Re-roots, Wigs, scalps and domes explained

Another post for the newbies! This issue came up on the forums and I remember being confused by all the options and new terms out there too. Hope this helps to make it a little clearer.

Domes

In human terms, the dome is kind of like the top of the skull. It's the hard bit on top of her head under the scalp. As you might know, Blythe comes in different facemolds and these different kinds of Blythe have different kinds of dome. The older girls (BL, EBL and SBL) have the dome attached to the faceplate of the doll. This means that if you want to open her for customising or change her hair, you need to remove the scalp first. It's not an easy process, but that's a whole other post for another day.

Here's an EBL dome.



On the newer Blythes like RBL and FBL Takara/CWC have kindly made the dome a separate piece and attached the scalp to that. This means that opening these molds is much much easier (you don't need to soak or saw) and results in less damage to the doll. It's also really easy to swap scalps with another Blythe of the same mold in your collection.

Here's what an RBL dome looks like. The scalp is on this one as I am too lazy to pull it out again, but you can see the hard plastic dome on the inside.



Sometimes you can buy RBL and FBL Blythe without a dome - be warned, they can be difficult to source and without a dome, your Blythe's scalp can dent and well...look wierd.

Scalps

The scalp is a rubbery covering with hair rooted in it that covers the dome. Removed from the dome, it looks like this (on the underside anyway...the other side is considerably more attractive!).



The little sticky out lip on it is called the flange. This helps it to sit nicely between the dome and faceplate. This scalp is an RBL Saffy Encore.

You can also buy blank scalps from Coolcat that look like this. Obviously, this isn't my pic. Don't sue me Coolcat! I think your scalps are great :)



They are used for rerooting a new head of hair when a stock scalp is not available. They are a litte different from the stock scalps in that they are made of thicker rubber and obviously, don't have holes in them yet. They only come in one colour, so might not match your Blythe's faceplate very well if she has dark skin. They are great for mohair reroots, scalpless Blythes or if you simply can't bring yourself to cut the hair off a stock scalp to reroot it.

Wigs

Unlike most BJD's a Blythe's wig is not really her hair (that's her scalp). In some ways a Blythe wig is just like a human wig - it's a fun way of having a new look, but you can always tell it's a wig and it has limited styling options. A wig is not made of rooted plugs like a scalp, it's made by stitching wefts of hair to a stretchy or net base. If you move the hair the wrong way, you can see the wefts.



Here's Poe in her wig. This photo was taken after a bit of primping and from a carefully chosen angle. It is sitting directly on her dome as she does not have a scalp and it does not sit right. I have heard of people using them directly over a blank scalp either glued or velro'd on, but you have to remember that your styling options will be limited.



Wigs are best used over the top of a scalp, with the hair tucked up in a wig net. The nets are very inexpensive and most of the places that sell the wigs also sell the nets. A word of warning though, expect to have to wash your Blythe's hair after using a wig - especially if she has bangs. Her hair will be very messy when you take it out of the wig cap and her bangs will be all over the place.

Re-roots

A re-root is exactly that - re-rooting new hair into a scalp. Unlike a wig, this is more permanent and it takes quite a while to do. Blythes are rerooted to repair badly executed haircuts, to give them a new kind of hair, like mohair or to give them a unique new colour that isn't available on the stock scalps. The best way is to use the Blythe's own stock scalp to ensure a great colour match between face and scalp - also I have heard that it is much easier to use the holes from the factory hair, rather than having to punch your own. If you don't have your own Blythe's stock scalp, sometimes clean ones or ones with ruined hair come up for sale. You can also use a blank Coolcat scalp and punch your own holes in it. I will be doing one on my bait Blythe soon and will probably cover the process more thoroughly then.

Hope you found this post informative. I will be doing a follow-up on all the different kinds of hair in the near future.

