Custom OOAK Celebrity, Rock Star, Pop Star, Movie Star Barbie Dolls

One of the most challenging things a doll artist can do is to repaint dolls to look like a celebrity. I have been repainting and customizing dolls since 2001, but have only recently started doing celebrity, Hollywood Stars, Pop Star and Rock Star dolls.

One of the hardest things in recreating a celebrity, is to get a base doll that has a close face shape and features to the person. Both Tonner doll company and Mattel ( Barbie ) make some celebrity dolls, and if you have a base doll like this to start on, it can certainly be easier. Most of my doll commissions for celebrity recreations are started from scratch, with nothing more than a Barbie doll. I try to get a close match in face shape and general appearance, and if I have to, I reroot the doll in addition to the repaint.

I have gotten quite a few celebrity doll commission requests over the past couple years, which prompted my interest in customizing more and more of the celebrity style dolls. I have done Cher, Madonna, Johnny Depp, most of the cast of Twilight, as well as Brett Michaels, and a host of people I was unfamiliar with. I have recreated Hayley Williams of Paramour, Angelina Jolie, Adam Lambert, Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Billie Joe Armstrong, Davey Havok, Shakira, Megan Fox, and even billionaire Richard Branson! I am just finishing a Taylor Momsen ( Pretty Reckless, Gossip Girl ) doll.

My most current request was for a Jillian Michaels doll! So what I did was go right to eBay and look for a doll that has her general face shape, and hair color. That's half the battle. If you can get a good enough base doll to start with, it is much easier to paint a celebrity doll.

Often I get commission celebrity doll requests that require a certain outfit or article of clothing. A lot of ingenuity comes into play when you have to recreate a shirt with a specific logo or design.

My Hayley Williams of Paramore doll needed to have the exact outfit she wore during one of her shows. For this black and white shirt by Skelanimals, I had to design the logo and stripes on my computer, using a graphics program. I then printed the design onto iron on tee shirt paper and then ironed the design onto the tee shirt, which I also had to design and sew. The yellow skinny jeans were pretty easy. Custom Hayley Williams Barbie doll repaint and reroot shown below.

Tattoos are also a challenge sometimes, such as the detailed tattoo sleeves on Davey Havok of AFI. He was actually a very difficult male doll makeover due to the unusual hair style and ton of tattoos. I really love the flaming heart tattoo that Davey Havok has on his chest. I customized a male doll twice to recreate him as Davey.

Some of the most time consuming tattoos I have done however, were the ones on my Angelina Jolie Doll. I think that Angelina is one of the world's most beautiful women. She is probably one of the most requested celebrity movie stars to be customized as a doll. Many artists have recreated Angelina. This is my version.

As a side note, I just want to say that I recently changed my website hosting company from a terrible one to a great one.

For almost ten years I went with a company that was recommended to me when I first started making One of a Kind dolls. I stuck with them even though they are more costly and their customer service was terrible, and outsourced to another country where I couldn't understand a word they said. I thought it would be easier than switching. Their poor customer service finally got on my last nerve and I HAD to find a better company.

After many months of exhaustive research, I found Hostgator. I asked around on many message boards and forums and read lots of website hosting company reviews and Hostgator came out on top every time. When I finally made the switch and started using Hostgator for my web hosting needs, I was thrilled.



First of all, haven't we all experienced calling tech or customer support and getting someone on the line with a heavy accent who is obviously not located in the USA? It is very difficult when they cannot understand you and help you because of a language barrier. To me, this is very poor customer support and tells you that your web host really doesn't care about customer service and outsources to other countries just to save a buck.

ALL of Hostgators customer service is done right here in the USA!!! I am now using Hostgator for three of my sites and plan on using them for the six new websites I plan on creating soon. They support Wordpress, so if you like to blog, they have a one click install. I love my new web host!

Hostgator has web hosting starting at only $4.95 a month! The interface is very user friendly. Pass the word!

Greenday is one of my favorite bands. I recreated Billie Joe Armstrong twice, once for eBay and again as a commission. I love Greenday's lyrics and adore Billie Joe. It was a real pleasure customizing a doll to look like him- twice!

Brett Michaels was one of my favorite male celebrity doll makeovers. I think I did at least three Bret dolls. This was when Rock Of Love was popular on VH1. I remember having a crush on Bret when he was first popular with Poison, in the 80's!

Avril Levigne was one of my favorite female pop star doll recreations. She was also done as a commission, and I love how she turned out. Avril received a full reroot in several shades of Saran hair.

I have done several Madonna dolls, each in different outfits.
I did not do the corset shown below, but I repainted this Madonna doll, and redid the hair with platinum mohair. The pin stripe suited Madonna with the cone boob corset underneath was for a customer in Italy. If you recall, this well known costume design was by Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Lady Gaga. What can I say? I knew someone would request her eventually, seeing her huge popularity. The silver dress Lady Gaga wore to last year's Grammys was a real challenge, as you can imagine. It included tons of rhinestones in 1mm size, which is barely visible. She had a complete reroot as well as a repaint. I wonder if anyone will ever want me to make Lady Gaga's famous meat dress? I already have a plan if they do LOL!!! Here is my Lady Gaga doll.

Katy Perry was the last celebrity doll makeover that I did, a few months ago. She had a full reroot in electric blue Saran hair, and a repaint to capture those big eyes of hers. The outfit is all 100% made from scratch with my own patterns ( I never use commercial patterns ) and the shorts include lots of sparkling sapphire crystals. Oh yes, and the boobs! Those giant cupcake boobs that Katy Perry in her California Girls video were a real thrill to make. I used a sculpting epoxy and sculpted them right on to the front of her halter top. I then painted them and added a cherry on top!

I hope that you have enjoyed my little tour of my Celebrity Doll Makeovers! This is just a sampling of some of the Pop Star, Rock Star, Hollywood Movie Star and Celebrity dolls that I have repainted and customized. Come see the rest at Fantasy Dolls By Donna Anne.

If you like my dolls and want to learn my doll repainting techniques, how to paint Barbie dolls and more, check out my Instructional CDs on doll repainting and Barbie doll customizing. You can find them on my website above.

Come see my other lenses on How to Repaint Barbie and Fashion Dolls, as well as my other doll customizing lenses.