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my-plastic-life · 1 year ago

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Behind the Scenes: Making Melody

Ah, Melody. The daughter of Ariel and Eric. Ariel, the only princess to have a child (Descendants doesn't count). Since the sequel to The Little Mermaid launched in 2000, I've wanted a Melody doll. To this day I can't believe the Disney Store hasn't made one.

Technically, one was released back in the day. I remember going to Toys R Us to get it, and upon seeing it, put it back on the shelf. Why? Because it looked nothing like my favorite princess's daughter.

A bit scary, right? Her eyes, for one, are brown and they should be blue or at least greenish-blue. And her face overall just gives me an uneasy vibe. I can't explain it, but she just doesn't look right. Even back then I couldn't fork over the money for her. Now, try to find her on eBay, and I swear she's ranged in price from $400-$800. Definitely out of my price range for a sub-par doll. Yes, I'd like to have the clothes, but no way am I forking over that kind of cash for clothes that I'm sure I can have someone make. And while I've come a long way with customizing and could easy change her eye color, it doesn't change the fact that she looks... off.

And thus began my journey of creating my own Melody doll. Again, Disney Store should really make one. A lot of us fans and collectors want one, and we know they have the ability to make smaller dolls because we've gotten Alice, Wendy, and Tinker Bell. Come on Disney Store...

But when a company fails to provide a doll you desire, you do the logical thing - you make your own!

The first step was determining the best candidate to transform into Melody. Obviously I wanted her to have one of the aforementioned Disney Store bodies designed for smaller characters. It would match the Ariel dolls I have, and I'd been eyeing an outfit made for that exact body (Melody's primary outfit, her bloomers).

So the body was simple. Next was the face. Obviously either of the three heads that came with the body would have sufficed. Skin tones were a good match to the Ariel dolls I have, so another easy step. The face, though... Melody is often portrayed as having a very large, toothy grin. I've seen people create Melody dolls using Ariel's face, and while that does make total sense, I felt her smile was a bit too "small" for this girl.

If I wanted to keep the original head with the body, Tinkerbell was out because of her pointed ears. That's one thing I can't fix LOL. Sculpting and drawing are definitely out of my area of expertise.

That left Alice and Wendy:

Great candidates, but their smiles definitely aren't right. Melody rarely had a closed mouth smile, if ever, and while I've seen some people customize these dolls into Melody and other characters and add painted teeth, the original issue still exists - the smile isn't big enough.

And yes, Tinkerbell, of course, has the open mouth smile - but the ears!!! Why?!

Another issue with using a Disney Store doll is the head itself. Disney Store doll heads are significantly harder than Mattel and Azone dolls, meaning it takes extra strength/work to reroot them. I could try dyeing the doll hair or using fabric markers on it, but A) that could possibly stain the doll, and B) I've tried fabric markers before and it makes the hair feel like straw.

I was convinced I'd inevitably have to use Wendy or Alice and have someone else reroot her for me, but then I thought of something else. Mattel has reacquired the rights to make Disney Princess dolls. That, of course, includes Ariel. I've made hybrid dolls before (my Inuyasha dolls combine two or three different dolls into one amazing creation), and I remember seeing the princess dolls when Mattel brought them back - particularly Ariel, who had a large toothy smile.

Plus, because she's Mattel, I know how the mechanics work with swapping heads and that the head is a lot softer and easier to work with in terms of rerooting. So I ordered her, but I wasn't yet sure if she'd work. Would her skin tone match either of the Disney Store bodies? What about the head size - would it be too big or small compared to the Disney Store Ariel? And of course, Mattel = pixelated faces... though I'd be repainting the lips anyway for sure because Melody's lips are a more natural pink shade rather than the bright red Ariel has.

Well, luck was on my side - the Ariel head not only matched the skin tone of the smaller bodies (which were also very close to the Disney Store Ariel), it was actually smaller than the original Wendy and Alice heads! I don't know what's up with that, but what a happy accident!

However, there was still another step. I've put Disney Store heads on Barbie bodies before, but not vice versa. And these are smaller bodies. How would it work? The verdict was a bobble head, but some rubber bands around the neck peg took care of that. I think it completely works!

The next step was the rerooting process. I don't know why it's so satisfying to pull all those little plugs out of a doll head, and then poke new hair right into it. :D Of course, before the poking, I had to use acetone to remove the factory paint on the scalp, then paint back over it with black and seal it. This time I was determined not to use too much hair, as in making it too long. When I rerooted my Azone Kagome, I didn't trim the hair until it was completely rooted, and not only did it make a huge mess, it was very wasteful because of how much I had to trim off to get it to the right length. Melody's hair isn't that long (it seems to hit just past her butt I think), so I felt fine cutting each piece I plugged in half. In the end, that proved to be a good decision because I only had to trim a very small amount to even it out and get the look I wanted. Yay!

