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Modeling exotic dolls has always been a passion of mine and developing new painting techniques, especially for the dark skin tones, is an eagerly awaited challenge for me.
I have never before painted dolls' faces as elaborately as in this collection. These dolls don't only look as though they're made of porcelain - no - they are much better! I would never be able to work on porcelain in the same way. And this is only by the way: my porcelain dolls were never as complex and elaborate as my vinyl dolls now are.
I have modelled ten dolls for the Winter Kinder (and of course the two Club Minis - or four to be precise). Each doll has a different skin tone. In the overview they are labeled WKG1 for the lightest to WKG10 for the darkest tone.
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An overview of the 10 diferent skin tones.
(Please note that we didn't use the original heads to show these colour samples.) |
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WK stands for 'Winter Kinder' and G is the letter for 2008. These are the base colours for the vinyl. But only the paint applied to each vinyl part brings them to life.
The limbs are sprayed with three different colours - one after the other. I mix each of the paints together, using about 8 or 9 different colours. The limbs have never before been treated with so much detail.
It really is crazy. Each time I finish a collection I think it won't be possible to top it. But then everything's all different and it turns out to be possible after all.
Now I'd like to say a word about the bonnets...
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The bonnets are dyed, painted and stitched together in elaborate hand cratsmanship. |
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First of all the wool felt gets dyed to lighter hues than the bonnets will be in the end. Then they are painted all over until they reach the right colour. Then it's on to the rims. In production terms this is going to be an effort I don't quite want to think about yet. The paint-work is unbelievably work intensive. There is another element that makes the bonnets so difficult to make: They can't be made in one step. Each layer of paint and as such each working step has to rest to dry in order to be able to continue with the next layer of paint. Once the painting process is over, the bonnets are hand-sewn together with decorative stitches. I assigned each bonnet design - allowing a certain amount of artistic liberty - a different country of origin for each of the dolls.
I deliberately let myself use a lot of imaginary influences for this collection. This is reflected in the faces, which leave everything open to the imagination, the limbs, the clothes as well as the bonnets. Everything's possible in this collection, including what you will see in the 'children'. They will become what you put into them.
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Nakuma, from the Sioux tribe, is wearing an elaborate, hand-made 'dance bustle'. |
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Nakuma's dance leg laces. |
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Take the very special Indian boy Nakuma from the tribe of the Sioux from North Dakota: He dances on a big pow wow, wearing his dance bustle on his back, which the Sioux only wear when they take part in a pow wow. He wears wonderful hand-made leather jewelry on his clothes, arms and head. Nakuma is dancing himself into his dream.
A ribbon is attached to his fabric body and his right dancing leg. When tied together tightly, his leg remains in the dancing position.
Now for a sensation:
Tscharle's right arm is so heavily angled that it cannot be pulled out of the mould - says everyone who knows something about it!
Only I don't tend to listen to advice like this.
I dared to model not one but two pairs of arms that have an extreme angle, Tscharle's right arm being the one that is breaking all records.
I showed the men who operate the oven the original modeled arms and asked them whether they thought that they could pull them out of the moulds. And they said: 'Well, we guess... we'll try...'
Once the mother moulds were ready they tried and tried and tried...
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The seemingly impossible task of pulling such a tight arm bend out of the mould involved weeks of failed attempts until we finally succeeded! |
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For weeks the arms came out like damaged and burnt rubber snakes, bits got stuck and burnt. Each time the men had to awkwardly prod out minute pieces of burnt vinyl from the moulds, each time making sure not to damage the mould itself.
This literally went on for a good few weeks and all four of the men were disheartened. But two of them carried on trying non the less and after a few days they finally had some 'almost good' results. We were all overjoyed.
At this point I would like to extend Christian Bannasch and Robert Faltyn a big Thank You for their stamina and the resulting great success.
And Peter and Marian Bieniek have also done a great deal to achieve this. So to them as well a big Thank You.
As you can see below Tscharle's graceful hand position gives her unbelievable charisma and Anna Lu's arm position underlines her daintiness.
These arms are a revolution in vinyl production. It's an immense achievement for us.
I wish you a lovely time and lots of happiness with your Himstedt Kinder.
Warm wishes,
Annette Himstedt |