Poe's (temporary) new look

Had a fun day giving Poe a little tidy up today. Nothing too drastic, just a light sand to remove the surface scratches, a little pastel makeup, some temporary eyelashes (they are a little too short for her eyes) and until her hair is done, a wig. I even toyed with the idea of putting her on the Neemo body, but as soon as I tried it I knew it was completely wrong for her (not to mention that her head was horribly floppy!). This girly look is possibly not the way that she'll end up looking, but it's a definite improvement that street kid/lice ridden chimney sweep look she had when she arrived. The wig is really not what I would have chosen for her, but the two wigs in the house belong to Miss B - and the other one is a Lolita style one and is even prissier if that is possible. It does not fit at all well without hair underneath, but it will do the job for now - better that than bald! For those who don't normally follow my blog, here is what she looked like before.



The makeover all went reasonably smoothly apart from a short period of time that I believed I would never be able to prise her eye mech out. The older Blythes are definitely a lot harder to customise than the RBL's although that said, her eyechips came out incredibly easily. I was going to pull the pinks out at the same time in readiness for some new ones that I haven't even ordered yet but changed my mind at the last minute and now I'm glad I did. They kind of suit this sugary look don't you think?

Bait Blythe

Poe arrived yesterday - my first EBL,and a bait Blythe. I thought I would put up a few pics, as unflattering as they are, so that newbies can see exactly what a bait Blythe is. I think Poe is a pretty good example!

Put simply, a bait Blythe is a doll that has seen better days. She needs some work as she's in pretty bad condition and so is sold off cheaply to someone looking for a fixer-upper. Normally the seller will disclose all of her faults, but in labelling her as "bait" you should be aware that you are buying a doll with issues. Sometimes you can end up saving quite a bit of money by buying a Blythe this way, especially if you are handy at customising yourself. I don't go in for stock girls, and as DB is getting older and harder to find, I wouldn't feel good about sanding off a new one's make-up, so this is a relatively good deal for me.

The person I bought Poe from bought her in this condition as bait herself and was very clear about her issues, so there were no surprises when I deboxed her.

So here she is, pretty much as she arrived.



As you can see, she has had a few "customisations" in a previous life! The worst and most unfixable of which being the poor girls hair, which as you can see has been given a very severe haircut. Her blonde streaks have been cut off at the roots along the thatching and the back has been cut short and unevenly. Such a pity, because I have to say that I love the colour and it is very very thick. The thickest of all my Blythes, actually. I'm wondering if Takara have been skimping out on this in recent years - the quality of the RBL hair does not compare.
She will be rerooted, as her skin is quite dark and unless I can find another DB scalp it wouldn't match.





She's been sanded at some point, possibly with a Magic Eraser type sponge because she is still kind of shiny here and there. She's got lots of superficial scuffs and marks and looks a bit grubby. Her makeup has been removed accept for her lips, she has no blush and the remnants of some black pastel eyeshadow. I don't think she's been sealed, so a light sanding will take care of all of this.



Several sets of her eye chips are very scratched - how does that even happen?? I could possibly buff them, but I think I'll just change them out to new ones. The only ones that might stay are the greys. I think the browns are too dark, although they are in ok condition too. She has lost her original eye lashes, and the new ones are all crumpled up - easy to replace. Her pull string and ring are a bit grotty too, these will have to be replaced.



She will be going to the talented and generous Erica Duh for a new face-up, but I am a fair way down the list so I might give her a temporary face-up until she leaves - I don't think I can stand to look at her for 6 months or so in her current state! I will also replace her chips and eye lashes and with a bit of luck I'll have her new scalp finished in time for when she is posted to, so that Erica has a bit more to work with. So all in all, this is what I need to do - quite a bit!!

1. Order saran.
2. Order and fit new eyechips - 2/3 sets.
3. General clean. She has an odd smell - not horrible, just a little musty or something.
4. Open head. Eep - my first time with anything other than RBL!
5. Sandmatt, temporary faceup
6. Replace eyelashes
7. Remove and prepare scalp, reroot.
8. Order and fit new pullring and replace string.

I'll keep you posted regarding her progress. Fingers crossed that she turns out to be worth all the effort!

Rubies, wine and an unforseen dilema...

A few little things have happened in the past few days. Besides being horribly busy with real life things, I've managed to steal a chunk of time between bouts of drudgery, boredom, stress and frustration to give Roxy's hair a treatment. It's come up quite nicely I think, considering the state that it was in (again, the hot water/fabric softener solution is a MIRACLE!). Maybe with one more treatment it might be even better as it's still a bit frizzy at the back. This leaves me with a bit of an unexpected dilema as to what I should do with the fibre for her reroot that arrived yesterday.

