Tangkou Customization Update

 I am happily making progress on the customization of my tangkou doll. =)

The first thing that I did was remove her wig... which was a lengthy process in and of itself! When I was research the Tangkou France (Paris) doll before buying her I knew that there was some issue with the glue. Apparently some of the dolls that were sold in that first batch had wigs that were over glued, so I pretty much had a 50/50 chance of getting one of them..... and it seems that I did!! 

After a bit of tedious work with the flattened end of a plastic paintbrush handle, used to gently pry up the glue, I was able to get the wig off without doing any major damage. There was quite a bit of glue left on her head, but I was able to get that off really easily with rubbing alcohol and a paper towel.

Here she is modeling her new Sinead O'Connor look.

 The rubbing alcohol method is how I managed to get most of her original makeup off too, but there was still a bit of a stain left. That was ok though, because I was planning to sand matte her anyway.

Once I was able to get her face plate off I decided to do a bit of carving to add some unique personality to her face. I really was wanting her to resemble my painted girls a bit, so I did some shaping to her eyes, adding the tear duct area and rounding out the bottom of her eye socket a bit with an exacto knife. This was tedious work because I really needed to literally shave off tiny bits of a time so that I wouldn't over carve anything!! I also used the exacto knife and a stone file from my dremmel tool (used by hand, not actually IN the dremmel!) to carve the philtrum (above her upper lip), her lips and her nose. I didn't care for the extreme point of her nose, or the way that her top lip stuck out and went also to a bit of a point at the top, so I carefully modified them to make a cuter more "pixie" like lip.

I think her new eye shape makes her look a bit more like her Pullip cousins.

 Then after much sanding with a very fine grit sand paper, 400-600 grit to be exact, I started applying layers of ground up chalk pastels in a neutral palette. 

I just love how her eyes sparkle!!

I still have quite a bit to do before she will be ready to put back together, and I am not completely happy with her nose, so I will work on that a bit more. So far, though, I am pretty pleased with the changes, especially considering this is my first time!

More to come soon =).