OOAK Dolls: Step by Step

By Em Hudson

Making custom OOAK dolls is a hobby I’ve picked up in the past few months.

OOAK stands for “One of a Kind,” and although it’s a time consuming activity, it’s one of my favorite things to do. All the tips and tricks in this post are things I learned from Dollightful, Hextian, and Mozekyto on Youtube. If you get into this hobby yourself, I definitely recommend checking those channels out and following along until you feel confident enough to do it on your own.

First, I start out by picking out my doll. I like to use Monster High dolls, since they’re made out of a heavier plastic than Barbies and will last a lot longer. They also have different facial molds, so the features of each doll will be a little different. The doll I’m using here is an “Ari Hauntington” doll, and I’ve already used acetone-based nail polish remover to wipe the factory paint off her face. After I remove her face, I have to take the head off. Ripping the head off the shoulders can damage the doll, so what I want to do first is soak her in some boiling water. The hot water softens the vinyl head of the doll and that will make it come off the peg more easily.If you do this, remember to cover your hand in a towel when you remove the head! It’ll be hot to the touch, and water can get inside the head, so if it drips on you it will be painful!

Once her head is detached from her body, I can remove the hair inside. Her hair was long before, but in prepping the doll I cut it as close to the head as I could manage. Now that I can get at the hair from the inside, I can pull it out of the little holes in the head called the “hair plugs.”  To do this, I take a pair of needle-nose pliers and jab the end into the head, scraping around the inside to pull the hair out. It’s sort of awkward to hold, but I’ve found it to be the best way. I tried to use tweezers before, and while I could move them inside the head more easily, it took forever and eventually started to hurt my hand. I ran into the same problem when I tried small sewing scissors.

After scraping it out, I use the pliers to pull out any clumps of hair from inside the head. It looks kind of gross, but it would get in the way otherwise so it must be done.

 

Since her body is pure white, I’ll be painting it a more natural shade. I’d like to use airbrushes to give the body a more even coating, but I don’t have the money to get the supplies for that so we’re going with acrylic paints this time. I’ve also gone ahead and painted gloves on her, as well as adding in the whites of her eyes so that I have a guideline for painting her face later.

Now that she’s painted, I’ll spray her with a sealant called Mr. Super Clear. I’ve never seen it in stores and it’s not an American brand, so when I buy it I have to order it online. It’s very toxic and I always make sure to wear some form of respirator when I spray it, since it’s dangerous to breathe in. I leave the doll in a well ventilated area for half an hour. I hang mine up outside, since you can’t get much more ventilated than that.

After thirty minutes, she’s back inside. I’ve gone ahead and sewn her a simple dress. I kept it loose and sewed it to form after putting it on the doll to be sure I had the perfect fit. 

I’ll be setting her body aside for now to work on her hair and face. Normally when I give a doll a new head of hair, I use nylon that I order from Etsy. But in this case I want to give her a bun, so I’m using yarn so that I’ll have a material that holds up to styling a little more. To push the hair in, I’m using a rerooting tool I bought online to “root” the hair. I’m going around the perimeter of her head.

Now that I’ve gone all the way around, I’m using some quick drying Fabri-tac glue and squirting it through the neckhole and into her head. Be generous with it, since you want to make sure you cover every single plug, otherwise hair could fall out when you try to brush it.

While I could leave the yarn like this for some dolls and hairstyles, this time I intend to unravel it. I use a metal comb to pull the individual strands of yarn apart, and once I’ve done that, I can wrap her hair into a little bun and add some decorations. I also heated a metal chopstick up on my kitchen stove to make a homemade miniature curler. I wrapped yarn around it to curl her bangs and the loose hair in front of her ears. I burned myself once or twice, but her hair looks great! I’ve also pushed some sewing pins into her ears to mimic pearl earrings.

Since all the construction work is complete, I finally get to move onto the most fun part: cosmetics. I’ve gone to craft stores and searched through my house for different kinds of ribbons and accents to add to her dress. I’ve also gotten out my acrylic paint and gloss varnish. I painted on her face and used gloss on her eyes and lips, so that they’ll reflect light. I’ve also used some scrap fabric and fake flowers to make her a bouquet accessory. She was missing a pair of shoes, so I also sculpted some out of a type of clay known as Apoxie sculpt. Now all that’s left to do is finish the shoes and reattach her head!

Apoxie sculpt usually only needs to dry overnight, but the heels I made for her took three days. I’m not sure why it took so long. Maybe the clay was thicker than usual? In any case, it’s all dry now and I’ve painted it. I also attached pearls and painted the bottoms of the shoes red just to add a little more detail.

Reattaching the head is simple. There’s not much to it other than squeezing and pressing down on the neck peg, but hearing the head pop back on is a satisfying conclusion to a craft project that takes several days. 

From beginning to end, this doll took me about ten days. I’ve been wanting to make a bride character for a while, and adding all the bells and whistles to her wedding dress was a lot of fun! Maybe in the future I’ll give her a partner to get married to.