Nancy contacted me to create counterpart to her Pere Noel – the Black Swan to the white swan. She had quite a vision for her – an young lady-in-training, not the perfect ballerina, but close. She would become an amazing dancer in her own right, one day. So with this little brief, I started work on Anna, the Black Swan (and not the black swan from Natalie Portman’s story, that’s a whole other kettle of fish).
Anna started out as a Zuora, a type-2 Pullip with a shock of white hair, mismatching eyes, and a slightly greenish cast to her skin. I got to work on customising her, and being used to type-4’s and MIO’s, she had a bit of a learning curve. Her head came apart in three sections (with a seperate wig dome and her eyes were made of rubber, which required specialised extraction. After that though, things were mostly the same.
I did keep speaking to Nancy about all the differences with the type 2 body! I was always quite amazed at how different it was – the torso was longer, and the hands couldn’t rotate (which meant for some awkward posing). It was nice to see how the company had improved over the last few years.
Anna is gently blushed with a peachy blush to help warm up her green undertones. Her lips are a terracotta red, with a smokey eye and slight green at the inner corners. She’s in a chocolatey colour scheme, with brown wigs, and grey-brown eyes from Puppelina.
See how pronounced the type-2 body is with the collar bones? It does make her look like a ballerina.
She has surprise little pink pointe shoes (to sort of protect her toes) from Q-magicdoll, and a lovely tulle skirt and top by Clear-Lan. Her wig here is a mohair wig from Leekeworld.
I wanted to make her a few fancy little accessories – here she is holding a fancy glittery black mask from when she wants to go full-ballerina. A little video of the mask sparkling can be seen on my instagram here.
For the box, I wanted a black and white exterior, in which I etched her name “Anna” on some acrylic mirror, as well as some flying feathers. The front of the box features my art-deco pattern with specialised wings, as well as a glittery red heart. The frame is painted in black and gilded in the corners in a rich gold.
On the back of the lid it features a little dedication to her future mom and her name.
I love the effect of the mirror etching. I am slowly turning these boxes and making them into a consistent style that I like, and I feel like each one is slowly improving!
The inside of the box features a scene from Swan Lake, based upon some of the set designs I had seen. The bottom is in mirror, to reflect the image of a lake, with a sparkling black mountain, and the castle in the background. The colours are all airbrushed, and I found this amazing black glitter which is now everywhere, in my house, in my eyes, and liberally in this box haha!
I wanted to try a bit of a nebula effect on the inside!
Here she is again! Her skin tone ended up like a cafe latte, I am quite digging it!
Anna is a full custom.
Work done:
- Face-up in pastels, watercolour, acrylic and airbrushing
- Sealed with MSC UV Cut Flat
- Eyelid painting and new eyelashes
- New eyechips (by Puppelina)
- New Leekeworld Wig
- Special little photo box
- New dress by Clear-Lan
I love her little sombre expression, and her light smattering of freckles across her nose.
My current commission list is full, but I will be opening up waiting list spots again soon!
Project Doll House 