Artists George and Kate Ramensky of Amadiz Studio, known for their expertise in creating BJD wigs and clothing, are now directing their skills to doll making. Their first doll, Magdalena, was released last December. Virginia followed in April. Now new Yolande has just arrived and is available for pre-order.
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Q: In our last talk, we discussed your wigs. Since then you have branched into doll-making. How long have you been working on developing your dolls?
A: We started to produce our dolls from December 2016. Work on the first doll lasted about a year, but each new doll is created faster, as we are acquiring more experience, the importance of which can not be overemphasized. Like any creative process, the creation of dolls requires not only persistence, many hours of painstaking work, but also inspiration. Since the release of the first doll, we have been continuously working on the dolls of our company and constantly developing in this direction, and we can say that the work in this area now does not stop even on weekends.
Q: Is one person sculpting them?
A: The sculpture of the doll is created by George, it depends on him – how a doll’s face and body will look. It is about the initial stage – the creation of sculpture.
Further work on the creation of a doll as a finished product mainly falls on the production department, and in particular on the production head – Kate. We ourselves produce our dolls and are responsible for the quality of performance from the first stage to the last. Our whole team works one way or another on what kind of image our doll will have as a result. Every employee of our company participates in one way or another creating dolls or certain accessories, related products, etc…
Q: Tell me a bit about each of the dolls you have made so far.
A: At the moment, our company has released 3 dolls. Each doll is limited, each doll in its final form has only 1 pre-order period. We do not create dolls that are always available for order, and we do not sell the body and head separately. Our first doll – Magdalena – the Royal Concubine – was our debut. She opened the line of dolls called Amadiz Angels. We expressed in this doll our understanding of the image of elegant femininity, not dependent on age and epoch. We created Magdalena so that she could embody both the image of a young girl and the image of a mature woman confident in her beauty, so that she could look as her owner wants. We create our dolls so that people who have these dolls may translate their ideas and creativity through these dolls at their own discretion and without limits.
Our second doll – Virginia – Fragile Beauty – was created primarily as an elegant ballerina. We created ballet legs for this doll and a corresponding airy and delicate image, and also in the release of our second doll we have updated the female body of our line Amadiz Angels to give it even greater mobility, because the ballerina must be very flexible and graceful. However, Virginia was represented not only as a ballet dancer, but also in several other images. She wa also sold in four skin tones: with the advent of this doll, we expanded the palette of our material.
Our third doll, which is available for order until August 14 on our website, is Yolande: Young and Wild. The image of this doll was created with an emphasis on youth, freshness and relevance of its image. But the most important thing is that with the release of this doll we created the male body of the Amadiz Angels line, so that the head of Yolande can be ordered on a female or male body, at the choice of the customer. The male body in this line of dolls is graceful, also very mobile, the body of a dancer and an androgynous model, to which the head of Yolande fits as harmoniously as to the female body. We wanted to convey our vision of the universality of beauty beyond gender measurement and at the same time its right to be special, not subject to stereotypes.
Q: What was the biggest challenge in making your own dolls?
A: The biggest challenge in creating our own dolls is the production issue, because we did not want to lay this on other people. We want to create all our products inside our own company, so that we always have the responsibility for the quality of the products. To do this, we had to learn a lot of new technological processes and purchase equipment for the production of dolls (for all stages of this process); as a result we brought out some of our own production secrets. This is a difficult job and we have great respect for the producers of dolls, now knowing from experience what they need to go through to create their own dolls. However, this is also a very large pleasure – to create something so inspiring with our own hands, to create dolls that we love ourselves, as much as our customers do. It is very pleasant to realize that with each new release, more and more people in the world of BJD hobby around the globe own Amadiz dolls, and that our understanding of beauty, expressed in our dolls, resonates in the hearts of other people. We want to continue to create beauty, and jointly with our customers – through our dolls and accessories – we want to make the doll hobby world more beautiful together.
Q: Are you working on any additional heads for the male body?
A: Yes, we will be glad to release more male dolls, however we can not guarantee when the release of the next male doll will be.
Q: So, is there anything we didn’t cover that you would like to add?
A: Perhaps, we just want to wish everyone to enjoy this wonderful hobby and find time for creative expression through it. Thanks for the interview.
Previous article on Amadiz
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Yolande:
Virginia:
Magdelana:
