Reborn dolls have become increasingly popular among people these days. Many people are curious about how a reborn doll is created and how long it takes to make a reborn doll.
The answer is simple, if you are getting a custom reborn doll made by a renowned artist, it will take around six to eight weeks to make a reborn doll. However, if you are thinking of making one yourself, it might take around 10-20 hours.
It may take longer if you are a beginner and don’t know much about the reborning process.
However, once you master it or have practiced enough on dolls, it will take you lesser time. The average time it takes an artist to make a reborn doll is between 10 to 20 hours. Different factors have an effect on the time it may take.
Follow this article to find out about the fundamentals of making a reborn doll, the supplies you may need, as well as how much time it takes to make a reborn doll, and different factors that affect the time.
Basic Steps in Making a Reborn Doll
1. First of all, an artist needs to purchase the vinyl structure or the parts of the body. Reborn doll kits are available in different varieties. One can choose the preference according to what they want and how they create reborn dolls.
Some go for the ready-to-paint ones, while others may also opt for the completely raw one, which requires all the process. The kits are molded so that they can make a beautiful reborn doll.
2. Once you’ve done the main step of buying the structure, now you need to start buying all the supplies you need to create a perfect reborn doll.
To make a reborn doll, the supplies that you need include:
- Paints: These could be air dry paints or genesis heat set paints. Whichever paint you use, depends entirely on your preference. Genesis heat paint used to be most popular, but with time most have moved towards the air-dry paints.
Air dry paints are ought to be easier and more convenient as they eliminate the baking process between each layer of paint. Furthermore, air dry paints are also a healthier alternative as genesis heat set paints give off fumes while baking which is injurious to health.
- Tools: As making a reborn doll requires many different processes, there are a number of tools needed to create these human like, natural dolls.
Some of these tools include a drill for the nostril holes, a micro rooting tool, and many others that help in the reborning process.
- Paintbrushes: You want your reborn doll to look as natural as one can. Hence, to paint, you need different variety of paintbrushes. Different sizes are needed for different body parts of the reborn doll. While some parts like the veins require the thin scripting brush, and other parts may require a thicker brush to speed the process.
- A palette: Some artists use a ceramic palette, while others prefer a plastic one. This is just to mix the paint in and to create different colours.
- Paint Thinner: You can’t use thick paint, as it’ll require way more time to dry and settle. Hence, paint thinners make artists life easier.
- Sponges: For the blending of paints, sponges are needed. One can use cosmetic sponges, sea sponges, or any other kind of sponge that helps which gives off a mottling effect when dapped on the reborn doll.
- Eyes: For the eyes, a glass eye or a plastic eye could be used. This is only important if the doll is open eyes. Eyes are available in different colours like blue, brown, grey, green and a variety of other colours which an artist could choose according to their own preference.
- Doll Lashes are needed if the eyelashes are not microrooted into the doll.
- A Drying Rack: this is very important to dry the paint from different body parts of the reborn doll without the paint smudging.
- Hair: If the hair is rooted into the doll, buying some kind of hair is important. Most popular hair used by artists is Mohair but some also use synthetic hair.
- Supplies for the finishing of the doll: For the assembly and finishing of the reborn dolls, some supplies are needed. These include polyfill for stuffing, glass beads for weighting, cable ties, plugs for different body parts, and a body.
3. Before starting the process, the vinyl parts of the reborn doll need to be washed and then dried out completely. To do this, warm water with soap is used. However, some artists also make use of alcohol to rub the outside parts of the reborn doll.
4. Once the parts of the doll are washed, that’s when the first coat of paint starts. To make the reborn doll look natural and real, layers of paints have to be added for the color to show. It takes about 4-6 layers of paint to get the correct skin tone.
Some artists make use of baking after every coat of paint. Baking helps set the paint so that the color isn’t lost.
5. Once the base color is in process or done, that’s when the veins need to be painted. Usually, artists paint the veins after the second coat of paint. This will give the natural effect of the veins from under the skin.
6. Once you have your desired skin tone color, you now need to focus on the little details. These details are what make your reborn doll look realistic and human-like.
You need to make sure all creases are shaded with a darker color and are blended thoroughly. The inside of the nose, ears, mouth (if open), and other body parts need to be shaded and blended.
