This is Nero. Nero is a Pullip, a Korean limited edition fashion doll for collectors. She is roughly the same 1:6 height as Barbie but has a large 1:3 head with movable eyes. I bought Nero used on Ebay to customize her. She was supposed to become Giselda, but when the doll that was supposed to become Nareen didn't look as expected I had to change plans.

Over the next months I will try to customize this doll to make it look like Nareen. I say "try" because I never did this before. My only experience with Pullips so far was to change the eyes on one. I do have experience with assembling, modifying and painting tin miniatures though.

The main problem about Nero is that she isn't what I expected. I wanted a type 3 doll (type 3 and the new type 4 is what most of my other Pullips are) but she is very old and type 2. Type 2 Pullips have a soft upper body - with formidable breasts, obviously. The soft part often dislodges from her hips. Her arms are ugly too, although I do like the ball-joints on her wrists.
Of course the hair, the makeup and the eyes are all wrong too, and she needs some clothes.
Turning this into Nareen will be way, waaaay more work than anticipated.

The main reason why this conversion will take so long is that most parts of Nareen have to be ordered from Ebay sellers from Hongkong and Taiwan.
So, let's go!

Nero's body is useless for this project. Nareen has a very boyish body with almost no breasts and since this doll is made of rubber and it's hollow there's really nothing I can do about her big boobs.
So the first thing I do is order a new body for her. We'll talk about that later.

Since her body will be replaced I can't start making her outfit yet - the measures would be all wrong.
Let's take a look at the part that I actually CAN modify at this point: her head.

The eyes are a pale green or yellow. It's hard to say since they're covered with some ugly patina. It doesn't matter though since Nareen has gray eyes. I visit the online store of CoolCat, a Taiwanese powerseller on Ebay who specializes in customizing material like this. From hundreds of eyes I choose the right ones for Nareen (and order some for Giselda too, postponed is not abandoned!) and order them. This will take 2-3 weeks, which severely limits my current actions.

Anyway, the first thing that has to go is Nero's wig. So let's take care of this first.

Yeah, it looks so innocent, but you have no idea how hard I fought to get this wig off! That was war!
Since the doll is so old her wig is old too. The very old wigs have a tendency to fall apart, and indeed - this wig was glued on so firmly and the base material was so weak that it ripped in half a dozen places.
That is sad because I'd like to use the wig on my other Pullips but I might be able to fix it later. For our Nareen project it's irrelevant. All that matters is that with the help of a scalpel and a ton of pulling Nero/Nareen is now bald.

With the scalpel and some rough sandpaper I remove the worst glue stains. There's still some hair clinging to her head, eww.

The next step is to remove the scalp. The head of a Pullip consists of three parts. A front, a back and a scalp. Front and back are connected by three screws and I can't get to the upper screw as long as the scalp is in place.

With a scalpel and a flat screwdriver I carefully crack the glue that keeps the scalp in place. After some serious prodding (geez, this doll uses more glue than my previous two together!) the scalp finally gives in to me.
I put it aside for a moment.

Those strange buttons on the back of her head are for the eye mechanics. The one in the middle makes the eyes move from left to right, the other two are for blinking. Nareen will be a nifty doll and I giggle like a maniac when I imagine all the photos I'm gonna take of her.
Err... better get back to the present now and stop daydreaming!

This is what a Pullip's head looks like after the three screws are removed. I carefully remove the body and put it aside. It won't be needed anymore.
I also remove the pins for blinking (they're just stuck into the eye mech) and put the back of her head aside. The front with the eye mechanics is what I'm gonna work on next.

To get to a Pullip's eyes three more screws and two elastic springs need to be removed. I already did this twice by now so I have a little bit of experience.

This eye mech is less advanced than what I'm used to but it still works nicely. It's just a bit more wobbly to work on so I take extra care not to break it.

With a scalpel I prepare the doll for her new eyes. I lead the knife carefully between the eye globe and the iris to cut the glue. When I start to prod with a crochet needle from behind the eyes start to splitter like broken ice. This is highly unusual and once again I wonder what this ugly patina may be. I decide not to think about it too hard else it might creep me out. These eyes will just go in the trash bin and not into my stash of replacement stuff.

