Reborning i.e., Reborn Dolls hasn’t been around all that long. It developed some twenty to twenty-five years ago with the first dolls not being made from the wonderful kits that are available today.
As a child growing up in the sixties, I loved my dolls with one of my favourites being a hard plastic baby doll with movable eyes and limbs for which my mother knitted the clothes. These dolls weren’t made to last unfortunately, and one drop and her eyes were floating around in her head. It was very upsetting at the time. She was not the sort to be reborn.
Over the years the plastic softened, and the dolls became suitable for the reborning process with the very first reborn doll artists purchasing complete dolls from toy stores, supermarkets, variety stores or anywhere suitable dolls were sold.
The artists would undress and pull the dolls apart and would then strip the existing paint off these dolls and remove any wigs before beginning to repaint the dolls.
Over time, the dolls began to be sculpted into moulds by sculptors. These moulds were then sent off to be manufactured in either vinyl or silicon. After the manufacturing process was completed, the various parts were sorted into kits containing a head, two arms and two legs. The kits also contain the name of the sculptor together with the name of the kit and if the kit is a limited edition, the number made.
The kits are then purchased by the reborn artists to turn into these beautiful lifelike babies. There are two types of reborn dolls, or three if you include the fantasy dolls. Firstly there are the reborn dolls that are just simply a sculpt that is then turned into kits and then there are the realborns which are sculpts where a photo of a real baby is used to create a kit for the artists, like myself, to use to create our babies.
Creating a reborn baby is a very satisfying activity. They take many months to create and many, many layers of paint. Once the painting is completed including the blushing and highlighting of features, rooting the hair is next. This too takes time. During all of this you watch your baby take on “life” and when you put her together, dress her including a nappy and hold her in your arms for the first time it is really exciting. These babies are weighted so they feel real and if you wish you can even add an heartbeat.