7. To add more details, the artist needs to paint and dab in different areas, just as they would normally exist in a human baby. These areas would include the cheeks, on the baby’s elbow, or on the knees.
8. To further make the detailing prominent, the nails are painted. A light blush is added to the nail bed and a pale white on the nail itself gives a natural and realistic effect to the hands and feet of the reborn baby.
9. If you have an open-eyed doll, now is the time to add the eyes. The eyes can be made of plastic or glass. They come in different colors, hence the artist can choose their preference and see which color complements the skin tone of the reborn baby.
10. Once the painting is done, that’s when the hair is rooted. Hair can be rooted to give a realistic touch to the doll, however, some artists even paint the hair.
11. Rooting the hair is a whole task. It requires a lot of patience and is perfected with practice. This part is the one that may require a lot of time.
12. When rooting of the hair is completed, to make sure the hair stays in its place and stays intact, gluing the inside area is necessary.
13. Some artists also root eyelashes in the reborn doll’s eyelids. If you don’t want to root the lashes, you can easily purchase false lashes, separates the hairs, and glue them on separately to give the same effect of rooting. This gives them a natural and realistic look.
14. Finally, then comes the time for the assembly of the reborn doll. For the assembly, for weighting purposes, glass or plastic beads are added to the nylon pouches. These nylon pouches are then placed at the bottom of the reborn doll’s body or even in the head to even out the weight.
15. For stuffing purposes, polyfil is added around the nylon pouches to keep them in place.
16. The same is done for the arms and legs. Weighted with the glass or plastic beads, then surrounded by polyfil.
17. The shoulders and hips are only stuffed with polyfil.
18. Plastic cable tires or string is then used. The cable ties go through the shoulders down to the hips. The arms, head, and legs are then placed on sheets they belong. Then the plastic cable ties or string is pulled and tied closed.
Any extra cable ties are cut off. Rough edges are also filed. And the doll is complete.
19. One final step includes dressing your reborn babies of course. Who doesn’t love dressing their babies just as they want? You could dress the baby up in a onesie, make the baby wear a diaper, give the baby a pacifier, wrap the baby in a blanket, and many more different ways to make your reborn baby human-like and realistic.
You’ll have your reborn baby doll ready and you can pamper them just how you like and want. These are just the basic details and processes one goes through when creating a reborn baby. Other details may be added or may differ from artist to artist. However, the fundamentals are given.
How much time does it take to make a reborn doll?
The time it takes to make a reborn doll depends on many different factors. However, the approximate time that it may take to make a custom reborn doll by artists is usually six to eight weeks.
If you’re making the reborn doll yourself, the time it takes depends on many different factors which include the speed of the artist which is directly related to the experience and skill of the person making the doll.
The details you put into your reborn dolls also alter the time requires. Of course, a reborn doll which every inch of detail will take much longer than a basic one with lesser details.
The size of the doll is also a very important factor to consider. Reborn dolls that are bigger require much more time. This is because, for example, for a bigger doll that has a bigger head, rooting of the hair requires way more time than rooting a newborn reborn baby’s hair.
One other factor also includes the type of paint you use. Air-dry paints require more time than heat genesis paints. Air dry paints require more layers, as well as more time, goes into the setting of the paint. In heat genesis, the paints are baked, hence they remain intact and the color settles in less time.
Another factor that greatly affects the time it takes to make a reborn doll is the number of times corrections had to be made or the number of times mistakes were made. More the mistakes, longer it’ll take as you have to go back to correct the mistake, taking much longer than usual.
Moreover, to answer the questions as to how long does it take to make a reborn doll, one could say the answer differs from person to person. Reborning a doll can take about only 8-10 hours. However, there are times when it also takes 15 hours or more. For the case of a fully rooted head with hair, it may also take up to 20 hours or more.
Hence, the amount of time it takes to make a reborn doll differs. It depends entirely on the size of the doll, detailing that goes into the doll, speed, and experience of the artist, along with many other factors.
Conclusion
These steps were just the basics that go into creating a reborn doll. Once you have mastered the basics, you may want to go into greater detail. The time it will take you to create reborn dolls will lessen with time.
Reborning requires a lot of hard work, processes, supplies, time, and effort. However, in the end, it is all worth it. Once you have enough practice and you know the processes, you will enjoy making reborn dolls.
Hope this article helped you understand what it takes to go from plastic to a complete classic reborn baby.
