JustJimAZ

I came across one of those busts sold for girls to practice hair and makeup on. Something similar to this:

I took some pictures of the real one, but my camera is acting odd lately and several photos were seriously overexposed. Anyway, it was 99¢ and it had eyes I could remove, not just painted on. So, I got the doll for those eyes.
Having removed the eyes, I ...

I happened to have a cute little Minnie Mouse come into my possession:



So, I decide to zombify it. It's not a terribly elaborate mod.
I started by cutting the eye out with an X-Acto knife.


I din't want just a hole into her head, so I used my old standby. I mixed glue and water in a 1:1 mix and tore some cotton from a cotton ball. I mixed it all up and crammed it in the eye socket ...

Cruising through the thrift stores, I came across this creepy little thing:


It is pretty freaky and weird all on its own, but I thought I could give it a makeover. The base seems like a coconut shell sanded smooth and carved. Both sides have the same carving. The teeth are pieces of paper glued inside. A couple of bottle caps inside make the "rattle".

I started by replacing the hair with the ...

Last time, I left the doll parts drying. Now they are all dry and ready for paint. There are any number of paint options. For this project, I started by giving all the parts a black base coat.


To help the next layers "pop" more clearly, I decide to do a dry brush of white right over the black. I find, when putting colors right on the black, it is easy to muddy them.
...

Thought I'd document how I made this little dolly:


First, I started with this doll from a yard sale. The body and limbs are all plastic. The head is rubber.


The next thing I did was to separate all the limbs. This is not strictly necessary, especially if you know the pose you want the final doll to be in. Still, this is what I did.


To give the ...