My Reborn Baby Photography Tutorial

Note: This tutorial was made in 2009, I use a better camera and equipment now, maybe I will update it, soon after I'm done with 200 gazillion other things on my list. In the meantime, you just have to use this one, I hope you learn from it, and if you do please comment. Thank you xx ( October 2020)

 

 

This is my basic set up. I use 2 soft lights with a diffuser. I got my set from eBay, including the bulbs and umbrella diffusers. Inexpensive, and since I only use it indoors, it handles itself well.

 

 

Below is an example of a low budget setup. You can use any tabletop lamp, bounce the light on a white paper board. Make sure to use daylight light bulbs. And it’s better to do the shoot near a window in the daytime to help with lighting.

 

 

This is the diagram on the lighting basics. I hope it’s clear enough. The key is, don’t light the baby directly because it will look shiny and harsh and not natural. We want the baby to look as natural as possible as it is in person.

 

Sixth Doll, Lilah - Process + Photos

Meet Lilah. She is from a beautiful vinyl kit called Vivien, created by the talented Evelina Wosnjuk. Took me 2 days to paint her, I started in the afternoon of April 24th. Finished her face detailing, limbs, all blushed, and all creases the next day. Then I spent an hour painting her nails and shining her cute pouty lips the next day.This is the fastest I finished painting a doll. Way too excited to bring her alive, or 'lifelike'. So, basically 24 hours painting hours, which is pretty good, because Vivien kit is from the old batch which had an Orangey tone to it, so there had to be a few layers of paint to neutralized her first. I'm happy to see her baby face finally, and not just an empty vinyl doll kit.

Lilah is not for sale for the meantime, because I can't part with her (at least for now), this might sound crazy to a non doll people, I get attached to the dolls sometimes, I guess I'm a crazy doll lady. I'm okay with that. :) But there is another reason, it also because she has a booboo on her head due to an accident, I was distracted and didn't hear the timer. heat set paint is used for vinyl doll, so after each layer of paint, the doll goes into the oven to be heated for an exact 8 minutes, no more no less. So her head collapsed, I thought I ruined her totally, but it perked up again, only with a little bump on the top of her head. So to me that means I can't sell it because she is not 100% perfect (She is to me), although the bump will be covered by hair. So I'm moving on to the next doll for now, I'm not even going to do the rooting part since I'm keeping her anyway. In her photos she was using a Mohair wig. 😛

I hope you enjoy her photos, I loved photographing her, she is so photogenic. 🙂

 

 

Fifth Doll, Kylin - Updates (Adopted)

Update 1: She’s finished! I’m done rooting her hair last night, well, early morning actually. I spent 5 days working on her full blonde hair. I’m so in love with her! I love the type of feelings that creating something beautiful give me. (April 3rd, 2009)

Update 2: She’s finally assembled, officially 'reborned today'. She’s beautiful, with a gorgeous set of blue eyes and full blonde hair that is versatile to style, she can have cute curls or straight hair or combination of both. (April 15th, 2009)

Update 3: Kylin was adopted and is living with her new mommy in the USA. Kylin has helped me through a very very dark time in my life, losing the love of my life, my mom, on April 7th. Working on Kylin helps me shift my energy somewhere else because I am not ready to accept, and I don’t want to fall apart right now…  🙂  I hope you enjoy Kylin’s photos.. (May 6th, 2009)

 

Fifth Doll, Kylin - Process

I blog the process of making my dolls as a way on keeping track on my improving skill and how much time it took to create each dolls. Also every kits are different, so it’s good to keep notes on how I paint them. Just wanting to put it out there in case anyone’s curious.

I’m so very very excited to start working on Kylin. This is my favorite vinyl kit so far, it’s the first real size doll I make, she has the most beautiful face I can’t get over it. I can’t wait to see her finished. I started at 7.17pm today. And finished doing her skin base at 3.40am!!! I want her to be perfect. She has 1 skin tone base, and additional 3 layers for the subtle mottling effect. I’m happy so far..

Fourth Doll, The Mysterious Missy - Process & Update

Her coloring is done, I’m rooting her hair right now. Been working on her on and off for 3 weeks I think. Will come back with update and photos when she’s done.

