1/6 scale Vanessa Perrin – Fashion Explorer OOAK (One of a kind)

 

Months ago, when I was browsing the Internet about figurines (or dolls), I fell on a picture of a stunning beauty. She had her hair restyled (exactly the way I love), she wore new outfit and also new jewelries. My hat down to the person who had the ideas to transform a nice girl into a georgous lady like that one. I loved everything that I saw on her so I decided that I will also find this Fashion Explorer (the edition, release or call it as you want , the name that they use to identify this special version of that Vanessa Perrin. Over the years there were many different releases of this beauty, with different colors of hair, hairstyles, makeups, outfits, jewelleries and accessories for this baby, exactly like Mattel has released many, many different versions of its Barbie over the decades. The analogy between the 2 dolls doesn’t go further as Barbies are low cost toy females for little girls. They look like toys and this is what they are. Fashion Royalty figurines are made for adult people. They are really high end comparing to Barbies. They are a lot more realistic, Their eyes and eye makeups are stunning and everything on their facial look a lot more beautiful and realistic . Their outfits, jewelries and accessories are more beautiful and more sophisticated. They are collector items and pieces of choice for many designers.

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Working on tiny 1/6th scale figurines and building awsome fashion outfits, jewelleries, fashionning new hair styles and crafting high end accessories is many times extremely tricky, very demanding and even frustrating by moments.  If you can imagine using your big fingers and trying to manipulate precisely some very tiny parts under a magnifier, dropping it and starting over and over again to achieve a tiny jewelry part for example.  If you are looking for a hobby that requires a lot of patience, this is a good one on the list. In my nature, I don’t know if I am looking for challenges all the time but I end up in big troubles (or maybe should I say instead mini troubles who come very big for me) irritating my nervous system.  What about a wonderful hobby where you yell and curse often enough? I happen to think that I have no patience but by some miracle, at the end many times (but unfortunaely not all the time) I succeed in what I was trying to do, despite the high levels of frustrations. At least I didn’t trow my workpiece on the wall and then run and jump on it several times to crush it for good. No… before doing that, when I am too mad I just put it on a shelf and change my mind on something less frustrating… at its beginning at least… (lol).

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She is probably of not so much interest when we see her here but wait to see the stunning changes  in the next pictures till the end of this page. This is the Vanessa Perrin, version Fashion Explorer that I bought a few days ago. She was produced in 2014 by Integrity Toys under its line Fashion Royalty.

Please don’t think that the face is yellowished. The seller told me that the pictures had been taken in the basement and the light and walls, I guess, were a bit reflecting on the figurine. It happens especially when we take pictures in the evening where there is non daylight coming by a window to brighten the room. When I received her she was of a light pink color, totally normal, so the person didn’t lie to me.

This is how she comes out from the factory, in her original outfit. She comes with a very nice laced pair of brown long boots, a huge brown handbag made of the same faux leather, sunglasses and her jewellery.  For a change, the sunglasses and jewelries were very basic in this little box. I was a bit surprised but I guess that this release was about a girl who wears nothing so high end, like most people on the streets. I didn’t like the pull so much because it had no style, the rest of the outfit was ok but I didn’t want to use these pieces on this new project.

 

My good friend Mimi and I took a few minutes to look at the new babe. we were many months after my discovery of the picture on Internet. I had been looking regularly on the internet, and on ebay for a Fashion Explorer but they were out of price, or they would deseaper before I could buy the then we started to remove her clothes. So we got the babe completely naked and we went to look for fabrics that we are accumulating for doll projects in our big storage bin.

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I wanted to build something very similar to the beautiful doll that I had found on the Net. Similar but not the same.  It would be for my personal collection, for my own pleasure, not anything that I would want to sell. I don’t sell my figurines anyway.  I have been looking to find the person who has done this beautiful rendition of this particular Vanessa, but the webpage has been removed from the site, and there ended up my research. By the end of this page I will include the picture that I took on the Net months ago, to give credit to this unknonw talented designer. Maybe that some day this person will find my page and fortunatly will contact me, so I could place a name under the photo.

I use to let Mimi working on the clothes.  As this one is mine, I decide how I want the things to be done and / or I also ask her for some corrections or adjustments, or changes. Mimi is helping me on my projects and I help her on what she plans to do, this is a good trade between her and me. For this Vanessa, I took care of the crafting of the jewelleries.