Once that was done, I gave her a boil wash, allowed the hair to dry overnight, and then added the special glue inside from The Doll Planet Hair (I also got the hair from them). After that dried overnight, it was time to start on the face. I decided to start at the top and work my way down to lower my chances of messing up something that was finished. So I did the eyebrows first. Melody has significantly thicker eyebrows than Ariel, and of course they're black rather than red. Surprisingly enough, I was able to get them thicker and still even... this coming from the person who spent two hours on eyebrows on a different doll. >.<

Next was the eyes. At first I wasn't sure if I should leave them or not, but in the end I decided they needed to be changed. They were way too blue, and they're really supposed to match Ariel's and Eric's. She is their child, after all. Plus, thanks to Mattel, they were also pixelated. BOOOOO!

Many of the scenes in the movie show Melody as having green eyes, so I started there. But then I thought, I better make sure they match Ariel. So I got an Ariel doll out and used her as a guide. Let me tell you, matching that color was insanely difficult. Too green, too bright, too blue, too dark, etc... Then I kept going back and forth because, again, she seems to have green eyes. But then again, they should match Ariel's eyes. Remember, being a perfectionist can be super exhausting.

I finally had what I thought was a good color, so I used that to help shape the eyes. I kept the original white part of the eye and just painted over what was already there, trying to match the Disney Store style (large portion in the darker color, small ring in the lighter color, and then the pupil). But then, after holding it next to Ariel, I was still dissatisfied with the color (way too bright). I kept looking at Ariel, and then I even saw some other custom dolls with blue eyes and some shots of Melody do depict the eyes as being more blue than green (Ariel, too):

So, after literally a week of just trying to get the best color, I finally got it!!! Victory dance!

Last was the lips. Should be simple, right? I like the color of my Barbie self's lips. They're a natural shade of pink, and I have the combo of paints I used to pull that off saved, so I could just replicate that, right? WRONG! I didn't factor in the original factory paint, which serves as a base coat and affects what goes on top of it, plus this doll has a warmer skin tone than Mini Me, so the color turned out to be super bright and very unnatural-looking. So I did a ton of mixing and modifying the paint recipe until finally I was satisfied with the shade. I had to go over the teeth a couple of times too because A) pixels and B) I went over the white a bit with the lipstick.

Once her face was done, I could start styling her hair. Melody just has a simple ponytail with large bangs like her mom. The hardest part was definitely those bangs. They're not straight or flat bangs, but they have kind of a "poof" to them.

The part was a little off - it should have been more to the side and less to the center. However, I was following the original factory root line, so I didn't really pay attention to where it was. That was my fault lol. I took a few strands of hair and held them out of the way as I tied the rest into a ponytail. To give the bangs their ideal effect, I tied that hair back separately with a hair tie I'd bought that resembles Melody's green one. Then I started pulling them out little by little, hoping to achieve the desired look. This was the first result:

Not bad, but I thought I could make it a little better. I noticed some small bald spots around that area in the scalp (oops), so I added some more hair to those areas to make the bangs a little fuller. I re-tied the bang strands (didn't boil wash the second set of hair because I didn't want to risk messing up the paint and I wanted them to stand up somewhat anyway), manipulated the positioning a bit, and came up with this:

I think that's a little better and gives the desired effect. I may still try to manipulate it some more, but I did put some of my special doll hair spray on it to hold it in place. The ponytail bottom just needed a small curl, and while I tried my curling iron on it, I found it to be better to just curl it by hand and spray it.

The final part was the outfit. I got the outfit from malanedoll on Etsy (she makes gorgeous Disney outfits!) The outfit also came with Melody's symbolic seashell locket.

I know what you're thinking - where the heck is her tail? Well, I can't sew that well (I can make little pillows, relatively decent curtains, and maybe some garden flags, but outfits? Nope lol), and I haven't been able to find a tail that would work with this body in the right color. By next year I might have her tail, but for now, she'll stay in her signature bloomer outfit. That is what she's wearing most of the time, and she did ultimately decide to stay a human in the end. :D

And with that, Melody was complete! Probably not 100% perfect, like most of my creations, but satisfying enough for me! Of course, if Disney Store makes an official Melody doll, I'll buy her - and totally do a comparison LOL. And I do intend to eventually get her that iconic red tail!

Thanks for reading my journey on creating Ariel's daughter! To this day, she's still the only Disney princess to ever become a parent lol.

#my plastic life #doll photography #tenderwolf #one sixth scale #disney #disney store #disney doll #ooak doll #custom doll #ariel #the little mermaid #melody #the little mermaid melody #the little mermaid 2 #myfroggystufffanpics #mermaid #mermay #disney princess

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