Rosemary’s Baby

This is one of my all-time favorite horror movies: Rosemary’s Baby. It was filmed so that it’s basically a moving picture version of the novel by Ira Levin.

This set features Rosemary, Guy Woodhouse, and their creepy witchy neighbors Roman and Minnie Castevet. I pop this movie on whenever I feel a little homesick because I used to work across the street from The Dakota.

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Girl Power

There’s one good thing I like about the newer Disney princesses. They’re misfits and strong-willed, they kick butts, and they get things done. After being snottily told by my downstairs neighbor that I was weird, I feel like I have a few things in common with some of these princesses. If I’m not weird, I wouldn’t be who I am, would I?

This collection of Disney Princesses is for a little girl turning four. I sincerely hope she will see beyond the pretty outfits and gleaming castles and learn to be just as fierce and independent as these ladies!

Spirited Away

Believe it or not, my mother was the person to introduce me to all things Miyazaki. She came home from her errands one day and gave me a video tape from her Chinese video rental place.

“Here,” she said as she also attempted to shove a bao into my gullet, “watch this. You’ll like it.”

The video tape in question was “Kiki’s Delivery Service.” Although my mother and I are two very different people, she knows me like no others. She was using the word “binging” in the context of “cramming TV shows” before it was being applied to anything other than an eating disorder and had me watching the entire original Japanese version of “The Ring” miniseries (there were about 60 episodes or something insane like that) in one weekend, so naturally I immediately popped it into the VCR, knowing this woman gets me. Boy, she was right. I did enjoy the movie tremendously. The artistry, the details, the story. It brought a hardened New Yorker such as myself to tears. After that, every time she’s in Taiwan, she would hunt for the latest Miyazaki masterpiece before it was barely out of Japan and I was hooked for life.

Even though I try to stay away from painting dolls based on animation, I couldn’t turn down a chance to do one of my all time favorite Miyazaki films: “Spirited Away.”

This one features No Face, Boh the cranky baby, YuBaba and YuBird, Chihiro, and the Kashira (the trio of heads that bounce around).

When this project was proposed, I immediately dug around in my supply drawers and found something that would be the perfect representation of the three heads. It took some sawing and sanding to make them all fit. Most people believe I stand around all day painting dainty little things when in fact I have a Dremel at the ready, fully charged at all time for emergency adjustments, a belt sander downstairs, and a box of band aids nearby for any power tool-related injuries. Even though “traditional” nesting dolls sets aren’t quite as trying to make, I do enjoy these challenges now and then to break things up a bit!

Harry Potter

Once a year I get a request to paint a set of dolls based on a little girl’s latest obsession, which is, quite frankly, very flattering. Although I don’t exactly produce dolls, I do recall, as a child, my bedroom had a wall of shelving units that I literally cluttered with knickknacks. Some were toys, most were miniature rooms I made out of Kleenex boxes, but a majority were ornaments that made dusting day a real headache. The point is, there are children out there who appreciate receiving ornaments as presents rather than toys and I look forward to this time of year when I get an email from the little girl’s mother.

This, apparently, is the year of Harry Potter. I’ve done a mega set a few years back so I was happy to repeat a few of the characters and adding three new ones. This set focuses on the students themselves.

When Harry Potter was at its height of popularity, I was a school teacher then and was amused to find all the girls in my classes were VERY attracted to Draco Malfoy, so I wasn’t surprised that he would be the first doll. Most girl appreciate a bad boy, I suppose. Hermione’s all about girl power, so’s Ginny and Luna, the two other new additions. Harry and the slovenly Ron are also in the mix, almost as an afterthought.

In the first Harry set I did I was asked to paint the characters’ accompanying creatures. That’s done again for Harry and Ron, but with the others I played it up with wands and broomsticks and also the time turner again for Hermione, an artifact I kind of wish I have so I can finally sit down and eat my lunch!

The Hobbit

Years and years ago I did a mini “Lord of the Rings” set featuring the fellowship. Since then I’d been wanting to update it but never got around to it…until now. I was asked to do a large set of 8 featuring a wizard, a hobbit, dwarfs, and a dragon from “The Hobbit.” It’s really hard to fit this mega set into my insane schedule, but I worked on it after after hours and found that I do my best work after dinner; when noisy and crabby neighbors have retired for the night and I was refreshed from a bracing shower and dinner.

Usually I can’t wait to finish a set and send it on its way, but this one…? I kind of wanted to keep it around for a bit!

Smaug was painted all in one go on a dreary Saturday afternoon. I streamed two movies and three 1-hour TV show while painting this set.

Gandalf: Hatted and unhatted.

Thorin and Dwalin. Seriously, Dwarfs cannot be this hot in Tolkien’s vision.

Fili and Kili and Bofur and of course, Bilbo.