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After a day of work, Mimi sent me some pictures of what she had done, so here are the pictures ;

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Please click on every image to see them full size, then ckick on the back icon to return to the page.

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Mimi sent me her first 6 pictures.  These were the original boots and the original bag that came with the figurine. I told her that I wanted a small handbag and black boots or black high heel shoes. I asked her if she had done a one piece dress or it was a blouse or light jacket and a skirt seperatly. Because I wanted it in 2 pieces.

The next day she sent me another set of 6 pictures.

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I was surprised. She had built a cyber scene  with a few pictures that she used as a background.

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There she’s walking along the front of her property (lol). Notice that now she wears black highheel shoes. I didn’t know where they came from but later on, I found out that they were taken from another release from Vanessa Perrin, called ”Refinement”, another very beautiful Vanessa version. I own a couple of them but Mimi boutht some blank heads of this Vanessa. Mimi is stunning. She draws the makeups, make eye lashes with treads, make wigs for her beauties… and she does the same for some of mine too. So sometimes we can build beautiful figurines at very low costs.

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Vanessa is waiting impatiently for me to pick her up for a date, poor girl.  Who says that we, guys, have all the time to wait for ladies and they are never ready? I like to improvise stories when I look at pictures. I should start a novel with these pictures.

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It’s getting a little warm so she decided to remove her little jacket.

This little beauty wears  beautiful pieces of outfit.

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Mimi did not give me an answer. She just built a scene to show me that

she had built the outfit not only in a 2 pieces set, but instead in 3, with a black leather outside laced corset .

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Notice that Vanessa doesn’t wear any jewellery on these pictures.

I came to build them yesterday evening and also a part of this day.

I haven’t taken any picture yet but they are done. Some of them really gave me a lot of problems. I always buy new material and with the combinations of different items I have to manage a way to assemble them together. Some are easy tasks but some others are giving me a lot of hard time. The pieces that I used are all metal. In this very case, gold or plated gold or goldish alloys. Sometimes I have to build tools to be able to perform a job that I want done, whatever I do.  Soon I plan to take new pictures of the cover girl with her new jewelleries on. She is another beautiful piece of artcraft in my little personal collection in 1/6th scale. I love personalized things, nothing that somebody has that is exactly like the one that I own. It has to be customized one way or another. Mimi is the same as I am and we are making an excellent team together.

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I am so sorry for the blurred picture. We are the next day. This morning I got up, answered my emails and having a good italian milk cofee with Mimi I started to prepair a little step or platform on the counter of the two computers. I placed the doll on its side to show one of the earrings that I have crafted. I placed her face next to the improvised elevated area where I installed the 2 remaining golden rings that I bought in a store where they sell all kinds of materials for artists. This huge place is some kind of a paradise for people who like to fabricate all kinds of artcrafts. There you can find hundreds of rows of pegboards with hooks and thousands of little bags with all kinds of tiny pieces. It is a chain of stores called DeSerres. It was originally named Omer DeSerres by the name of the founder and the business became a family affair and a legacy in this particular trade, now managed by the grand children of this gentleman. For references, if it can help somebody, here is the name and logo of the business… founded in 1908.

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When I was a kid in the 60s, there were only 2 stores in the city and one of them was close to where my family lived. It was located on St-Hubert street at the corner of Bélanger. They closed this store around 1971 and as far a I know there was only one store remaining downtown Montreal and it was not in our area. For decades we didn’t see any other of these stores popping out and suddenly it became a chain of stores. Good thing for me and people who like to craft all kinds of things. Now other stores are even opening outside of Montreal. There are a couple of its branches on the southshore of Montreal and for sure, on the northshore too.

Coming back to my beautiful girly,  I love earrings made in big circle shapes. I find it so beautiful on a woman. So one day, I had bought a bag of 4 golden rings but they were too huge for my 1/6 scale figures. I couldn’t take a picture closer because I use a cheap webcam. Very frustrating. These rings are not welded . They have an opening and one end has been flattened. They have a tiny hole on this flat space, so it was logical to use this opening to install an extremely thin wire trough it and shape it in some kind of half a circle with straight ends that I would poke in 2 holes made on the doll. One of them was already existant but I poked it completely trough the head wall (the earlobe hole made at the factory). I also digged manually with a very tiny drill bit a second hole in the area located at the corner under the ear and behind. The doll earlobes are not done exactly like the ones on humans because they are molded in too close to the skin of the dolls. We can’t reach the back side of the lobe as they are mostly inexistant and there is barely a tiny recessed area in this corner of the ear. They don’t bother with these very fine details at the factory since most figurines have long hair. It is very tricky to install the wires in these holes, mostly the one at the bottom and half behind the hear. It takes a very tiny wire and it must be not too weak and not too strong . The result for me looks closer to what it is on a real woman. It takes time and at the factory every step must be done fast so they choose faster ways to do the jobs… but not the best ways.  Also, I have seen some circular earrings that have an opening and are not a complete circle. This is another style that I like and I decided to make mine this way… for a change,  and put the opening toward the front to be more visible.

