Santas Through the Years

I didn’t have time this year to do my annual Christmas card, but luckily, back in August someone asked me to paint this enormous set of Santas through the years, which was great fun.

We have the Coca Cola Santa:

An old school Victorian Santa with toys:

Sinterklaas with Black Peter:

St. Nicholas:

and Baby Jesus, with a lamb, who is technically not Santa, but Christmas is all about him, isn’t it?

Happy Holidays to You and Yours!

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Dolls

I could not believe my luck when I got an email one day asking me if I’d be interested in painting the characters from the 1987 horror movie “Dolls”. It would be a gift and the buyer isn’t familiar at all with the film so I was basically allowed to go hog wild on this one.

Believe it or not, I have actually seen this movie. It was during my art school days when I had to stay up late to finish a painting or something like that. The TV was naturally on and pretty soon I was engrossed in a movie about murderous dolls and I had to stop what I was doing to watch it. I could never look at a porcelain doll the same way again after that!

 

There are quite a few characters in the cast but I was able to fit them all into this set of 5 by painting some of the actors who were transformed into dolls after doing something naughty within the confines of the old witches’ home.

I don’t know about you, but the Punch doll is all kinds of creepy. He beats his wife too in addition to being exceptionally unattractive, for crying out loud!

The two punk rock girls were turned into dolls after attempting to steal from the old lady.

This hapless traveler was spared from the transformation due to his childlike enthusiasm when it came to toys.

Every stepchild’s dream come true: Having their wicked stepmother turned into dolls!

There’s something very meta about this: Painting people who transform humans into dolls as dolls while holding dolls. Wrap your head around THAT one!

Ladies, Hold onto Your Meng!

Every now and again I get emails from boyfriends who are clearly gunning for “Beau of the Year” award. I give them props for treating their ladies right by asking me to paint  highly customized sets of dolls as gifts. My own husband would shake his head in wonder when I mention these requests and state that he would never, in a million years, think to ask someone to make me something from the depths of their souls. Too much work and thought goes into these things, you see. He’s happy to order me an extra cable for my iphone off ebay for $2.50. I take what I can. At least he doesn’t think to give me a sack of snail pallets like my friend got from her husband for Christmas one year…and not ironically either.

These are some sets that I’ve been asked to paint. My hat off to any man who took the time out to write thoughtful emails describing their girlfriends, find just the right photo references for me to use, and answer any subsequent questions I have (of which there are many) and being all around nice and enthusiastic throughout the whole process.

This one was all kinds of fun to paint largely because of that awesome Enid Coleslaw hair and the Metallica tee.

This mini Life Aquatic set was for a young lady whose beau saw her as part of the Belafonte crew. She might not be able to become one in real life, but in doll form, why not?

Of course her hat would be customized just like the rest of the crew!

This guy was a real sweet heart. Painting this set was a breeze as I got tons of descriptions for each doll. At the end of the session I felt as though I knew all of them personally.

Great job, guys! Hope your ladies appreciate you as much as I do!

…and the 500th BoBo Babushka Set is…

Five years and thousands of hours later, I have painted my 500th set of dolls! It’s all kinds of exciting because I never thought I’d get this far in the babushkaring game before abandoning it like I usually do with everything else. It’s kind of funny that the 500th set should be the mini Nightmare Before Christmas.

This set was created for someone in Entertainment Weekly, my favorite magazine, as a thank you present for including the original Nightmare set in the 2014 Holiday Gift Guide. To be in the same magazine as some of my favorite entertainers and Stephen King—it’s a dream come true! Before anything went digital, I used to have my parents send me my weekly dose of EW while I bummed around the globe. It was my sole connection to the life I was accustomed to and had to abandon so I was thrilled to be a part of it. Surely this means I can retire!

Thank you, Stephanie! And also a big shout out to my friend Lara, who took this shot from her magazine long before I got to see it on my Kindle!