One day, Rebecca Millar’s daughter approached her and asked for a Black Widow doll, but Millar wasn’t able to find one for a reasonable price. Instead of admitting defeat, she decided to take matters into her own hands and created one from an existing doll. This started her unique hobby of transforming commercial dolls into fun and geeky characters.
On Facebook Millar wrote about Black Widow, the doll that started everything:
My Avengers obsessed daughter was upset there was no Black Widow merchandise available in the stores here. When I looked online, the few that would ship to Australia were ridiculously expensive ($80 was the cheapest I could find, which was not an amount I was comfortable spending on a doll for a 3 year old).
So on a whim I purchased a fairy girlz sparkle doll and gave her a superhero makeover. And my Twitter went mildly nuts.
Since then I’ve made other superheroes, as well as other strong, intelligent female characters in other shows; such as the awesome Captain Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek.
Every doll is unique, but it takes similar techniques to transform them. She recently set up a blog to show off her creations and has started posting tutorials to show what she does to change these dolls into fun superheroes and interesting characters.
This is similar to what artist Sonia Singh does when she transforms her dolls, but with a geeky twist.
She does this not only for her daughter and other little girls out there that deserves to have more options when it comes to the dolls they play with, but she also does this for herself. Her Facebook post of Captain Janeway and Dana Scully explains it really well:
The reason I picked these characters to turn into dolls is because growing up, they were my role models. Both are strong, independent women of science and it’s fair to say they’re probably part of the inspiration behind my wanting to go into science (when I’m not painting dolls, I work as a science writer).
I had a rough time growing up, and struggled with mental health issues, especially in my teens. But no matter how bad it got, I could always escape by watching Star Trek or The X-Files. Even now that I’m in my 30’s I still automatically go for a Star Trek or X-Files DVD if I’ve had a rough day or feel overwhelmed.
They’re just fictional characters, and the dolls are just dolls. But to me they represent so much more than that, so they’re a bit special…
…before I sign off for the night, I want to thank each and every one of you for liking this page and for supporting what I’m trying to do with my dolls. It means more to me than I can express right now.
Make sure to check out her blog and Facebook page to see more photos of her other creations and to see what else she has in the works.
[via Neatorama]
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