This is going to be long winded be warned, you might want to grab a cup of tea or keep scrolling, I have no filters and this is a fat post.
I like painting hair it’s so relaxing and it is fun for me, I look forward to it with every baby. There was a learning curve and every time I do it I realized I still have a lot to learn. I have found my own style so that makes it easier, it took about 50 babies to find my groove and it is still evolving. To those who send me PM’s asking what the secret is “There is no secret, it is just practice, a lot of practice”.
I was never attracted to combi-rooted babies. It looked a little half done to me, too severe, not well thought out. I tried to think of a way to do it that had a little more flow. I experimented and came up with what I thought was a good compromise. It isn’t perfect but I kinda like the effect of a little more volume and softness on top without looking like a mohawk all the time. The problem is a lot of that has to do with styling and if the person who gets the baby isn’t interested in styling and keeping it conditioned and combed out the baby will turn into a Q-tip.
This year I wanted to challenge myself, level up my painting game a bit, spend a little more time on babies, experiment with color and texture, do things I had not done before. I also wanted to try rooting whole heads. No I lie I did not want to root whole heads, I wanted to be able to root a whole head well and not be intimidated by it.
I just rooted five babies. My Gawd. Rooting has its learning curve from type and size and style of needle, the 100’s of choices for hair; color, texture, curl, animal, thickness, length. Then you have to decide how you will root it, mono, micro, loop, end, grab and stab…
It doesn’t end there, you have to map the head because once you start rooting you end up in a little jungle, you no longer see the big picture, and you get lost in a world of tiny follicles. You can draw the map but that doesn’t mean hair rooted in those directions will work, it depends on the hair and the angle of the needle and…
It will wear your hands and eyes out.
Have mercy.
I have seen the beautiful work artists do, @specialmoments comes to mind. My goodness the time and patience. I have decided I will never get there. I just can’t imagine that level of precision and craftsmanship. I would have to charge a million dollars for a baby (and she should).
I know people appreciate great rooting but the sheer hours (and I mean a lot of them) that goes into the mono-micro rooting, I don’t know how some artists make their money back. It is surely a labor of love it is undervalued and under appreciated.
I myself want to keep rooting but not at the expense of my personal health, my body, and my time. There are limits. I want to paint a lot of babies, I want to play, have fun, experiment, I want to make haunted circus babies, fairy babies, pale, buttery, pink, red, nut brown babies. There are so many babies (sculpts) and so little time. I can’t spend three or four weeks rooting a single head, I will run out of happy bubbles (this is just the way I personally operate).
Everyone has their sweet spot. Some people love styling or collecting, eyebrows (god(ess) bless you), painting a baby, doing nails, painting hair or rooting, and some people love it all. For me its getting into a playful headspace and just having fun.
I know how to make art, I know how to go into production mode if I have to, I know how to do commission work, but this baby making is my happy place, no rules, now worries, no expectations. I run it like a business because it is expensive and selling babies offsets costs and allows me to turn down freelance work I am not interested in so I can do this instead. I love this (don’t tell anyone).
Rooting and I have some issues in our relationship to work out before we take this to the next place.
This is what is going on in my head (and yes I know I am strange):
- Can rooting be “good” and not mono-micro rooted?
- Is it Ok to embrace “effect” over technique?
- Am I rationalizing?
- Do you have to root to be a prototype artist or a master doll artist?
- Who am I trying to please really?
- Am I over thinking this?
- Who makes the rules?
- I want to make my own rules? Why can’t I make my own rules?
- There is one more piece of cake in the frig. (nope you are on a diet)
- Ok I will do it until I get it perfect then decide how I want to proceed what rules I will break and why.
- How can I play with this, get this look the way I want, change it up?
- Will collectors think I took a short cut if I don’t micro root?
- How will people react if I do things differently, my own way?
- How much do I care about that?
- Damn it once piece of cake isn’t going to make that big a difference, it isn’t that big anyway.
- What else can I root with, has anyone ever rooted a baby with fishing line? that would be cool.
- Who makes really awesome baby wigs, like the lace front ones you can get for women.
- I shouldn’t have eaten that piece of cake.
I am starting to feel like it is ok to just make a baby that make you happy and if you are a person who offers your babies to wait for someone else who appreciates the same. There is a lot of odd behavior and some of it honestly is just human behavior that can be hurtful. I admit I have participated in being judgy (working on that). I have been sucked down a rabbit hole or two, or jumped on a wagon I knew better not to. Gonna do better. I just kinda think we all need to get along, appreciate each other for our differences, how we show up as artists, different skills and skill levels.
Someone posted a baby that had been filled with beans, the kind you cook and eat. Everyone who commented was blown away and had a lot of comments about that (not a single nice one). That person was shamed. I still feel awful about it, and wish I would have been the one to stand up and make it right.
(going off on a tangent here)
A scammer is someone who advertises something they do not intend on delivering.
-They use other peoples photos to market work they do not have the skills for (and do not intend on developing them).
-They intend on stealing your money from the very start and repeat until caught, change their name and start over again.
-They are not truthful, do not disclose obvious defects, condition of the doll, how it might smell, materials used, they do this on purpose.
-They take credit that doesn’t belong to them, and they do not give credit to those who do deserve it. When called out they don’t own it, they don’t care.
-Crowd sources for money among peers with stories true or not. (sorry this is a big issue for me and very different from does anyone have any extra plugs or a Joanna head, I melted mine…). Crowd sourcing for your personal financial crisis or ongoing health issues should be done with your church, your personal community, a social worker, not on a forum or on social media. (not sure if this is scammers or just bad form).
-Use excuses over and over with clients, and it becomes a pattern, to get out of meeting obligations and keeping promises.
Filling a baby with beans is not a SCAM, it is being resourceful and as much as I hate sharpie pen on babies that is resourceful also. if it is disclosed. Not everyone who loves this hobby and wants to be in it can afford it or has access to what most of us do. We need to be gentle. Some people need to work up a hill many of us don’t.
People also make mistakes. This community loves to start a fire under someone who makes one and let it burn, stir the embers and keep it going.
Make a mistake, own it, apologize, learn, do better.
Find someone who has made a mistake, call them out in private, let them own it, give them a safe space to apologize, make amends, learn, and move on.
There are going to be those who can’t own it or move on, for what ever reason, mostly damage or just never learning this skill. It is up to us who understand how this works to be gentle, if they can’t figure it out move away and on. Not our job to fix anyone.
I know it isn’t easy, been there with with a couple reborn ladies that just chapped my ass. They didn’t hurt me personally but I watched them hurt other people and continue to do so. Once you realize that it is something even they don’t understand it is easy to walk away and let them be. Healthy people will walk away, but even healthy people have a hard time doing so sometimes.
It helps no one to feed fires.
(and yes fire is a reference to a time in history when people did awful things to women)
There are going to be to be trouble makers, trolls… people looking for conflict and it is easy to get caught up in that (I have a time or two). Don’t engage if you can. It might feel entertaining or you might feel like putting on a cape or crown but honestly they will just keep moving on to the next person they can feed on, our job is not to be their food.
This is a really awesome community, so much to learn here, so many ways to grow, great friendships to be had. We all gotta stick together, build each other up.
It has been a tough year for so many, not all of us made it and some of us are grieving. Lets do better to be kinder and let that spread.
Someone gifted me limbs the other day. I offered to pay but she said “I am paying it forward” she inspired me to do the same. We need to do more of that where we can right?
-I have four chocolate kisses hidden in my bedside table, they are small, I mean how many calories can be in them anyway?
Off my soap box, Have a super day everyone.
G