 

(May 5th, 2009) Uhm.. Not sure if I’ll ever get to finish her, I keep getting these new kits that I can’t wait to reborn. We’ll see. I’ll finish her someday, maybe. I must admit I’m uninspired by her. And you can’t force these things… At lease in my case.

(October 2016) To be perfectly honest, I’m very confuse that I can’t remember what happen to Missy… Did I finish her, and if yes why there’s no photos? Did I dislike working on her so much that I didn’t even photograph her? Where is she? All I can think of is I gave her away, but even that, these are reborn dolls, that takes months to make sometimes, and I can only make so many in a few years, yet I can’t remember what I did with her. This is a mystery… And Missy, wherever you are, I hope someone is loving and appreciating you.. 😛

Third Doll, SERA (Adopted)

Update: Sera was adopted and now lives in UK with her new mommy. 🙂 (Mar 28th, 2009)

 

 

I started Sera a few days ago. I work on her skin for 3 days, taking my time now. Sera is the first Bountiful doll I do, she is a twin kit made by Marissa May. I did 2 Secrist dolls for my first 2. Bountiful dolls are softer, but her color is peach. I have to get used to color it, it absorb color easier, so I kinda had to add a few more layers to fix the previous that were a bit too strong. I’m pretty happy, I didn’t plan this but since I’m not used to the doll kit, she turned to have peaches and cream complexion. I like it, but I found out that I prefer to do a lighter color doll kits. But I’m happy that it’s softer, it’s easier to root the hair. Speaking of rooting, I bought a very good rooting tutorial and my skill is improving so much. 

 

 

Second Doll, Sam - Update (Adopted)

I was too busy to update this past week. My shipment arrived, so I get to finish rooting Sam’s hair. I rooted her hair very sparsely. But good news is with the new needles I didn’t even bent it. I think this had something to do with the first batch of needles, maybe they were too skinny.

Still having troubles doing it properly tho, I’m so lost. There’s a tutorial on Youtube, she basically just sit there and jammed her needles to the doll’s head, there’s not much tips and tricks, rooting hair is still scary to me. So Sam’s hair is okay but I know I need to do something about my rooting skill. Also since I bought different kits, now I know this small kits are not the best. I’m not overly ecstatic by the way she turned out. Oh well, you gotta start somewhere with something..
In happier news, my friend Elly visited me a couple of days ago and she saw Sam, she started to carry her around and won’t put her down. I was thinking “Uh oh, somebody’s in love”. Yes she did, so she adopted Sam! I can’t believe I made a sale already. I was planning to test the market this week and try to sell Sam on Ebay. I’m so happy she was adopted by a friend, I know she will be spoiled rotten by sweet Elly! ^__^ Oh, Elly changed her name to Caroline. Sweet name!

Second Doll, Sam - Process Part Two

So, this is the second day of working on Sam. Can’t wait to finish her! And a note: I’m keeping a diary of my reborning process on this particular doll, one for my own notes, to look back on, and two, some new artist might find it useful. But I’m guessing once I got busy I will not have time to do this in the future.

– 12.15pm: Start working. more touch up on the skin and nails & lips.
– 01.02pm: Out of the oven, now on to painting eyebrows. I use a mix of Skin 07, Burnt Umber and a bit of Yellow. I’m happy with the result. Light and faint the way I wanted it. Then I added a bit more brown on the color mix and paint hair on her head, just the outer section, kinda could use it for guidance when rooting too. Take a while but I’m pretty happy with the result.
– 2.34pm: Out of the oven for the last time. Will start rooting when it’s cool.
– 3.10pm: Start hair rooting. Decided to use just the needle without the handle, actually it makes my life easier.
– 3.32pm: Broke my needle, I have one left. Uh oh.
– 4.50pm: Broke the last needle, I’m so %^$#@%^&* Pissed! I can’t work now, and I have to wait for the new needles I ordered a couple weeks ago. AAARGH!!!!!!!!

Second Doll, Sam - Process Part One

 

Let's talk dolls, doll people. only doll people will be interested I'm guessing. I just recently started learning this art, so I want to record the process, at least for the first few dolls.