Once again Nero proves to me that old Pullips don't like to be customized. The glue is super hard to remove and it takes me a very long time to remove both irises and all glue stains. If there's still glue left the new eyes won't fit flushly, so I do my best.

The next thing I take out are the eyelids.
Nareen has very thick lashes and thick eyeliner too. Although she doesn't have black eyeshadow in the comic I decide to give some to the doll. Since I will have to draw on a lot of her eye makeup I don't want her to look stupid when she closes her doll eyes. So black eyeshadow it is.

After some thinking I also place a second order with CoolCat. This time I order a pair of thick eyelashes because Nero's aren't thick enough for our dear Necromancer. To save on postage I also order some purple boots for her. Shoes are the only clothes I can't make myself, so these were on my list anyway. While I'm at it I choose boots of the magnetic variant. That means Nareen will have plateau soles, but those soles have a magnet inside. So if I put a metal plate inconspiciously under a blanket Nareen might be able to stand on her own with no doll stand, which would greatly improve any photos of her. It's worth a try and the boots - while of course not exactly like their comic counterparts - are cute and fit her dress well.

And here we have the finished eyelids. What an odysee!
First off I roughed them up a little with fine sandpaper so they would take new colour. Next I tried to paint them with pastel pencils but they didn't stick. Seems like my sandpapering wasn't thourough enough (or I was too scared to sand too deep).
So I had to use acrylic paint, but then her eyelids were completely black (with some purple).

In the end I scraped some dust from flesh-toned pastel chalk with a knife, added some black and purple dust and smeared that on the acrylics with my fingers. This gave some texture and looks like some skin is shining through. Phew!
As a last step I added some gold wax to the area above the lashes.
With the lashes protected by some masking tape the eyelids got a layer of matte spray varnish. They are done now and wait for their new lashes.

Today is Saturday and huzzah - Nareen's new body arrived!
It is a 25cm ball-jointed body from Obitsu. I never saw one before but I'm very satisfied. The trunk is made from soft material, the arms and legs are hard plastic. It is incredibly posable and even has two spare pairs of hands with different poses.
Now the old body can be put away.

(Note for Europeans from 2013: The webshop of Plastikpop has a big selection of Obitsu bodies so you don't have to import those from Asia.)

I'm incredibly lucky. The new body matches her head in tone almost perfectly. It looks even better than the original body.
So there is nothing I have to do to make it fit.

So far I can't decide whether to add her tatoos or not. Of course to be a real Nareen she needs her tatoos. To do that I'd have to sandpaper her whole body though and then rub the new colour in and reseal her with varnish. I don't know if this will change her basic skintone (possibly creating stains on parts where I can't reach with sandpaper because I can't find a way to disassemble this body), and I also don't know how the soft body will react to varnish.

Okay, the body "only" cost 25 Euro and ordering a new one in case this one gets ruined is easy because I can get it from a German shop. It would still be sad though.

Maybe I'll try with her legs and if it doesn't work out nicely I'll just put her in a pantyhose like she wore during the tournament.

Here's a full-body shot of her face front on the new body. With the help of my husband I got the neck part exchanged. Now all I need is some small rubber bands to steady the head because it wobbles.

Now that I have the body I can go looking for the right fabrics for Nareen's clothes in my big box of stuff!

By now I have also sanded down her scalp and the other parts of her head where there was old glue, and I used a handdrill to make her a second hole for earrings. (She only had a hole in one ear, probably a design decision for her original outfit.)

There was nothing decent in my box of fabrics, so a quick trip to the fabrics store was in order.  
Although I love cheap silk imitates I decided on equally cheap plisse velvet for Nareen's clothes. I also chose to use black instead of purple because that's how I draw it on the b/w pages.

First off I make her arm warmers. For these I cut two 4x9cm rectangles from the violet fabric. The lower part gets seamed first, then the sides are sewn together. Before I seam the upper part I put some elastic cord around the sleeve and put it on the doll. Fasten the whole thing with a knot, cut off the ends of the elastics and secure the knot with a drop of superglue.

Here you see one finished and reversed arm warmer and the second which is in work.
One note about the patterns: Once I can write a halfway decent tutorial for it the sewing pattern will be shared on this website, of course.

