last time I ordered, I didnt receive the mohair I ordered at all. I dont know if the problem is that she is trying to do all of this herself or what, but she definitely has a "I dont give a gently caress" attitude about her transactions, either with the way she responds to email or with how she handles shipping. After reading about dollyhair's recent issues on other forums, it just seems to be luck of the draw when it comes to your order not being messed up. Going by what others have said, it seems that Tina (the owner) always manages to have convenient excuses -- she blames problems with orders on assistants that no longer work there. According to her, the business is basically just her and an assistant working out of an office. Despite the incredible volume of orders she gets, she apparently can't afford to hire a second assistant. I still haven't heard back from her about my order, and I wrote her three times last month. Running a small business is difficult, and life gets in the way, especially around the holidays. That said, if she can't take a day to respond to customer e-mails while taking the time to defend herself repeatedly on other forums, she deserves to lose every customer she has. I'm about to place my first order with restoredoll, and I'll be happy to post here and compare/contrast the experience.
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Jan 3, 2013 17:14
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I wanted to compare and contrast the three US-based doll hair retailers that I know are popular with rerooters and customisers, so on the 5th, I placed an order with Restoredoll and with Retro Dolls US. I also sent my fourth e-mail to Dollyhair about my incomplete order from last December. Shipping/Tracking: I received my Restoredoll order on the 10th, and my Retro Dolls US order on the 12th. I actually heard back from Dollyhair on the 7th, and they agreed to send me the missing part of my last order as well as replacing an incorrect part of a previous order that I had mentioned. I received that package on the 12th as well. All three retailers shipped via USPS First Class, and all three e-mailed me tracking information. The Hair: Having no idea how much hair I would actually receive, I ordered the standard amount from Restoredoll instead of the "large format". Retro Dolls US only offers their hair in one set amount. Dollyhair offers their hair in several different amounts, depending on the type of hair. Their saran hair comes in 8 different amounts.  Restoredoll: Plum Crazy saran I paid $5.95 for the hair, and shipping was $2.75, for a total of $8.70. The hair comes divided into two separate hanks, and weighs a total of 22 grams.  Retro Dolls US: Pink Licorice saran I paid $3.25 for the hair, and shipping was $2.99, for a total of $6.24. I received a surprise 10% the next day ("New Year's Refund"), and that knocked the price down to $5.62. The hair weighs 14 grams.  Dollyhair: Raven Black saran (medium length Barbie hank) This hank came from a previous order, but a quick calculation on Dollyhair's website tells me that ordering this alone would cost $5.00 for the hair and $1.50 for shipping, for a total of $6.50. The hair weighs 18 grams. I think that the Restoredoll order will give me enough hair to reroot one Monster High doll with a reasonably full head of hair. I'm pretty sure that the Retro Dolls US order isn't enough at all, though, unless I cut it rather short. The one hank from Dollyhair is technically enough to reroot one Monster High doll, though it will end up a lot thinner than I like my reroots to be. Overall: I'm satisfied with my order from Restoredoll. I received a decent amount of hair rather quickly! I will say that their website is terrible to navigate, and you absolutely have to look elsewhere to see how the colours they offer actually look. A good thing to do is to look on flickr or My Little Customs before ordering from any of these websites, but it's really necessary with Restoredoll. With Retro Dolls US, I didn't get as much hair I had hoped that I would. Also, at the moment, their saran selection is extremely limited due to being sold out of most colours. Originally I had tried to order some thermal saran, but it wasn't until I went to pay that I received a message saying that the colour was actually unavailable. The selection is better with other types of hair, and they offer kanekalon in some really unique and stunning colours that no one else does. I was glad to finally hear back from Dollyhair, and I appreciate that they were willing to set things right with me. I have read that the owner is going back through old e-mails now, and hopefully these recent issues won't be recurring as much. Out of the three retailers, I think I'll be ordering from Restoredoll primarily from now on. I might go back to using Dollyhair in a few months, but for now I'm content with paying a little extra to Restoredoll. sunsweet fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Jan 14, 2013 |
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Jan 12, 2013 20:47
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uberwekkness posted:I forget if I asked, but is there any particular reason saran is preferable to nylon, or vice versa? In my understanding, nylon is more stiff and doesn't lay as naturally as saran does on Monster High dolls. You get a better colour range with nylon, though, so a lot of people use it anyway. Mattel themselves tend to use either saran or kanekalon on the dolls, so maybe that has something to do with why a lot of rerooters recommend using it.
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Jan 15, 2013 15:47
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Smam posted:Any suggestions about where I might look to sell her, or have stories about trying to sell a modified bjd? I'm a babe in the woods! Etsy is good if you want to set your own price, and eBay is good if you want people to bid for it and maybe jack the price up in a bidding war. For the work you've put in, and for how lovely she looks, I wouldn't go any lower than $60. Lagoona's a fairly popular doll so you could maybe set your price up to, like, $100 or so. On etsy, you can always adjust the price according to interest. I think they're a little more reasonable after seller fees, as well. I think the one disadvantage etsy may have would be that they don't get as many visitors looking for Monster High as eBay.
