Hey there – more doll photos!

I’m really digging the monochromatic look of some of the Rainbow and Shadow High dolls, which isn’t a surprise considering my previous selfies. One thing I’m using PhotoShop to help with is the eyes – I’ve found that moving the irises to a different position helps with realism, but it’s kind of a bitch to do. In the photo above, I moved the eyes of the doll in the foreground to be looking directly at the camera, which makes a huge difference. I also tilted the background doll’s head just a bit for the same reason. It’s a small adjustment, but it really helps.

Same for this one – I shifted her eyes so that she’s looking up instead of straight ahead to give it an angelic quality. I think I may have over-processed this one, but old habits die hard, y’all.

.With this one, I think I made her eyes too blue, but I’m keeping it as is. And let me just say that a solid black doll is difficult to photograph! You really have to lighten it up to get any of her facial features, and then you have to decide where you want to add shadows back once that is done. It’s tricky.

Another issue I’m working through right now is doll stands. The ones that come with these dolls is fine if you’re just going to stand her in the corner, but for posing it absolutely sucks. It falls apart constantly. I even tried gluing it all together (it comes in three pieces) with Gorilla Glue yesterday, and the damn thing still fell apart, although it lasted longer before doing so. Good doll stands are stupid expensive – like $8-$14 for ONE stand – so I haven’t bitten the bullet yet, but I’m going to have to because working with the ones I have is making me crazy.

Backgrounds are another issue, and while I have purchased some small backdrops specifically for photography of small items, they haven’t arrived yet, so I’ve managed to come up with some creative ways around the problem. As you can see in the photo above, wrapping paper hasn’t worked out that great – it has creases I have to try and fix in post, and it reflects light which I then have to pretend like I intended to be there. But in the photos above this one, I had better luck – I have a furry white chair cover that I was able to use to good effect, and I have some other ideas for things I can use around the house.

Oh, and another issue with these plastic doll stands is that they show – there are ways to maneuver the doll’s legs to conceal them, but when the stands keep falling apart while I try to place the legs properly things get annoying quickly. So for this one, even though the full shot was super cute, I could NOT find a way to successfully get rid of the stand, so I chopped her off mid-calf. Bummer. With the fuzzy background, I was able to use it to cover up the stand for the most part, but when using wallpaper not so much.

This was part of a shoot that really did not work. The paper was reflective and crinkly, and the outfit I put on the doll just really didn’t work. But I did get this one pretty cool shot. As much as I love to have hair moving around in my photos, I haven’t yet been able to successfully do this with a doll. Their hair just does not move like human hair or wig hair for some reason, no matter how much wind I blow on them. So I’ve kind of given up trying. And as excited as I was to try taking photos of dolls outside now that I’ve got this lovely property, I’ve found that I hate it as much as I do taking selfies outside. For whatever reason, I just can’t function when dealing with heat, or leaves, or gravel, or dirt, or anything relating to the outdoors. So back to the studio it’s been.

These are actually quite small dolls – about five inches – and I’m really proud of this “backdrop” I came up with. It’s just some old paint palettes I use when doing my paint pours – one behind them and one they are standing on, as well as some of the plastic stands I use to dry them that get all drippy. I think it came out kinda cool!