Pushing Daisies

People, you have no idea how long I’ve been jonsin’ to paint this set. “Pushing Daisies” is lovely, quirky, yet sadly short lived little show that speaks to the artistic side in me that craves bright colors and bold patterns. It also speaks to the macabre side in me as the show deals mainly with deeply dysfunctional people, murder, mayhem, and death. Not an easy feat to pull off but they did it! I think some of my favorite parts of the show is when little Olive Snook (played by the magnificent Kristin Chenoweth) and Aunt Vivian (or Audrey from “Little Shop of Horrors”, as she is known in my warped mind) played by the delightful Ellen Greene, bust into songs. What a wonderful world it was when a show about resurrecting the dead and solving crimes features two Broadway veterans and allow them to showcase their vocal talents as well!

This one features Ned the pie maker, Chuck, his lady love, whom he raised from the dead with his magical powers but can’t, sadly, touch due to some silly conditions of his abilities, Emerson Cod, his business partner, a PI who is really into knitting, Chuck’s aunts Vivian and Lily, and of course, little Olive Snook, a former jockey now waitress.

Some details:

Chuck with one of her bees (she kept an apiary before her death in her backyard and then on the roof of Ned’s pie shop).

Emerson Cod with his knitting.

The Aunts, the former Darling Mermaid Darlings, who are really into tea, cheese, and pies loaded with mood enhancers.

And Olive Snook wearing a pie hat, naturally.

I was unfortunately walking the earth when this show was on air and was forced to binge watch it, for the first time, while cooking a 10-course Thanksgiving dinner. It’s lovely that my local library has both seasons in stock, allowing me to revisit this show again whilst painting the set. It sure beats binge watching “The Walking Dead!”

Return to Oz

 I’d been utterly intrigued by this movie as a child, mostly due to the shockingly creepiness of it. I was thrilled that someone actually made a horror movie for children! Even so, I was reluctant to tackle this project because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it justice. But someone asked me to paint a set just as I was getting the itch to and was actually starting to compile the photo references needed to get me started.

It was clear from the start that other than Dorothy, I had to paint Jack Pumpkinhead, Mombi, the witch with a collection of heads that she switch up to suit her mood, the dastardly Nome King, Mombi’s henchman, a Wheeler, Ozma, the Queen of Oz, and of course, Tik Tock. I thought about the Gump, which is a moose head attached to a bed and brought to life by a magical powder but couldn’t figure out how to work him into this set. The buyer made a mention of it and you know I don’t like to disappoint. The simplest solution is to do this:

Problem solved!

Some details:

The Wheeler, Ozma, and Billina the talking chicken.

The Nome King wearing Dorothy’s ruby slippers and Mombi with her mandolin.

Legend

I have to admit I was never very impressed by fantasy films made in the 80’s, not since I was forced to watch “Clash of the Titans” with my classmates so the teachers could go out for a smoke or something. The special effects were pretty dreadful. I kept expecting to see a giant hand swooping into the screen to straighten out the creatures that were bent unnaturally at the waist. So when it was pressed upon me to view “Legend” starring Tom Cruise so I could create a set of the main characters, I hemmed and hawed but finally agreed only because A. it was made during a pre-Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch era, B. two words: Tim Curry and C. Unicorns!

It was a fun movie. I got all nostalgic thinking about “The Neverending Story” and “The Dark Crystal”. I got around to thinking that maybe I didn’t hate 80’s fantasy films after all, just “Clash of the Titans.”

From left to right: Jack in his bling bling armor, Lily, fairy Oona, and of course, The Darkness with them horns.

As this is a set of fours, I decided to hide a little surprise inside the Oona doll for the buyer:

It’s a itty bitty unicorn horn!

Winter is Coming

The problem with painting sets of movies and shows featuring cast of thousands is trying to figure out just the right characters to paint. It is mostly why I haven’t tackled “Game of Thrones.” I have about 15 sets in mind just for this one show with more popping up. I figured this is one of those sets, much like the Harry Potter one, that I’ll only do upon request.

And then the request came. It was going to be a big set, it was going to be a birthday present, and it has to be painted in 5 days’ time. So coffee was brewed, ipods are loaded with podcasts from “Car Talk” and the latest thriller/murder mysteries, and frozen meals are defrosted just so I can crank this set out at warp speed. In addition to that there’s another huge project which I’m working on “after hours” and Cyclone Marsha swept through my neck of the woods so there’s also the threat of not being able to complete this job due to electric outage. In the end, everything turned out all right and I can now officially cross another set off my wish list.

From the largest to the smallest: Ned, Catelyn, Robb (yum!), and Arya Stark, followed by Hodor (with Bran Stark), Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister, Khal Drogo, the Mother of Dragons herself–Daenerys–and The Hound.

Now, if there’s only a way to get rid of the Game of Thrones opening theme from going round in a constant loop in my head.

…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!