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Jun 30, 2013 00:26
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tFUCKINGmesis posted:Oh, yeah, I have no trouble finding shoes for the girl dolls any more. My problem is with finding girl shoes for the boy dolls. If you do end up making some for yourself, I would love to buy a pair or two from you! What about clothes? Like, have you tried at fitting girl clothes on the boy dolls at all?
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Aug 29, 2013 21:47
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tFUCKINGmesis posted:Oh, definitely! Barbie and Stardoll clothes fit wonderfully, so anything similarly sized should work. With Barbie pants you might want to take them in a little at the hip, since they're curvier than the dude body will support and it can look funny. Awesome! I can tell you that newer, wider Bratz tops will usually stretch to fit and that some of the pants actually fit really nicely. They certainly fit the guy dolls better than the girls. I'll have to take a few photos to show off. The Bratz boy tops and jackets are a bit too big for them, from what I've noticed. I'm definitely looking forward to finding out what other girl clothes will fit them. Today I got a box of wigs and a dress in the mail, and I imagine I'll have a lot of fun with those whenever I can get around to photographing.
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Aug 31, 2013 00:40
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tFUCKINGmesis posted:Bratzillaz report so far: bottoms fit perfectly; tops with two sleeves will not close, but tops with one or no sleeves will. The newer Bratz dolls have way different bodies, much less stylised than the old ones are. I'm not really sure when they changed the bodies, but I'm fairly sure it was within the past 18 months. The one Bratz tops barely fit the girl MH dolls, and now they fit the guys, as you've noticed. That's good to hear about Bratzillaz dolls; I've seen them on clearance a lot recently. Might have to get a swimsuit or something from one of their weird glow-in-the-dark budget dolls.
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Aug 31, 2013 01:05
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QueenOfMistakes posted:Hate to bump an old thread, but I wanted to know if anyone here makes clothes for the Bratzillaz dolls? I honestly have no talent for sewing, and would be interested in perhaps commissioning a couple of outfits for the doll that I have. Or would Monster High clothes fit her? Monster High girl clothes are generally too small for the Bratzillas bodies -- MH torsos are longer and thinner. Some MH girl pieces stretch onto MH boys, so I'd imagine that they'd stretch onto Bratzillaz as well. Skirts that velcro all the way open (Scaris Draculaura's skirt), or that stretch over the doll without any sort of closures (Dead Tired Clawdeen's shorts, Create-a-Monster Werewolf's dress) are your best bets. I did a little looking, and Winx Club skirts should fit. I think regular Bratz dolls nowadays have the same sort of body that the Bratzillaz have, but I don't have one that I could look at right now. I know you didn't ask about shoes, but I read that Bratzillaz feet a bit too big for MH shoes, even though MH dolls can wear Bratzillaz shoes. By the way, which Bratzillaz doll did you end up getting?
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Oct 4, 2013 18:24
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Decent and fashionable clothes for the boy Monster High dolls are relatively hard to come by, so that might not be a bad place to start. Most of them come wearing cargo shorts and tank tops, so different pieces would probably be nice. The girl dolls are also wildly popular, of course, but more people tend to make more clothing for them. As for patterns, Google Image Search turns up some free ones that you can try out just to get the basic sizing and proportions. MH dolls have long legs, shorter torsos, and a very curved spine. One nice thing is that you can make clothing with tight sleeves, since the forearms/hands are made to pop off easily. Here's a pattern for sheath dress for a girl doll: http://shannaniganart.blogspot.com/2011/11/ok-i-lied.html If you want to get your own doll to make patterns off of, there are some budget lines, like Dead Tired, Skull Shores, and Music Festival. Dead Tired Abbey is $6.99 on Amazon right now, and of course eBay has dolls (sometimes headless) on the cheap. sunsweet fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 20:51
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QueenOfMistakes posted:So I bought another Bratzillaz doll - these dolls are just too cute. This time it's a Jade J'adore from the Magic Night Out range. Her hair feels really stuck together, what's a good way to get it flowing and soft? Meygana Broomstix needs hair treatment too, it's all tangled. For Jade's hair, I'd say shampoo out any of the hair gel they've got in there and then cake on a bunch of conditioner and let that sit overnight. Soaking her hair in fabric softener works as well. Meygana's hair is notoriously bad, in terms of being a tangled mess. I would suggest shampoo/conditioner (or softener) and then some detangling spray or something when it's wet. If it's the Magic Night Out doll, that should be enough. If it's the basic version, the one with curly hair, you might consider something more drastic, like dipping the hair in simmering to boiling water to straighten it out a bit. If the water is too hot, though, the hair will just get fried. It's a little tricky. As for clothing, the Bratzillaz bodies make it a little difficult to find clothing from other lines. Their torsos are so squat, and their feet a bit too big. It looks like the normal, newer Bratz dolls might be the best proportionate match.
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Jan 17, 2014 21:39
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great thanks
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Mar 3, 2014 23:00
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