Keep in mind though that you will have to adapt them for your needs. An Obitsu small bust body has different measures than a Pullip, a type 1 or 2 Pullip has different measures than a type 3 and if you want to use a Barbie, Blythe, Momoko, Hujoo, Bratz or whatever doll as a base for your own Nareen you'll face a different body type too.
Sadly I don't have many pictures on how I make clothes, as I often make wild tests until I find a pattern that works. So in many cases there will just be the pattern and some explanations on how I assembled the parts.

(Note from 2013: Since the plisse velvet widened a lot and probably did so right from the start there still is no sewing pattern. Nareen will probably get a completely new version of her clothes made from other fabric soon and I'll do my best to this time make a decent sewing pattern instead of trial and error.)

I feel sorry for Nareen for being photographed almost naked, so I quickly make her some undies. I don't put that much care into this as I don't want to take shots of her later wearing this. It will be practical for any pictures on which she sits and people can peek under her skirt.
Her undie has the basic shape of a diaper and I quickly seam it, then draw some cord through both sides.

On this picture you see her completed bolero jacket too. This is actually starting to look like Nareen!  :D
I'm sorry that there's no work-in-progress shot, those pictures were too dark AND blurred because I made it in the late evening with artificial light.

I will add two press studs to the inside of the jacket's back.
In the comic the jacket has a hood attached, so of course I'd like to add it here too. A Pullip has an enormous head though, so the hood must be very large to fit. Quite possibly that will look stupid, just as stupid as a fake hood that doesn't fit because it's too small.
So I will make it as a single part that can be attached to the hidden press studs.

As a next step I will remove all clothes to colourfasten them. Pullips are made of a plastic that easily gets stains from dark or very strong colours. I don't know if it's the same for Obitsu but I don't want to take the risk. I know anyway that the soft torso is very prone to staining. So the clothes will get a bath in a water/salt/vinegar mixture to lessen the danger.

While those dry I'll start with the first test patterns for the actual dress.

This Saturday Nareen's eyes arrived. (Only 6 days from Taiwan to Germany, wow!)
The small picture shows the eyes in their original package while on the large pic one of them is already inserted into the eye mechanic. I swear I took inbetween photos but none can be used. Darn rainy weather.

So here's the details in word with no pic:
Eye chips are made from polished plastic. They have a ring of laser paper on the backside which can be replaced by anything you like, e.g. wrapping paper or gold foil. The original silver paper shines like a rainbow and I kept it because it makes Nareen's eyes shine without giving them a wrong tint. The chips have no pupil, just a clear spot in the middle. With acrylic paints I first painted the white spots (from the backside) and then painted black over them.
So far the chips sit nicely in her eyes. Should they become loose when assembling the head I'll fixate them with a bit of white glue.

It was time to prepare Nareen for her new make-up and her body tattoos.
I dipped the sandpaper into a glass of water from time to time and sanded down the body, ears and face. This left grey stains on the doll so I had to wash it several times to see where more work was still needed.
The arms and legs now match the soft matte body much better.

Nero's last day has come... I'm a bit sad.
But it's for a good cause.

One of her cheeks gave me trouble. There were blotches of the old rouge that I just couldn't get rid of, but I kept sanding and sanding until it was better. Today it was so damn dark that I had to use a table lamp all day long to see anything. I am very afraid of all the stains and flaws that I couldn't see in the bad light. Lately there isn't any other weather than that though and I can't put the doll away until next summer!

Here's another photo taken directly beside the window. As far as I can see the face was okay by then.
I left on most of the old eye lashes and some of the old eyebrows to have a template.

First I took a black pastel chalk and scraped away some of it with a knife.
The eye makeup was made with a cotton swab because my cosmetics swab broke right away. -_- I will have to buy a new one to finish it.
The lips were also made with pastel dust. Here I used a brush and a bit of water to create a layer of black that is slightly translucent.

For the eye lashes and eye brows I used black acrylic paint. I also used it to paint some lines on the lower lip and to give the upper lip a deeper shade.

Her cheeks were toned with dust from a light flesh-tone colour pencil. I scraped it off with a knife and just used my finger to rub it lightly on her face.
The lips still need some finetuning because they're not symmetrical, and of course I'll have to finish the eye makeup. I really, really hope there will be a day with some decent sunlight soon so I can check for any stains that went unnoticed before the face gets a layer of matt varnish.

