In case anyone wanted to look at these two next to each other. The eyelashes make a big difference, though it is harder to photograph the newer Francie. Her face paint is just shinier. She also has a tiny black stray paint mark under her eye, which is just a flaw on mine, but does make her look like she’s lost an eyelash. I’ll take it off off her eventually.

I have a doll here that I’m pondering

My mom found her in a box of other old related goodies at an auction or something and I’m trying to decide what to do with her.

• She is a vintage Bubblecut Barbie, and man, I have just never been able to see bubblecut as anything but grandma.
• However, one of the things that really interests me is different perceptions of hairstyles and looks through different eras, especially after all of the family photo history I inherited. At some point, this was trendy as hell and definitely would have been on teenagers, and it would be cool to be able to see it that way. I think illustrations of the time come really close to capturing the vibe.
• I’m also interested in finding a way to make the vintage Barbie sculpt look more like the really lively and energetic illustrations they made of her, rather than bored and aloof. I have looked at a lot of alternate painting jobs on this face and have done a couple sketches over faces myself digitally that I think I have a good idea of what I need to do.
• She has a loose arm and dirt in tiny cracks all over her legs that I can only describe as crazing on an oil painting. A lot of it has washed away with an initial visit from dish soap and a toothbrush, so she doesn’t feel gross to touch anymore, but it’s still very in there. The inner ring in her neck is also mostly completely detached meaning she would probably transfer onto a new body fairly well…
• I cannot decide if her being kind of in a rough shape makes her the ideal candidate for me to try to enjoy how this hair and sculpt combo looks or if I would be better off just making her into something new entirely and waiting for a reproduction bubble cut to show up for a very low to normal amount of money. I think I might have some stray bubble cut heads in my stash even, but that this one was attached to a body and that my mom had spent a lot of time looking at it anticipating that I would bring it back from the brink kind of makes me want to do something with it in particular.
• Reproduction dolls also historically have so much more hair than their vintage counterparts so I wonder if I would be somehow doing it wrong hahaha.
• A pro to doing this kind of experimenting on a reproduction doll also means that the vinyl is a lot more stable and less likely to turn into like a surprise sticky mess like the other vintage bubble cut that I transformed. She still looks good but she’s got the sticky face now and it is a Bummer.
• Because she’s missing some hair while the rest of it looks nice and even in original curl, I would have to find a way to root and style fractions of a bubble cut? Not to mention trying to match hair color and fiber.

She’s also missing a finger but I do love the coral color nail polish. I keep thinking it would be fun to match the color for her lip paint.

Maybe the solution is like a hybrid of my normal approaches where I just fill in all of the chopped off hair plugs with some funky color I like and then do some traditional matching coral on her lips and most of the experimenting on her eyes, which was where I was intending to do most of that anyway.

It’s possible I just needed to talk out loud and type all of this to come to some kind of conclusion.

Here is a picture of Onyx playing hard and causing a mess for your trouble.

Really excited they used my beloved trippy World of Barbie house as the design backdrop for the box of the reproduction release of Black Francie!

Girls~~

I accidentally knocked Wild Bunch Francie off of the shelf in the attempt to take this picture and she dropped her camera so now I don’t have any idea where that is. I have her hat in storage, but now I’m going to have to keep an eye out for my cat batting a tiny Polaroid camera around haha

Yo check out my snag from the thrift store! A spectrum of repros also!

Have I ever showed you guys crystallized Teresa?

I got her from @capncrystal who found her buried in a yard somewhere in California. She’s been in the bag a few years because, well, look at it, but she’s Fascinating.

Normal hobbies~~

Someone had glued her whole torso together and I was like dude she had one joint like why would you rob her of her only opportunity to look less stiff.

The knob on the bottom half had broken at some point apparently and they just solved it by gluing the whole thing. It’s not like a pretty or elegant joint but if it will let her turn a little bit I would like to get it moving again.

I hope I can give her some Mobility because at press time I don’t know how to get the top of her torso back on without everything going crunch again now that I’ve glued the knob back down

Cool new trend from repro Barbie - try painting the joint just below your nails instead

Truly delighting in this outfit I got in a huge yard sale lot over the summer. It doesn’t really suit the petite body very well - the skirt is too long to be flattering on her just like the one that she came in, and the shoes are way too big - but I adore its late 90s. THE SHOES.

Maybe I thought it would be Fun!

Maybe I love them! Maybe I thought the coat added needed Drama!

Stop fucking Staring OKAY

I love this doll a normal amount.