My shipment from MacPhearson arrived today, in it, a premie doll kit called ‘Gumdrop’ from Secrist Co. I practice using this line because they are small (means a bit faster to work on than the bigger size) and cheaper, and they have many cute choices. Gumdrop is chubby and have closed eyes. It will be easy to attach the eyelashes, oh yeah! (“,) I’m keeping a record step by step working on her. I will experiment with the color mix too. And I will use some tools I made myself. It’s all about adventure on this one. (“,)

– 5.00pm: Start working. Putting base skin color, mix of Skin 08 & 07. Realized I use number 08 a lot and I’m almost out of it. (Me no likey Skin o7!).
– 5.48pm: Out of the oven for the first time. Mint green color is added.
– 6.34pm: Out of the oven for the 2nd times. Painted my own color mix which are Skin 07, Phthalo Green and a wee bit of Pink.
– 7.42pm: Out of the oven for the 3rd times. I draw the veins. Easy Peasy. 😛
– 8.44pm: Out of the oven for the 4th times. Time for blushing, it’s kinda more fun right now, although my back is killing me by now.
– 10.09: Coming out of the oven for the 5th times. I do many things at this point, more blushing, and mottling, using the homemade tools. Then detailing, painting the creases. Wait a bit, another layer of color for the mottling effect. I am so happy with the result. Holy Molly!!! ^__^
– 11.39pm: Coming out of the oven for the 6th times. More painting on creases, more detailing on the skin.
– 1.25am: I’m beat. Exhausted, the fume kinda make me dizzy, I opened the window but can’t be too long because it’s cold out. Painting the nails and lips. More detailing, creases and face, It’s late so I can’t really tell if the face might be too red. I will add a couple more layers tomorrow if it’s too red. I totally forgot the eyebrows, so I still have to do painting tomorrow. Sigh.

At least I’m done. 95%. I’ll root the hair tomorrow. God, that is the hardest part. Yikes!

A Note On Painting The Inside Of The Doll

Today I got an email from a sweet lady named​ debbie she read my blog and told me that they actually don’t paint the inside of the doll anymore because the paint could seep overtime and cause bruising on the dolls. I'm thankful for her. I will probably find out about this sooner or later, but because of her I only make this mistake once. 🙏

 

 

First Doll, Bianca – Pls Be Nice

I can’t believe she is finally done. I work on her for 3 days now. Well, I ruined one of the eyelashes, so I need to buy a new pair and try again, but that's it.

 

Oh, right, back story, welcome to my first post. I just recently took up Reborning art. It's pretty fascinating. It's called Reborning, because basically it's taking a manufactured doll or doll kit and transform it to resemble a human infant with as much realism as possible. Reborn dolls are also known as Lifelike Doll.

So in the world of Reborning, I have to name the dolls, so she’s Bianca, she is a premie sized, she was ‘born’ at exactly 8.30pm today. So this date will be her official ‘birthday’. She is my first ever reborn doll, so I have a long way to go. I'm really hoping this is something I can be good at. The most difficult is rooting the hair I must say, so for the hair we use Mohair that has been treated to resemble human baby's hair. The hair is 'rooted' to the doll head, basically 2 strands at the time with felting needle. I broke 8 needles on Bianca. Attaching the eyelashes was pretty hard for me too. I think I spent 20 minutes to attach the left one just to ruin it in the end. Good Lord. 😒
Notes: painting the doll's head and limbs took approximately 8 hours total. I spent around 8 hours too on the hair, which I think too fast, I didn't do it properly, I got impatient and started jamming the needle like a maniac. Which is of course not the right way.

I was discouraged a couple of times working on this new type of craft, I think it’s just my nature, I’m a perfectionist, if I can’t do it well I wouldn’t do it at all. Right now, I think I can do this, I don’t think I will be an expert in this, but I think I can do this well especially if I practice a lot. I also found, that assembling the doll at the end was very exciting and to see her assembled and not in ‘pieces’ anymore, was very rewarding. Taking the photos was fun too, and unlike real babies, she sat still for me. :)