Casting Call: Part 1

If you were very lucky (and very well-behaved), once or twice in your childhood Santa Claus might have brought you so many toys that it took you weeks to get around to playing with them all.  With two dolls shows last month, I felt like I had received that kind of Christmas bonanza, which is part of why I haven’t posted in a while.  It has taken me all this time to organize photo shoots so I can show off all my new loot.

I also wanted to spotlight some of the faces in my collection since I focus on “clones” rather than name brand dolls.  While many collectors assign their dolls to families and spend considerable time, effort, and money tracking down just the right spouse, children, parents, and other kin, I don’t group my dolls in permanent families.  Instead they are all contract players with my video production company – Ayamedia.  Thus, for the last year, my strategy for doll show purchases has been to cruise the bargain bins for articulated bodies.

While pickings were pretty slim at the May 20th doll show, one vendor had a bin full of clothes she was offering at $1 per piece.  After she dumped the bin out on the floor and encouraged me to take my time making selections I ended up buying about $20 worth of “vintage values.”  So this is the first in a series of five posts introducing some of the up-and-coming talent at Ayamedia Studios.

Veronique

Blue eyed blondes are a dime a dozen but blondes with melting brown eyes like this charmer are not so easy to come by.  Big Lots used to sell bikini-clad dolls with this face mold for $4.  They had hollow plastic torsos, but the bendable vinyl legs were good quality. 

I don’t know whether the pink top was originally intended as outerwear or lingerie but for a $1 find, it coordinates very well with the Saint Regis Lace bra and panty set.  

Jeanne

Jeanne was originally a head and torso designed for a Wilton doll cake.  I always hated the face mold on my pregnant Midge doll so I did a head swap and came up with a sporty-looking mom-to-be. 

I paid $1 for the maternity dress at the May 20th doll show.

Mimi

With her bright red hair and violet eyes this spunky schoolgirl has a very distinctive look.  I paid about $4 for her at Wal-mart circa 2005.  Mimi had a small role in “Sticks, Stones, and Camera Phones” as a girl who texted a suggestive photo to a classmate.  Her talents earned her a premium Mattel “poser” body with a pivotal waist and arched feet. 

I paid $1 each for the jumper and black tights at the May 20th doll show.

Ramona

Hobby Lobby sold this doll as Native American, but she has the same face mold as her blonde counterparts and her rounded, hazel eyes give her more of a mestiza look in my opinion.  She reminded me of the blue-eyed Scots-Native American heroine that Helen Hunt Jackson created to draw sympathy for the plight of Native Americans in her best selling 1884 novel, Ramona.   An earlier doll show purchase enabled Ramona to upgrade to a flat-footed Mattel body that originally belonged to a WNBA star. 

I picked up the pink gingham pants for $1 at the May 20th doll show.  The coordinating pink top was already part of my wardrobe department.

Tiana

I have my reservations about “The Princess and the Frog” but to date I have acquired three Tianas.  One has the original lacquered hairstyle.  

 

I washed the glue out of the second one’s hair but left her with a shoulder-length permed style.

  

I scalped the third one so she could wear natural texture wigs and upgraded her to a Mattel cheerleader body that I found at an earlier doll show. 

The top and pants were $1 each at the May 20th doll show. 

Stay tuned.  In the next post it will be raining men!

À Bientôt