What is a Reborn Art Doll?
Reborn dolls are painted by hand using a blank vinyl or silicone pre-molded kits. They are considered a form of art and are often referred to as reborn art dolls. Kits are molded from an original clay sculpted cast of a baby or are a 3D scan of a real baby.
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The Reborn Artist Studio by Lizbeth
What sets reborn art dolls apart for store bought dolls?
Reborn art dolls are individually hand painted by skilled artists, with each doll requiring 40 or more hours of detailed painting to build realistic depth, skin tone, and lifelike features before rooting. No two artist's paint the same, and even within an individual artist's own work, every reborn is uniquely different.
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In contrast, store bought dolls are not hand-painted. They are mass-produced using standardizes processes, resulting in identical dolls with uniform coloring and no detail.
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Blank Kit before being painted
Same kit after
painting
What are reborns used for?
Reborn art dolls are often acquired by doll collectors. However, these dolls also play a vital role for dementia patients and grieving parents. For dementia patients holding the doll can be therapeutic and perhaps trigger memories of their own children as infants.
When a parent suffers the devastating loss of a child, the doll can often allow the parent the opportunity to hold a lifelike form while they process the grief. These dolls are referred to as memorial babies and are made with similar characteristics and weight of the absent baby.
Portrait babies are made in the likeness of a baby that has since grown into an adult. They are a keepsake reminder to a parent of when their child was a baby.​
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How long does it take to make a Reborn Art Doll?
Depending on the size of the reborn art doll, the time frame to make a completed doll can vary. Typically painting the doll can take around 30-40 hours or more, while rooting the hair can take 30-40 additional hours.
At The Reborn Artist Studio, each layer of painted is baked onto the doll using a special oven. The hair is rooted one single strand at a time.