How To Re Root Doll Hair - Wet Knot Method

So now you have your doll, but he or she just isn't looking so hot and you want to do a makeover?
I will show you step by step how to re root using a tweaked method called the "wet knot" method.

There are many tools out there to do re roots, fancy schmancy needles with handles, re root machines, etc., but my hands are big and I like the easy way out.

First you need a doll head, obviously.
If you want to practice, that's cool too, you can use any old head.
Many doll heads are made of soft plastic, they are so much simpler to re root than say a Fashion Royalty head, which is made of a harder plastic.
Not to fret!
Heat solves all problems with plastics!

Your first step is to remove the old hair.
I use a pair of scissors and cut all the hair off as closely to the head as possible.
If you just try to pull the hair out as is, it will tear in pieces rather than in the plugs of which it was first placed by the manufacturer.

I run hot water over the now cut down hair head (remember, heat expands plastic) to open the holes a bit. Pull out the hair piece by piece with a pair of needle-nosed pliers.
It works great!
You will need to go up through the neck hole a few times with tweezers to pull out any residual hair.
Rinse the head and use a magnifier if you have one to be sure you removed all the hair.
If not, when you re root, you might "catch" the old plug on the needle and it will ruin the new hair.

Now you're ready to re root!

Here's what you will need;

• Doll Head
• Doll Hair
• Scissors
• Needle-nosed Pliers
• Long thin (2 inch is good) needle
• Hard Eraser
• Brush
• Hair Clip
• Very Warm Water
• Cool Water

First you need some hair. I enjoy working with saran hair which I get from restoredoll.com
They have lots of colors and are FAST to ship.
The other doll hair place, in my opinion, is for the birds and birds don't have hair!
Nor do they many times.
Most doll hair comes from Japan, so brands are basically the same no matter who you use.

I generally use about 15 strands or so for one plug.

Depending on the length you want and different manufacturers, you might need to cut the long hair plug in half thus giving you two plugs to root.
The hank of hair bought can be cut first or after you choose the 15 hairs.
You can also mix colors at this point as well.

I first put my doll head in very warm water to soften up the plastic. Some people use a heating pad. I'm not into being electricuted and please don't use a microwave. The Kingsford Charcoal Ken doll wouldn't sell very well.

I then wet the strand with cool water (it makes it soooo much easier!) and snip off a little hair at each end to make it very even.

I now thread the hair through the eye of the needle being careful to get all strands through.
Re-wetting the tip of the hair helps.

Next choose a place to start. I often start from the back of the head and root towards the front. This way the hair isn't falling naturally into your work.
When doing a mohawk, I always start at the front to get a better alignment view.
Choose the old hole or you can make a new one with a push pin.

Push the needle gently through the head towards the neck hole.
It sometimes goes through easily, sometimes not.
The "not" times I use a very hard thick eraser to push through the head and can then manipulate the needle towards the neck hole.

After the needle has come through the neck hole, you can now start to pull the needle through with pliers.
While pulling, you will see the loop of hair at the neck hole and two single strands will pop up on top of the head.

Now hold only one strand at the top of the head and pull the loop at the neck downward with the pliers.
This will pull the hair and needle out of the neck hole and the needle will slip nicely off the hair!

At this point I re-wet the hair coming from the neck hole. It makes it easier and keeps the hair from frizzing when pulling back up into the neck.

Now it's time to tie a knot in the hair coming from the neck hole. Be careful not to pull the hair down too much or you will have to start over.

After the knot is tied tight, snip off the excess hair but not too close to the knot, or the knot could come undone.

Pull the hair from the top of the scalp upwards until you meet resistance.
Don't pull too hard on a warm doll head or it could come right through.
Secure the hair with a clip and you have just re-rooted!!
Well, one piece anyway ; )

After re-rooting, feel free to use some glue going up through the neck hole with a brush or Q-tip and paint the inside of the head. This makes the hair plugs much more secure.

Hope you enjoyed!

Sniping That Doll On EBay

So, you just found that OOAK (one of a kind) doll and he or she is on EBay?
What to do...hmm...place a bid now or wait?

