Di's hand-crafted 'reborn babies' filling a sales niche

• Kate Matthews
• 7th Mar 2013 2:00 PM

http://www.dailyexaminer.com.au/news/dolls-crafted-with-love/1782125/

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Di McGavigan with one of her realistic reborn dolls. Photo: Adam Hourigan

THEY may look exactly like real- life babies, but don't be fooled, these beautiful dolls have been crafted by the loving hands of South Grafton's Di McGavigan.
Known as reborns, each one takes about 50 hours to create - thankfully far less than the 6500 hours it takes to make a real one.
Ms McGavigan said the moment she first laid eyes on one seven years ago she was captivated.
"My sister turned up on my doorstep with a baby in a shawl - I asked her who's baby have you got?" said Ms McGavigan
"I saw this little thing and thought, oh my God this is beautiful - just like a real baby."
Occasionally Ms McGavigan enjoys taking one or two of her "babies" with her while she runs errands and says sometimes when people see them and realise they are dolls, they get startled, but everyone is curious.
"I know some people say it's freaky but I think they are beautiful," she said.
After spending months researching and talking to other doll makers through online forums, Di purchased a kit and began making her own.
Finally she decided to enter a competition and began sculpting them from clay and recently created three original babies of her own, from which she makes her own kits.
Although Di kept the first one, she prefers to sell them, with many of her babies having found new homes all around the world.
"I've got to a point now I'm established, I can make them and sell them as a source of income when I retire," she said.
"I know it can be very expensive for some people; they are an heirloom doll, but for many, once they have one they want another one.
"I know some people have a massive collection."
Like the lady in Western Australian who ordered a sleeping baby and returned soon after for a toddler, and another lady in Perth who now has 40 of Di's dolls in her collection.
A handful of babies have also found homes locally, with the South Grafton Newsagent now displaying a selection.
Di also sells them from her home, Cottage Lane, where she works part-time as a hairdresser.
She estimates she has made about 300 dolls over the years, mostly in her spare time.
Each one is individually crafted with incredible attention to detail.
"I like to imagine them opening the box," she said. "I try to make it a special experience."
She said sometimes the cost and time it took to make her reborns could leave her out of pocket, but she loved the art and couldn't imagine giving it up.
"It's an expensive hobby, but a very rewarding one," she said.
Fast facts

•  Each doll is carefully hand painted with real-life skin tones, blemishes, veins, even little scratches.
•  Each hair is micro rooted, one at a time, using mohair
•  Each reborn doll has its own tiny fingernails and toenails.
•  The dolls are then assembled and weighted, including a floppy head, fully poseable limbs, and a soft cuddly body.
•  Finally they are dressed and swaddled in a bunny rug, before being lovingly wrapped in tissue paper, packaged and shipped ready to meet their new owners, complete with a birth certificate and dummy.

ARTICLE - ARTIST CREATES LIFE-SIZE CHOCOLATE BABY HEADS

Sickly? Artist creates life-size chocolate baby heads

By Liz Stansfield, Jan 2, 2013

 f you're hoping to stick to a new year diet, these cakes will help you well on your way to avoiding the sweet stuff.

Artist Annabel de Vetten has created a range of life-size chocolate baby heads for chocoholics to get their teeth into.
Annabel, 41, creates the terrifying treats using melted chocolate poured into moulds. She then hand-paints each head with edible food paint to give the babies life-like features.

The cake artist from Birmingham first made the heads after receiving a commission with a specific request to 'shock people' (congrats Annabel, you certainly did it!).

But they somehow proved very popular, and Annabel has received numerous orders for the £35 heads, which each weigh just under one kilogram and contain a whopping 5,000 calories.

"The look of the heads is quite controversial but if everybody liked them then it wouldn't be as fun to make them," says Annabel.

"At first, I found them a little bit disturbing but the more of them you see and create, the more you just get used to them. I was asked to make them to shock people and that's what I've done so from that point of view, I've accomplished the mission.

"It's quite surprising really but I don't actually like chocolate that much and there had to be a lot of experimenting to get the heads exactly how I wanted them to be but now that I have I think they're great."

