Shout out to my greatest joy, my beloved, The Beautiful Onyx, and their ~everything~ that keeps me going, despite everything else. Especially since the start of pandemic time, Onyx is my world.
Here is a picture of Onyx, ruler of all they survey
The Beautiful Onyx is not supposed to be up there.
“Hello? Is that sound you made treats for Onyx?”
Onyx has been rocking the crossed paws today.
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.
I took in Onyx three years ago this month. Recently, I have been teaching them to touch the lid of the container for a treat. It’s not a useful trick, and sometimes they are extra eager, but it’s something I hope is making their days a little more fun.
I cherish Onyx, I am so grateful they chose me 💕
I’ve been denied all but this corner of my sketchbook