To reduce the diameter of the circles I used a round color pencil (these ones are completely round, not the usual kind of hexagonal shape or regular pencils. It was very difficult to bend these gold rods around the pencil. These rods were pretty stiff. I had chosen a smaller rod (the pencil) than the circle diameter that I wanted to obtain because I know very well that there is a kind of spring effect in every bendable material that bring the thing back half way or of  the third of the way or so on. It was not an easy task and I had also to correct some areas because the rings come out like oval instead of a perfect circle. Filally after some work they looked fine. I placed one on the other to make sure that they were identical. Then, I have made the cuts leaving a space where a piece of rod is missing to make this special look of an earring that looks more or less like a very closed C indtead of an O. I had to cut both earrings equally. I get very nervous when I have to perform jobs like that because of my goal of crafting something really excellent.

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Here is a better picture of one of the earrings on my figurine.  Mimi told me that usually the opening goes in the back. I wanted my earrings with the opening at the front. Sometimes I really don’t care about conventions, I just want it my way, period. I happened to make a research on google images and this is true that almost all pictures that I saw had the opening by the back of the ear. I found one with it like mine. Mimi told me that it was the C trade mark of Chanel made as earrings. I said, now only Chanel has the right to put their earrings the non convetional way because of their logo? End of story. I want mine this way. What’s the use of making a detail that nobody see? Especially on this figurine the way her hairstyle is done with most of her hair is pushed on the left side. Forget about seeing much of the earring on her left side.

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This is a pair of plier used to bend wires and make circles with it. This one if very small, aproximately 3 1/8 inch long total. It is a kind of long lose plier but the 2 long round and conical tips are used to bend wires into circles. The closest you put your wire to the end of the tip and the smallest is going to be your ring. Of course if you place your wire toward the other direction, you will get a bigger ring. There are different sizes of these tools for smaller or bigger results. This one came in a kit of several pliers and cutters, probably bought at DeSerres years ago. This is the smallest one that I have. I do have another bigger one. I used this one to craft finger rings for this beauty. I have also some tiny brass rivets at the end of long tubes. The walls are very tiny so I want to develop a technique to cut the tiny tubes and turn them into finger rings. I also want to make a tool to force in the tubes and stretch slithly the diameter if these tubes. So many ideas and things that I want to do but time is not all the time there.

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I have crafted 3 bracelets on the right wrist of my beauty. 2 rings are just round golden rods but the first one by the hand is at the base the same rod… that I ended up in the hardship to insert extremely small golden beads in the ring. It was the first time that I tried this so I didn’t develop any special technique and tooling for this job. Once again I broke my nose with unexpected problems. The thing turned nice at the end but what a hell of a task to perform. Luckily, the hands on this figurine can pop out easily, so I can insert the rings and put the hand back into place. I always want to hide the joints on these articulated dolls, so that they look like tiny real women instead of articulated dolls.  I hate so much the joints that I plan to fill them with car body glazing and repaint the whole body if necessary. I do it frequently on Mimi’s figurine projects. I also have a project of mine which is a full woman body into 1/6 scale built on a wire squeletton. 100% sculpture except the head. This one is going to be a slightly buxom girl. I mean buxom with nice curves but not too fatty to look like a bowling pin (lol). We don’t see any figurines like that on the Internet. Some people have made some fatty ones, but too fat to my taste. For me, they must remain beautiful… and glamour.

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for the left wrist and hand I also crafted golden rings. 2 of the same kind for the wrist and at the front, toward the hand, I made something special. I used a miniature golden chain and made a bracelet with it. I also crafted a finger ring for her left hand index. The picture was awful, so I didn’t post it. I plan to make more finger rings and or changing these ones or modifying them because I find them a bit big for the tiny fingers. I guess that I will take more pictures sometimes ahead.

