The Best Online Reborn Help Forum!

littleclaygirl · Member

Cheap dolls to practice on?

Friki Fimo · Senior Member

Peterkin can be an adorable reborn, my first was a boy version of this doll. I'm not sorry I practiced on it, it is full of beginners mistakes, but still kinda sweet :D

Keep in mind its head is very hard to root so you'll better use a rice sock or heat it up before rooting, and don't put the head in the oven with eyes still in it, they wouldn't take the heat.

littleclaygirl · Member

I have to admit that I do have a boy version of this doll, but he was one of the dolls that I used to take everywhere when I was little and I don't want to ruin him :D

Thanks very much for your help, I think I'll give it a try (although I am tempted by these expensive kits!). I tried rooting a tiny doll that I found, and she looks very strange- perhaps because I used bigger needles to root her so they didn't snap so easily. Also I think I'll try to find some good air dry paints, I still feel pretty bad about baking my baby, although I know that's silly.

Thanks again!

Buffington · Guru

The air dry paints (not regular acrylic) are pretty good but they do dry quickly and you have to work in smaller patches. I know someone here in forum had some airdry paints for sale some time ago. You might lookin our for sale or trade topic thread section. There have been other things for sale too.
It's good to practice on play-dolls and less expensive ones. If you have a toy store near you or a good store that sells dolls for playing with, the Berenguers are also cute and less expensive dolls to prectice on too!

littleclaygirl · Member

Thank you :) I'm in England and sadly it's hard to find berenguers over here! In the end I opted for a sucky lip doll to practice on. Thanks for the advice about the paints, too! Are there any concequences of using regular acrylic paints? Does it rub off the vinyl or something? Because if I could use them, it would be very useful :) Thanks for your help!

Buffington · Guru

Oh I have always wanted to come to England! The sucky lip is a Berenguer... or at least they have one named that lol.

As far as the regular acrylic paints, we have a ton of threads in forum on acrylics vs heat set, air dry, consequences, ect... all the things that you would want to know. Its waaaaay to much information to relist here. Just go up to the top of the forum page, in the red bar you will see the word "search". Click on that and type in your word or words you want to read about, then click submit or whatever the button is to go to the next step. It will bring up all the wonderful threads on the subjects. The 3 most important issues with the acrylics are: bruising, not being permanent, and migration in the vinyl. Try typing those words into search one at a time and see what you come up with hun.
Keep us posted! :D