Today I increased the articulation of two of my Black girl dolls. The taller one is 8″ high. She is an MGA Moxie Kids head with repainted eyes on a very hacked-down Mattel ballerina Barbie. I removed length from the calves, thighs, waist, and wrist. I also sawed off the breasts and filled in the cavity with stuffing. Since the kid’s head, neck, and hands are all that’s showing, I painted these areas roughly to match. Hands are from a Noix de Rome Ninie body, mounted on pins. Oh yeah, and I also replaced the elbow joints with wire for better flexion. She’s held together mostly with hot glue and prayers, but she makes a decent bulky kid when fully clothed.

The shorter one is maybe 5.25″ high when hair and platform shoes are subtracted. She is a Mattel Chelsea Club kid that I found at Walmart yesterday. Despite her painted-on tank top, her excessive mascara, and her weirdly hot pink lips, I saw potential in her. I cut her limbs at the major joints, drilled them out, then hot glued wire in both ends so that she could have some basic articulation. I also wiped off the brows, mascara, and pink lips, then redid the brows. I’m pretty sure she’s Alison at age 5. 😀

The poor kids look atrocious when they’re naked, but I don’t care because they look fine with clothes on. All kids are tertiary characters in my stories, which means that they don’t sustain the levels of scrutiny that Isabel and Alison do. I am fine with jerry-rigged dolls, as long as they have decent articulation and paint jobs. And these cuties certainly qualify!