The fibre is not mohair, but wool from a rare breed of sheep. I bought it from the most lovely Etsy seller that I have dealt with so far and it is stunning. I absolutely love the colour, it is perfect - I asked for rubies and wine and that is exactly how the seller dyed it. It's so amazingly soft and silky that I confess to spending quite a bit of time gazing at it admiringly and fondling it!. It has a really pretty sheen to it too.



The problem is...I think it might be a little bit too short *sigh*. And therein lies the problem, because I am more than a little afraid of Roxy ending up with her nice blonde curls chopped off and a big red afro in it's place. The locks stretch out to be quite long - between 7 and 9 inches, but in their curly state are more like 4 or 5. I was planning on using a really interesting rerooting technique that involves tying a knot in the middle of the plug and threading it through two adjacent holes, but the shorter than anticipated length makes it so that only the traditional knot method is possible.

I don't know what to do - should I chop off her hair and go for it, or should I get a coolcat scalp for just in case I don't like the result? I have heard that the coolcats don't fit as well as they could...and it is an added expense. Any advice from any super duper re-rooters that secretly read my blog but never comment?

Deboxing a factory girl...not quite the same

I ran into the post office in my lunch break to pick up my red haired factory girl and I was dying for the day to end so I could go home and see what she looked like in person. So here it is - the great deboxing.



The box got damaged but she was OK.

Mostly because she was wrapped in bubble wrap like some kind of coccoon.



And here she is in all her glory



You can't quite tell from the photographs, but she has most of the faults that I warned of in my Factory Girls post (ironic huh?), none of which were disclosed. Still, I bought her to customise and for that she will be fine. Here's her list of "issues".

Bad hair - it looked ok in the auction pic, but it's kinda ratty. A lot came out from just running my hands through her hair. Her curls have crispy ends - to be honest I think my Basaak had better hair, albeit thinly rooted. I don't know if she'll be keeping it. I've just given it a quick wash and put it in curlers, but if it keeps coming out it will have to go.

Mixed body parts - she has transluscent legs and a dark smudge on her back. On the upside, she has pink nailpolish - pretty!

Scratched face - I tried to photograph it, but couldn't capture it. She has a scuff on her forhead and a green scratch near her eye. Hopefully they will both sand out.

Scratched eyelids - her lids both have a line of "wear" on them where they have been rubbing on something inside her head.

On the bright side, her eyes do work, and I still got a great doll to customise, which is what I wanted her for. I kinda hope her hair turns out to be ok and stops shedding all over the place as I don't mind the colour. On the other hand, I've seen some very beautiful red wenslydale locks that would look amazing...and also some gorgeous white mohair of the shiny variety (mmmm shiny!)



Right now she's in curlers, waiting her turn to get prettied up. I don't even have anything much for her to wear that doesn't clash horribly with her hair! I will need to sew her something just for her I think. She'll have to be patient as I'm very busy this weekend. Besides, I still have a blue bob to cut.

Factory Girls on Ebay

It's a scary thing buying your first Blythe, and now it looks as though there are even more pitfalls for a new collector to avoid with the arrival of the latest fakes (that are sometimes incorrectly listed as being Blythes) and now the "factory girls".

The Factory girls are a bit of a mystery - nobody knows exactly where they come from and there are several theories. I've heard that they are prototypes of new Blythes that Takara are considering making (some don't make it to production), that they are made of stolen parts, that they are made of parts rescued from bins (which would account for some of the very bad scalps I've seen). While I don't know for certain which theory is true, what I can tell you is that they seem to be made from a mix of parts from different dolls. You might get Mango's face plates, an eye mech from Nostalgic Pop and hair and body from Simply Peppermint. When all the parts are in good shape and the skin tones match, you can find some really beautiful and unusual girls for a good price.

Lately though, I've been seeing a lot of Blythes from a certain ebay seller that are clearly very poor quality and I considered how easy it would be for a new collector to be ripped off. Unfortunately, until you have a bit of knowledge about these dolls they all tend to look much the same and many of the Blythes on offer at the moment for bargain basement prices have some really bad faults that are sneakily disclosed by photo only, not in the text of the listing. Unless you knew what to look for, it would be all too easy to hit the Buy It Now button while you were all excited about the seemingly too good to be true price and end up with a bit of a misfit as your first Blythe.