On a sidenote I ordered the wig today.

At last, a decent picture of the finished head. Today it was sunny so I got up early and finished the face.
I worked some more on the eyelashes and made them even longer, also put black on all of her eyelids. There's a hint of gold wax on her lids. The mouth was enhanced with some light gray to make it shiny and her cheeks are nicely pink now. The only thing that gave me trouble is the black eyeshadow. I don't know how often I had to sand it away again.

(Note from 2013: If you want to it right then first give the head a coat of Mr. Super Clear so the new paint - especially pastels - stick better. Later on you can seal the face between important steps. If you mess up afterwards you can wash off the pastels again without destroying everything you have achieved so far. Also, if a pastel colour isn't intense enough you can seal the face and add another layer of pastel on top for more pigments.)

As a last step I used a knife to fix the colour in the corners of her mouth. Then the head was coated with a layer of matt varnish.
Now I just wait for the new eyelashes to arrive, then the head can be completely assembled with eyes and everything.

Now it was time to take care of Nareen's tattoos.
After rummaging through my equipment I decided to try liquid frisket. This is rubber-like stuff that is usually used on water colour pictures to mask areas of paper, protecting them from taking on colour. It can be rubbed off with a finger when it's not needed anymore. With an old brush and with some pictures from the galleries as reference I painted thick outlines for all the tattoos.

At first I try to fill the tattoos with colour pencil shavings. It doesn't work. The cotton swab is too thick and spreads pigment outside the outlines. A brush with a little bit of water works better but the pigments are irregular and grainy. The edge of a paper tissue is too hard and rubs the mask off.

I give up on the colour pencils and take out the acrylic paints.
For the bird I use a bit of ivory and turquoise with a hint of flesh tone. For the pink tattoos I create a mix of crimson, flesh and ivory. The colours had to be thinned down with water to create a nice, smooth effect. Then I let it dry for 15 minutes.

Not everything was peachy though. Some of the rubber had suffered from handling the doll, and some of the paint came off from rthe hard plastic of the limbs due to rubbing. I took out a small brush and retouched the areas where paint was missing.

As a last step I used a scalpel to scratch away paint from the limbs to achieve clean, crisp outlines. The thick consistency of liquid frisket isn't made for accurate outlines, after all. It's impossible to remove colour from the soft torso, so retouching with more paint is the only option there.

When I was done it was dark outside, so I put the doll aside for today. Tomorrow I'll wash it to get rid of the last loose pigments and rubber stains, then sand away any stains. After drying it will recieve two layers of matt varnish like the head.
Currently the body is very sensitive for stains due to the rough surface, so the dress has to wait too. Taking measures and trying on stuff now would be an invitation for desaster.

And yet desaster strikes. The doll is close to ruin because the soft rubber torso becomes sticky due to the varnish. Exactly what I was afraid of from the start. Within minutes Nareen is covered in dirt and fuzz (no wonder with all the fabric around, the cheap velvet loses a lot of hair).
With a medium grained piece of sandpaper I try to sand away the varnish from her body. It takes me hours until she stops being sticky and at that point her tattoos are all damaged and the varnish on her thighs became sticky too due to my sweat and the continued handling.
The photo shows the leftover stains after roughly 2 hours of scrubbing. That wasn't the end of it, I kept scrubbing some more.

(Note from 2013: Due to this experience I STRONGLY recommend using only Mr. Super Clear sealant. Everything else was just rubbish. If it's hard to get in your area, try Ebay. There are sometimes merchants who sell it. Also shops that specialize in model building.)

Finally a good day again: Nareen's boots arrived from Taiwan. Many thanks, CoolCat!
(I even got a free gift that will make my other dolls happy.)

Since the boots are magnetic and the dust cover of my desk has a metallic core by coincidence Nareen stands on my desk like a rock. She can even walk up the heater horizontally. Cool.
This makes me forget about her damaged body for a while.

With the boots also came the new eyelashes. They are for a Blythe doll and each turns out to be twice as wide as a Pullip's lashes. I decide to cut both in the middle and give Nareen two layers of lashes. The short lashes go on the outer sides of the eyelid.
The old lashes are cut away with a knife, then a bit of superglue helps attach the new ones. I put the second row a bit higher so that the hard rims don't stack and interfere with her eyes.

