One of the reasons collectors love the Franklin Mint & Tonner Scarlett O’Hara portrait dolls is because Scarlett had so many fantastic outfits to wear in the movie. However, for a good portion of the film she was stuck in a plain old muslin dress. She tended to the wounded, evacuated Atlanta, and even worked on the plantation of Tara with her bare hands while wearing this worn out dress. It is to the credit of the Franklin Mint that they went to the trouble of releasing this outfit, complete with 3 different hats and an apron that is very faithful to the film. Of course on screen, the dress was aged and worn to look authentic to the storyline; the Franklin Mint’s is crisp and clean as the day Scarlett first put it on. Who could fault them for that? My first photo of Scarlett places her inside an actual church in Atlanta, Georgia.
For photos #2 and #3, I did retouch the eyes to make them less saturated, as well as move the pupils so that they didn’t have quite as much of a Stepford look as they sometimes do! On another topic, I have finally begun the art of dollpainting. My first attempts have been at 2 extra Franklin Mint porcelain Scarletts. I have always felt that the large-sized Franklin Mint dolls were dressed exquisitely, but the faces were absolutely awful. Armed with chemicals, the face paint just did not come off on the porcelain dolls (much different from vinyl!). So, with extremely fine-grit sandpaper, I removed the paint that I was not going to cover up. I like this Scarlett better, but it still needs a lot of TLC and finessing. More to come...
See more Atlanta photos on my website.
More Gene Marshall, Franklin Mint, and Tonner Vinyl Doll photos at my website.
The battlefield dress is really "the dress" that she wears when the lowest moments of her life begin. And you're right Dave, there were many improvs on this one: with apron, without apron, with straw hat, and without. One member of the Scarlett vinyl group did mention, it best symbolizes her struggle. I love the photos of specially the close-ups and the shot from under.
ReplyDeleteThe porcelain Scarlett is really a hard one to repaint. I admire your courage in taking off the paint with sandpaper. You surely did much, much better than I did when I first began. I never sealed my first ones and some of the latter ones so I could retouch and remove and retouch. Yes, poor doll. You did very well with the proportion and shape. One advice that the great Noel Cruz gave me was to dilute the paint as acrylic manifests easily no matter the dilution. I learned that layering is also important: from diluted to less diluted. But if you do layer diluted upon diluted acrylic you will notice that it can become thicker in some parts and some not. There lies, I believe, the effect of creating "shadows" and a "blended effect". When I look at pictures now, I try to deduce the color of the paint that could have been applied and the amount of dilution. Enjoy the delightful, trying, challenging and fruitful journey to doll repainting. Since you are a fabulous artist of portraits that journey will definitely be worth your while. = ) I hope to be helping part in your trip. = ) Congratulations Dave!
Raphael - Thank you so much for your painting tips. My patience is not what it should be with doll painting! But I definitely want to finish the two that I have started.
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