These are a few things that I've noticed in these listings:

1. Really really bad hair. Knots, frizzies, melted(!), no thatching (partline), lots of missing plugs, very odd colour (greenish streaks), extremely thin (ie you can clearly see the scalp), very bad and uneven haircuts.

2. The scalp is a different skin tone to the face.

3. Grab bag of body skin tones. Arms, torso, pelvis and legs - a lot of the time there is more than one skin tone mixed up, often they are not the same colour as the face. Sometimes both arms or both legs are different colours.

4. Front and back face plates are different skin tones. Not always obvious in the pics - look closely.

5. Obvious downward gaze - would require repair.

6. Big gaps between joins on body.

7. Sneaky photos. One seller in particular has two sets of photos on some of their listings. One is the actual set (the top left hand ones), the other is in the text of the listing and are photos of a lovely freshly deboxed stock Blythe. Be careful to note that the doll you are bidding on is the one at the top, not the one in the description.

8. You may not even get the doll you think you are bidding on. One seller states that you will get a doll with the hair and makeup of his choosing. This means that he will send you a Blythe, but not necessarily the one in the photos. Given that most of his stock appear to be flawed, this means that the doll you receive may have flaws that you find unacceptable.

That said, I've heard of people getting some really beautiful and unique dolls this way. Many have received perfect Blythes, others were happy to get a doll suitable to customise at a great price (which is what I'm hoping will be the case with mine), or even just a source of parts for other customs or repairs.

If you are at all unsure, ask around in the Blythe forums or on Flickr to see if others have had good experiences buying from the particular seller you are thinking of purchasing from. You might get a bargain, but there is always an element of risk involved in purchasing items that don't pass through quality assurance.

A progress report...

I have so many doll things in progress at the moment I hardly know what to work on!

First up, a progress report on Jonesy as I haven't blogged about her in a little while. I'm still working on her reroot. I think I've broken it's back as I'm just about to start on the final skein and only have about 3 rows left to do - woo hoo! I am ridiculously pleased about the prospect of finishing it. I've bought some rubbing alchohol and plan to attempt to do her lips again...and possibly her freckles too. I'm not really happy with how either of those came out. I just hope that the do over looks better, not worse!

I still need to sew the rain coat and the blue jacket (I admit to procrastinating about the blue jacket - it's fiddly, requires pattern drafting and I think the fabric I'm using (a navy micro-suede) might be too bulky. I'm waiting for her tights and pink sneakers to arrive in the mail, I still need to order her jeans. I have found the perfect pair, but they were a little pricey so I'm still tossing up which ones to get these ones by Pistachio Libby



Or these ones by Blythe Station.



I did have some rainboots ordered but there was a miscommunication about the colour and I need to reorder them later when the seller is free to do custom work again, which is a bit of a shame. I am kind of wanting to get this girl over and done with now... because a new bait Blythe is on the way! She's one of the factory girls, with a red curly Saffy-like scalp that I've never seen before. She seems to have Guava's faceplates and an unusual eyemech - she has purple or red chips. I can't wait to get her and start! Originally I wanted a scalpless girl to do a mohair reroot for my next custom project, but I saw this girl and loved her straight away and the price was too good to resist. I have heard that some of the factory girls do have issues with their hair though, so I guess whether I keep it or not will depend on what I find when I open her up.






Once again I've managed to take a couple of fail photos - when will I learn that once the light is gone, there's nothing to do but wait until the next day. I wish I was more patient. These are of the new dress I've been working on for Nos Pop. I wanted a regency style gown for her and have been drafting a pattern. This is a very rough mock up just to see how the pieces went together(please ignore the untrimmed threads, visible marks, lack of hem etc) . Being all white with no trim on it, it kind of looks like a nightie! I've since made the skirt slimmer, and am thinking of changing the sleeves. I still want the slightly puffy look, but I don't think I like the cuffs on the them as it looks a little chunky. Back to the drawing board, I think...