(Note from 2013: As it turned out these eyelashes are in no way different from fake eyelashes for women. So I bought a pack with 10 or 20 from a Chinese vendor on Amazon - and paid only slightly less for the whole thing than what I paid for just one pair. If you plan to customize several dolls this helps enourmosely. Unless you buy brand stuff - that's extremely expensive.)

After the glue dried the head was assembled again. I put the eyelids in, then the eye mechanic with its three screws. The eyelid springs were attached to the eye mech again and the handles for blinking were reinserted.
Then I had to put a rubber band around the upper part of Nareen's neck because Obitsu necks are very slim and the Pullip head has a larger hole and thus wobbles. Sorry I can't show a pic, it took two people to get the rubberband in after the body was inserted into the head front, we had no hand free to take a pic.
The head is still a bit wobbly but that's due to the movable neck part and the heavy Pullip head. Let's see how that works out once the hair is on. I hope she won't become a bobble head.

Then the back of the head was attached.

(Note from 2013: These problems don't exist anymore these days but there are new ones. Obitus bodies now come with a very large neck part and the modern Pullip heads have considerably smaller holes. In fact I had to cut off 2/3 of the height of the neck plus to get the eye mech into the head again. You only need rubber bands now to keep the head from sliding into a very slightly tilted position.)

Next up it was time to work on her skirt. The first try was a total fail. (For that I cut a big round piece of fabric and made a hole in the middle for the hips. It was way too fluffy. I may be able to reuse it for a ball gown later on though.) So I made several paper templates and kept testing until I ended up with this shape.
As a first step the top was turned up and sewn, with a rubber cord inside the hem.

When done I sewed the sides together and then I put it on the doll and made a knot. Careful that it sits tightly around the waist but still fits over the hips!
Afterwards hem the bottom and slit. As a last step the part above the slit is gathered a bit. Simply make some loose stitches from the slit up to the waist and pull the string, then secure the string.

Here Nareen shows what the finished skirt looks like.
The wig belongs to one of my other dolls (Eternia) but I wanted to get a first impression of what she'll look like later. The black hair makes her eyes shine and I look forward to the arrival of her wig!
Her wig is straight and longer, of course.

Now all she's missing is the top, the belt, the hood for the jacket and the earrings. Oh, and hair decoration once she has a wig.
Of course there's also the lingering pain of having to fix her torso and thighs. I must try to mix a colour similar to the old one and repaint her tattoos. The thighs will need some more sandpapering to rid them of the stickiness. I will not add more varnish, so I'll have to handle Nareen with extra care.

Overall I'm happy with how she turns out, despite all the errors I made. It's the first time, errors are bound to happen. If I would do her again I would not add tattoos except for the bird. They vanish beneath her robes anyway, but I wanted to have the option of showing her in a bathing suit or nightie too.

(Note from 2013: As I said, if I had only used Mr. Super Clear right away...)

It's Saturday again and Nareen's wig arrived! A new record, as I ordered it on Monday! And once again customs let it pass (rightfully, as it's under the customs limit, but they don't always believe that).
The wig feels very soft and it's shiny.

Wait, that can't be right. Nareen's head vanishes almost completely under the wig. It's for a Pullip, why is it so large? On the second picture I even dragged it over the eye mechanism in the back and the hair still covers her nose.
I've gotta ask CoolCat if this is normal and I have to cut it or pad her head or if they sent the wrong wig size by mistake. If I have to cut it I suppose I better get myself special scissors for hairdressers. I expected some cutting (for Nareen's side bangs) but not this much. ^^

As with all things that you do for a first time I have to learn some things the hard way too. One thing is that a soft busted Obitsu really doesn't like a heavy Pullip head. It was bad before but once the wig was on Nareen's neck turned completely floppy and she crashed backwards several times.

It hurt but I disassembled her completely to get to her neck mechanic. Gwen from Requiem Art pointed me to one of her video tutorials, and while it didn't cover this particular problem I think I found a solution.
After removing the arms and the pin for the head the upper part of her bust was removable. I couldn't get down to the inner mechanics though. So I put a piece of soft foam around the neck piece and secured it with a rubber band. When I had put everything in place again the neck was more stiff and there's nothing to be seen from the outside.