Everyone has their own style when it comes to the auction giant of the web. Personally, I started buying on EBay several years ago. I had no idea what "sniping" was, but I found out pretty fast.

Many many times when I was an EBay newbie would I place a bid only to find I had lost in the last few seconds.
This became unnerving until I learned to "snipe."

Sniping is the art (oh yes, it's an art) of placing a bid within the last few seconds of an auction thus keeping others from retaliating and outbidding you.
Now, this doesn't always work. Negative factors include other snipers and a bid placed before you that was either through the roof or just a little bit higher than your sniping bid.

There are a couple of ways to keep this from happening;
1) Place a huge comfortable snipe bid
2) Have split screens with the same ending auction with one snipe bid and one even higher snipe bid as collateral.
You can do the second by right clicking on the auction header and selecting "open in new window." Then you have two screens of the same auction.
I have had 4 screens open at one time.

I normally win 95 percent of my auctions unless there are two, what we call "newbies", fighting it out and amassing a huge paycheck for the doll seller.
Beware of them! They are dangerous and will eat up any bid you place.
I frequently pass up those auctions, unless I'm feeling fiesty!

You can tell a newbie by clicking on "# of bids" on the item's page.
It will show the bidders in ascending order of bids from the bottom up.
Newbies are the ones with feedback scores of (0-10).
I understand the frenzy and adrenaline rush, but $100 for an item you can "Buy It Now" for $50?
Absurd, unless you are Ivanna Trump.

The problem with sniping is that you have to be willing to spend the money if you win and you almost always have to be present at the end of the auction.
There are sniping bots that can place bids for you, but most don't work very well (from what I've heard in the dolly streets).
With new apps on cellphones for Ebay, it makes it sooooo much easier to snipe by yourself anyway, even if you're in the bathroom!

So have fun, but remember, I am out there too!

Everything's better with a background!

Welcome to my blog!

Just for some background info, I am a diorama/doll repaint/reroot/miniature artist.
Phew...that's a long title.
I grew up playing with the dreaded and sometimes disliked G.I. Joe dolls. Yes, they are dolls no matter how you look at it. They were made and titled as such for boys back in the late 50's early 60's.
I had always wanted to mess with a girl doll as a kid, but of course having the one parent figure who felt dolls were for girls and ACTION FIGURES were for boys.
His feeling on the matter ended poorly as you see.

Growing up I was always pretty artistic. My Mom was a wonderful hairdresser, my Great Grandmother sewed often (though I could never grasp it) and instead of going to baseball practice, I opted for ceramics.
I learned quite a bit there and had a nice "quiet" time if you have ever taken a ceramics class, you get my drift.
I still have some of the pieces I made as a kid and enjoy their simpleness.

Much later in life (after college(s) ) and finding myself, I bought a house for me and my Red Doberman "Isis".
All was well until she became ill and couldn't walk anymore. It crushed me.
I had to do the right thing, and it left a huge empty hole in my spirit and life.

I reverted back to my childhood after that incident to try to maybe find some comfort and I found it in action figures. The market had changed drastically since I was a kid and the newer action figures were amazingly detailed.
I bought a Jason Vorhees figure. Of course he was creepy, but to even it out I also found a Ken doll on Ebay. Had to have a camp counselor, right?
That was the beginning of the end!

Then I found a Ru Paul doll and her face sculpture was so realistic but I just didn't like her lipstick.
That led to repainting.
Then she had no food. The only food I could find on Ebay was either too small ( 1/12th scale) or Re-ment which was OK, but not too realistic.
That led to clay miniatures.
After Ru's makeover and food, she needed tables and of course a background.
That led to dioramas.

So you see, as always, one thing leads to another as The Fixx sang.

Today I still dabble in dioramas. I have won several competitions and also won first place in a doll food competition as seen below;

This year I will enter some of my repaints/re-roots that I have done and see where that takes me.
I have yet to sell anything, it seems I am in the "hoarder" phase of dolls.

Here is one of my favorites, Storm from X-Men but the dark 1980's version in the X-Men comics;

Next blog I will discuss the doll world as a whole, shopping on Ebay and a few other tidbits.