Let me introduce myself – my artistic name is Lelle Doll. “Lelle” means “doll” in Latvian language. I’ve been an artist since year 2010. I used to work with variety of mediums, including oil and acrylic painting on canvas and wood, making artisan jewelry out of polymer clay and sculpting out of air dry clays.
I always wanted to try my painting skills on three-dimensional sculpture, small scale of course. Factory-made base dolls sounded like a good idea. I have made online research to see if there are any copyright or intellectual property restrictions on using factory dolls for modification and pretty much found out that if it is for personal use or use on a small scale, it should be ok. About a year ago I bought my first Monster High doll that was in pretty terrible shape – hair cut almost to the roots, face was stained badly, limbs were all loose. It was pretty sad looking thing, really. But doll face mold and overall design was cute and I thought maybe it would be possible to restore this poor little thing somehow. After several days of online research, several trips to craft stores for art supplies, going through several trials and errors, poking my fingers 100’s times with rerooting tool and spilling acetone all over my clothing – finally I was able to succeed in my attempt to save doll’s look. The end result of that project was good enough and I’ve decided to start salvaging pre-owned dolls and do full makeovers on them.
I never use collector quality, rare or just good condition dolls for my projects because they are too precious and should be left as is. But I believe old, bad-shaped preowned factory dolls should be given another chance of life instead of being tossed away. Therefore modifying them, making fantasy characters out of them or just creating stylish dolls should be welcome by everyone, even those who do not like dolls or doll customizing.
Soon after my first custom doll, I acquired around ten base dolls and I started repainting their faces from scratch and gave them new hairstyles. Later I added totally new outfits which many talented doll clothing artists have helped me with. I mainly prefer to work with Monster High and Ever After High doll lines. In the nearby future I am going to attempt to sculpt my very own doll base, it sounds like fun and challenging project and I hope I will be able to achieve this goal successfully!
I customize dolls just for fun, I do not sell them and I am in no way considering myself perfect in this art because there is a lot more to learn. Artists are always learning and perfecting their skill during whole lifetime.
So, why do I do this art? This hobby has helped me to deal with some really bad times in life. I also saw feedback from people who saw my dolls and I’ve got a lot of support which kept me motivated going forward with this craft and to not give up. I will keep learning about it and will keep reimagining dolls and sharing photos my creations as long as I can. I also strongly believe and encourage anyone, who loves dolls -you should to attempt this craft, it is very creative and rewarding!
Thank you for reading and I hope you like what I do!
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