My First Reborn Baby Using a Starter Course #2 From Secrist

After ages of looking at the amazing reborn dolls on ebay, I decided to take the plunge and buy a reborning starter kit for myself...after searching around online and asking at reborning message boards I decided to buy this one from Reborn Supplies Planet: Starter Kit: Course #2: Preemie.

I ordered the kit and am waiting for it to arrive. I'm so excited! I ordered Secrist's Sassy doll kit to be included with the starter kit..

It's arrived! Yay! All the goodies (besides the doll head, of course) are under the baby doll outfit.

I'm going to make a baby out of this???

I decide to be patient and before whipping out the paints, I sat down to watch through the DVD that takes you step by step through the process. It's taught by Pat Secrist, the owner of Secrist Dolls. I notice that he shows heatgun as well as oven methods of "baking" on the heat-set paints. He mentions you should use an oven thermometer. Oops, I don't own an oven thermometer! Fingers crossed that my oven is accurate!

I take out my Sassy doll parts and have butterflies in my stomach as I am about to try the first step! I don't want to ruin the kit of course! I take my paint stick to dip in the premixed blushing paint, but the paint is hard as a rock! Is my paint defective?? Oops, no it's just the plastic covering under the lid. *blush* I lift it off and it's fine. The paint is more creamy than I expected, it reminds me of the consistency of pudding. I follow the steps and apply the blush to the face and limbs as instructed. So far, so good!

This kit uses Authentic Reborn heat set paints so after each paint step you have to "bake" the paint to dry. I don't own a heat gun, I learn from the video it only takes 5 seconds to dry with the heat gun as opposed to 8 minutes in the oven! *adds genesis heat gun to wishlist* Okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to pop a vinyl doll into the oven!

She's in! I start to worry whether I put the blush layer on dark enough. But I remember that the general advice is start light and you can always build up darker. I watch the kitchen timer that has been set for 8 minutes and hope I don't wind up with melted baby parts! I resist the temptation to open the over door for a peek. 6.5 minutes to go! I make myself a cup of tea. Check my blog stats. Drum fingers on the table. *beep beep beep* time to take the baby out of the oven!

She didn't melt into a puddle of special translucent vinyl! Yay! She is very warm to the touch, I leave the doll parts to cool, which is tough because I am excited to start the next step of blushing details!!! *flips through tutorial catalogue to pass the time*

After a few minutes the parts have cooled enough and now I'm on to adding blushing details, "pouncing" on more details with a mop brush. The video shows you where to put them though there is some room for creativity. He points out some areas I wouldn't have thought to "pounce" (my new favorite word). This is getting interesting...

My #4 lip and nail brush was pointier than the one used in the video but I found that this worked out well for painting those tiny fingernails! And my FAVORITE part of all...painting the lips! It was amazing to see the detail in the lips brought to life by this wonderful translucent paint. He shows you a really good technique for coloring the lips, too.

The brushes with this kit are labeled 'economy' brushes, but they are surprisingly solid with a bit of heft to them, they don't feel like cheapie brushes at all, I quite like the quality of them in fact, and I think the clear handles are pretty.

The picture above shows my Sassy in the cooling station...I feel so impatient while I'm waiting for her to cool!

This stage of reborning honestly, truly, really had me saying 'WOW' out loud. It was applying the crease and wrinkle paint, it's amazing how much this really amps up the realism of the doll...I applied the "shadows" to one of the doll hands and then compared it to the hand I hadn't done and wow! It really made a huge difference, the hand with the "shadows" looked so much more lifelike. And the way it brings out the creases of the eyes is just incredible. To me this is the most exciting step of reborning so far because it is truly magical how much more realistic this step makes your reborn baby look! Another pop into the oven after that...

Then it was time for the eybrows. Uh oh. This really does take a skilled touch I think. I went very light, since you can hardly see the real eyebrows of a baby anyway, right??? And now *drumroll* the final bake!

The painting is finished!!!

Mr. Secrist demonstrated how to stuff the cloth body and attach the limbs and head. I was truly surprised by how easy it is to attach the limbs and head to the body, the pre-installed cable ties make it a cinch. Really I had imagined in my mind that it was going to be some frustrating, complicated process, but the reality of it was easy as pie! Now where is that doll sleeper that came with my kit?

I am actually very pleasantly surprised at how well my first ever reborn baby doll turned out! I think she looks quite realistic for a first try. Now I hardly expect her to fetch hundreds on ebay but that's not the point. I think my first go was a success, and I still have a lot of paint leftover. Now I can't wait to learn new techniques to take the realism to an even higher level. And I REALLY can't wait to try these techniques out on another reborn doll kit!!!

My next step will be...adventures in hair rooting! Stay tuned!

Here is what I used:
Secrist Reborn Starter Kit: Course 2: Preemie. You can choose which doll you want to go with it. The instructional video uses Zoe.