If this really helped still remains a mystery though because I couldn't reassemble her yet due to another thing learned the hard way: varnish isn't neccessarily the same as sealant, and even varnish that works fine on polystyrene and plastic miniatures isn't guaranteed to work on a doll. Nareens face had become sticky on the sides, same for her arms. Seems like it gets a little bit stickier every day. When I scraped some fuzz away it became obvious that she's taking on a black tint (we live near a busy street and there's lots of fine dust in the air which starts to stick to the varnish).
I'll go to the craft/art store later on and see if they have something on sale that specifically says "sealant", then I'll try to fix her.
If her body is ruined... well, sucks but I could buy another one. If her head gets any more damage I'll cry tough.

Thanks to Lirael (and Gwen) who advised me on good brands, but alas - none of them are on sale here.

(Note from 2013: I got the impression that the type4 heads don't wobble as much but the soft foam trick is still a good idea to apply since my newest doll is still a tiny bit wobbly. After all those years Nareen wobbles a bit again but it helped for a long time and her wig if very heavy due to its length, after all.)

In the meantime I started work on the earrings. I wrapped thick florist wire around a pen in the right size, then cut off the overlapping pieces with pliers. One end was run in a large bead, then I brought the ends as close together as possible, added a drop of superglue and shoved the bead over the ends and the still wet glue to secure the whole thing.
After the glue was dry I dunked both earrings into silver metallic paint. I rammed some pins through the side of an empty drink can and hung the earrings on them to dry. (Metallic paint needs several hours to dry. I could have used acrylic paint instead but it would require several layers of paint and varnish and still be a bit more prone to scratches.) When they're dry I'm gonna dunk the other half and put them up for drying again.
Then I just have to think up a good way to connect them to the actual earring piece.

Yesterday I bought a brush-on sealant/varnish that's water based. The source for the stickiness was the propellant in the spray can, said the shop assistant.
After some FUN hours of hard sandpaper work and after repainting her tattoos from scratch I gave her a thin layer of varnish with the brush. It was dry after 30 minutes and it's MUCH better. The only thing I don't like is that her face is now very shiny although it was matt varnish.
Here's the reassembled Nareen with freshly repainted tattoos and her finished top.
(In the back you see my ingenious earring-drying device. *g* In the upper right there's a pic of her top loose.)

(Note from 2013: No, it wasn't MUCH better. Her face was shiny like a billiard ball and it was only better for a short time. Then the varnish became sticky and collected dirt. In early 2013 Nareen had fuss on her face and a clearly gray tint. Furthermore the varnish started to peel off on her legs and at the rim of her face. I sandpapered everything possible to get rid of this stupid varnish and this time finally sealed her with Mr. Super Clear. NOW it's much, much better!)

Here she also wears her belt and jacket and the head-eating wig of doom is back! I was told that it's supposed to be this big and just to drag it as far down as possible in the back and cut it on front. So, out with the scissors!
Btw, I don't even have to glue it on, as the rubber band inside sits tightly on her head.

(Note from 2013: After some years this black rubber band left a black rim around her forehead though. The colour sank in so deeply that even sandpaper couldn't get it off again. So if you plan to eventually use another wig on your doll that maybe sits a bit higher take care to get a wig with a white rubber or put a silicone wig cap on her, the kind that CoolCat sells. Luckily Nareen will never be without bangs so this damage will never be seen by anyone.)

Holy mackerel, that's a lot of hair. I'm a bit at a loss about her hairdo. The high ponytail she often wears doesn't look good on the doll because the wig is a bit too bald in the neck for that. Next I tried a braid that goes over her shoulder to the front, like she wore in the tavern in #2 or so. That doesn't look good either though, it's way too thick to look convincing. (Too few hair for one hairdo, too much for another! Go figure!)
A low ponytail would look good but completely blocks her eye mechanism. Open hair would also be nice but hey - I know myself. The wig would be ruined within a week when I run around with her to take photos. Two ponytails would work but no. Just no. She looks like a child like that.

Oh, forgot to mention: Her neck problem is much better now thanks to the added foam. No more bobble head.