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This is a picture that Mimi just sent me from her computer next to mine on the same counter, via Internet (lol).

Looking at her monitor I have seen that she wanted to make an oval cut around the picture but she had problems trying to do it, so I told her to send me the photo and I would work it in my software Inkscape . Her idea was great. Notice that this picture has been taken before yesterday evening when I started to craft the jewelleries.

By the way I wanted this picture because I was planning to make a comment on the oval ornament on the black belt that the figurine wears around her neck . It has been fabricated by Mimi. I found out  that she has a stunning technique, even the surrounding edge of the ornament has gold little dots. They are very shinny and  from very close it is identical to the gold finish. She made a very nice drawing on the item. The original picture that I found on the internet shows the same Vanessa Fashion Explorer with a very similar black belt around her neck where we can see an oval and a cameo graphic in it. You will see this picture at the very bottom of this page. I found this neck collar so beautiful that I wanted something very similar. At first Mimi has done a belt that I found a bit too large, so I asked her to reduce the dimention a bit. This one on the picture was before the correction. The funny thing is that the picture that I found on Internet has also her oval ornament slightly crooked at exactly the same angle. This something that I will correct.

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UPDATE

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UPDATE * As it is becomming an habbit on this new extension of my usual  hobby, I had planned on the crafting of a nice handbag for this handsome girl. As my other beautiful girls, this one is not an exception. She is a very sought-after model because of her beauty. She receives penty of offers for photographic shooting sessions, advertisings, video commercials and even wedding proposals. She makes money and she can afford the best designers for her outfits. She requires exclusive and elaborated ensembles. Her new trend is to order also a handbag assorted to her clothes. She is choosing her fabrics and she has very good notions of haute couture too.

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So here is the new handbag ready. It is more precisely a shoulder purse because of the golden chain that I added to the accessory and allowing the purse to hang on a shoulder. The bag  is made of black leather, same as the corset and Mimi added a piece of fabric imitating some design of animal skin which is the same as the clothes.  The purse opens like a 1:1 one. We had the idea to add a comb, wallet, lipstick and other woman stuff next to the open purse but skipped this step for the moment as we would have to build or enhance all these little parts.

 

Mimi and I built the shoulder bag  together. I chose the gold hardware parts from my jewellery container. I had dismanteled many life size jewelleries and seperated them by type of metals : copper, brass, gold, aluminum, silver and alloys.  Each one on its container.  As usual I choose all kinds of pieces and I play with them to find interesting combinations of materials. I end up with a plan A, plan B, plan C and so on. I was particularly happy with the discovery of a gold stylished part, a tiny decorative casting part that I have since a time and could never find a way to use it on some project. There was the day, finally. I was amazed at the idea to use it on my purse. It ended up as an amazing cast ornament and it had an eyelet in its center that I used to lock the handbag. It makes the item look very classy and so realistic. It has been a real hell to install it but it is done now.  I had also some golden square mini rods with eyelets  at both ends so Mimi made her handbag according to the dimentions of my parts. She has done  a beautiful 2 tones bag. I added 2 bigger gold rings to the top eyelets of these gold rods and I ajusted a miniature golden chain the right lenght to have the purse at the level of the waist.

 

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Mimi has done more work on the hair styling. Vanessa is nicer this way I believe.

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This Mimi… She always surprises me. As she reworked Vanessa’s  hairstyle, she got the idea to install her in a hair salon. Vanessa’s friends overthere begged her to let them take pictures of her next to their commercial banner. Her mother worked over there 2 decades ago as a manucurist at the time when Vanessa was a very young girl. At  this place, the enfant was well-received by all the staff. They fell in love with the little cutie. Vanessa has very good memories of their kindness.

Everybody overthere is amazed at how Vanessa grew up. She is now a beautiful and successful career lady (it is more or less a paraphrasing of a novel that I am writing in french).

 

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I said that I was going to show the picture that I found on Internet. The one who gave me inspiration to build mine. Many, many thanks to this unknown person. If by some random somebody knows who this person is, please let me know.  I put my email address at the bottom 0f this page. Many thanks for visiting this page, and if you want , take a look at my other pages on the right column of every page, starting from the top of every page. I sometimes switch to french, to english and vice-versa. I do speek and write the 2 official languages of my country, Canada.

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Any comment or questions, please contact me :

florent.beauchemin@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

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