If you're unsure how you would actually get into the chocolate head, think of it as an Easter egg - a light tap should do it. Or, as Annabel helpfully suggests, whack it with a hammer.

Nice.

ARTICLE - (EBAY) - REBORN BABY RENAISSANCE

Reborn Baby Renaissance

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Serena Makofsky

The last time we wrote about the phenomenon of artist-made, startlingly realistic baby dolls, in the post Hauntingly real “reborn” babies, readers were divided on whether these collectibles were creepy creations or beautiful (and sometimes personally meaningful) works of art.  Since that time, the interest in these dolls has not waned, at least if you use eBay listings and sales as a barometer of popular opinion.

In fact, today’s first listing has garnered a surge of interest and bids, for a doll that looks so real, from the dimpled knees to the variations in skin tone, you would probably have to pinch its cheeks just to make sure.  See the baby pictures here for **A Romie Baby**SOLID Full SILICONE DOLL***LENNOX***#5 by Romie Strydom -reborn:

The fans set us straight last time, instructing us to do our homework and distinguish between true reborn dolls and silicone dolls, so we only quote the listing title, which perhaps uses the term “reborn” to attract collectors’ attention.  And it has, to the tune of 28 bids and a high bid of $10,700. Last week, another Romie baby, the LENNOX #4, sold for $15,100. Incredible!

If you fall on the “this might be creepy” side of the spectrum in regard to these realistic dolls, watch this video of baby doll Lennox #1 being moved about by the artist, Romie Strydom:

VIDEO WAS SET TO PRIVATE ON YOUTUBE

What mostly seems strange here is to see a baby handled so much, especially as the disembodied laughter loops in the background but, the longer the video goes (and it goes over six minutes), the more real Lennox seems, to the point where at least this viewer began to worry: maybe even real babies are a little creepy, while also being cute and adorable?

Here is everything else you need to know about Lennox, from the listing:

“Lennox is a full bodied silicone baby, with a ball jointed neck.  She is flexible and moves like a real baby…

I sculpted her from a ball of clay, which I am reproducing  into a small edition of soft platinum silicone babies.  Her body is poured in ONE piece for realism and strength.  The limbs are not joined on afterwards, so no seam lines.

Lennox has been painted with the recommended silicone paints, with beautiful coloring and mottling.  No detail has been missed on her.

She is totally adorable,  very realistic and is totally solid.  Nothing has been hollowed out, she is solid silicone.  For this reason her hair cannot be sealed inside her head, so extreme care must be taken with his hair as it can come out with brushing etc.”

Another intriguing listing is for this Boo boo FULL BODIED SOLID SILICONE preemie ooak BABY doll GIRL not reborn NR!. Take a look at this collage:

Again, this is silicone creation not a vinyl one, made by Sherry Bowden.  She has a solid legion of fans, garnering 37 bids and a current high bid of $3,050 for what the artist describes as a “Lil’ early bird preemie girl baby.”

Last time we wrote about these realistic dolls, we focused on the dedication of collectors, but this listing is striking for providing a window for looking at the experience of the artist as she labors on her dolls. Last week, Sherry also had another micro preemie named Gracie up for sale (sold for $765) and describes her nicely in the listing. Read below, it all sounds quite maternal:

“I enjoy painting my silicone babies very much and go the extra mile to make them as realistic as possible!  Different lighting situations (day, night, evening) have been employed during the photography of this baby so you can see her coloring under different conditions.  Many many hours alone when into her painting alone and many weeks into bringing her to life for you!  All photos were taken before her eyelashes were delicately rooted, but she will have wispy eyelashes upon arrival for her new mum.”

The experience of creating the silicone doll sounds more than a little like pregnancy, although without all the discomfort.

If you find this boundary-blurring between humans and silicone depictions of humans produces feelings of uneasiness, you are not alone.  The Wikipedia entry on “Reborn doll” describes this reaction as falling under the “uncanny valley” hypothesis, which states that as an inanimate object looks more lifelike, our empathy toward it increases, until it reaches a point in which our response changes to repulsion.  So some people’s turning point from interest in to distaste for lifelike dolls occurs at a far earlier point than others’.  And for those passionate collectors, that turning point never arrives.  Where do you fall on the spectrum?