In the end I give her a ponytail that sits slightly above the eye mechanism. The doll is now so top heavy that she easily falls backwards unless I pose her very very carefully. In the showcase she'll get a doll stand for extra security but I hope I won't need it that often for posed shots.

What next? Since she already has the tendency to drop backwards I decided against adding a hood to her jacket. Maybe I will make her a hooded cape one day though. For rainy days and winter, you know. One day I might also remake her clothes from different fabric because this one isn't that great. The folds are pretty bad in this size and it looks so fuzzy around the belt and such.
The earrings went into the trashbin because they didn't dry. I suppose there's something similar to a past-by date on metallic paints then. The pot was 15 years old, he he. I will remake them with acrylic paint.

Since her outfit looks a bit bland on a doll she'll also get some accessoires.
Later on she'll also get more outfits because I hope to have several Seekers dolls one day and take many photos.

A little bit later: Nareen is basically done.
I remade her earrings, finished the belt of her little bag and added a tiny purse or material bag to the belt.

Her purple dress will be remade very soon from another material, just to see if it looks better then. I can't get rid of the feeling that this fabric widens every time I have to take the clothes on or off. Even the jacket is too big now.

Nareen got two hair decorations. A hairband and several strings of beads on a pin that are simply placed in her hairband.

The doll will soon be ready for photo action so expect to see photos of her in other albums. She'll also star in a wacky photo comic.

All that's left to do is to assemble some pages with clothing templates for print-out.

In conclusion, am I happy with how she turned out?
Yes and no. I'm happy that the face turned out nicely and that I was able to make her earrings and other things just like in the comic. What I'm not happy with is the varnish desaster, of course. Her body is still a bit damaged from that. The new sealant is a bit too glossy for my taste and also very sensitive to scratches, so for my next doll I'll look around for a more expensive brand. The clothes could be better.
The worst is her head though. The weight from the eye mechanic and the hair still doesn't work well with the frail, movable Obitsu neck. Most of the time Nareen looks up to the ceiling because her head is drawn backwards from the weight.

For my next doll I would either look for one that has a type 3 body and stick to that or if I'm gonna use an Obitsu body again (I like them for their great flexibility) I might leave out the eye mechanic and just glue some nice eyes in place. Or maybe I can leave out the scalp and replace it with leightweight rubber foam? My husband suggested putting a leaden counterweight in her chin but I'm not sure if her neck wouldn't snap with even more weight on!
There's still much to learn about dolls, in any case.

Conclusion of 2013:

As you can gather from my various notes in the text I learned some things since then. And some I learned in a really rough way. Some weeks ago (I write this in December) Groove finally published the "Make It Own" series, a line of unpainted dolls. All of them, from Pullip to Isul. I always had terrible problems with customizing because I was just sad to destroy an existing character. To this day I sometimes miss Nero, also because of her pretty white lipstick that I never saw on a new doll since then.

I bought one Make It Own doll of each kind right away and painted the Pullip version. It was the first time I worked with a type 4 head and I was surprised by the difference. The head is now slightly lighter than before since there is no scalp anymore. There is just a front and back that are screwed together. This way there is less wobbling, especially with the soft foam added. Since the new dolls have a much shorter chin and their neck sits closer to the front (I didn't even notice that before!) the neck pin of an Obitsu body doesn't fit into the head without extra work now. As I said I had to sew off the upper 2/3 of it. The rest is enough to hold the head in place though. The hole for the head now has a weird size so that one side can slightly move into a furrow and the doll tilts her head slightly. Just slightly though. That can be stopped by making the thin part of the neck thicker. I'll show that another time but basically that just means cutting some tape into a thin stripe and wrapping it around the neck several times.

If you don't want to mess around at all with an Obitsu body you can use the stiffer original body too, of course. The Make It Own dolls come with one. I even heard that some people only exchange the arms and thus have the better Obitsu arms on their Pullips. I didn't try that since I would surely be bothered by the inevitable difference in colours but if the outfit of the doll allows for it this might be the best of both worlds.

In any case I still love my little Nareen and that there's "fresh" heads for painting without any remorse for me I took up my old plans for more Seekers dolls too. Now I can even make Takchi, Eloya and the other guys provided I can find decent male wigs for them. :)