Spanish artist Carmen, the artist behind LittleRebel is best known for creating 1/3 doll heads with her unique style. Her most recent challenge to herself, which took years to complete, resulted in Ángel, the company’s first full 1/4 BJD. He is first being produced for customers by a casting company, but the artist and her partner plan to release special self-cast dolls in the future.
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Q: Congratulations on creating your first full doll! Tell me more about how Ángel came to be. When did you start sculpting him?
A: Thank you! I started sculpting him in April of 2018, I can’t believe it took me exactly 4 years to finally release him! (I have an old pic on my Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/BiMhZ8ol5u4/ )
Usually, I start all my dolls inspired by certain faces, but with Ángel it was the opposite, I had a very clear idea about wanting an androgynous and elegant thin body in that size, but I didn’t know how his face would be until the end.
Q: Will he be a limited edition?
A: For this release, the number of dolls offered is limited, yes, since I always do small preorders. I’m not sure when I will open another preorder for him, or if I will.
I would like to release some “one of a kind” dolls, artist-cast, with fashion outfits and fully customized. That was my initial idea but sadly I had to delay it.
Q: How tall is Ángel? Does he fit into any standard-size clothing and shoes? What is his wig size?
A: Ángel is 44cm tall, I think he could fit MSD size clothes and boy shoes.
His head is smaller than most MSD size dolls since he has fashion doll proportions. He has 15.3cm head circumference (6” wigs maybe?)
Q: Will you offer face-up service?
A: Yes! This time I will offer make-up for Ángel, and I’m really excited about painting them. He has been my biggest project, and I want to do all possible to make their future owners happy.
Q: I first interviewed you back in 2017. I looked over our previous conversation and back then you had all of your doll heads cast overseas. Now you are casting your own heads. Tell me more about why you decided to do your own casts and how that is going?
A: It happened because of Covid19. My casting company was located in Wuhan, so imagine, all my original sculptures were stuck there for a very long time. My preorders were delayed, and I started to panic.
Then my couple said, what If we cast the dolls at home? and that we did. I was working in a new head by then (Noelle), and my couple did all the resin casting process, while I did the sanding part.
I discovered that I prefer to cast my dolls at home because I can offer more colors, and I’m not limited by minimum orders. It gives me more freedom but also much more work.
We wanted to cast Ángel by ourselves too, but the complexity of the silicone molds made me rethink it. We made some dolls but the amount of work, and the amount of money we spent on silicone, was not viable for opening a preorder.
Q: Do you have any plans for a 1/4 girl?
A: Definitely. I would like to offer more “gender” options for Ángel body, and that they all would be interchangeable. That way you could make it whatever “gender” you want since Ángel body is meant to be androgynous. I would be very happy if people would want to have transgender dolls.
Q: Would you ever cast a full doll in the future?
A: We will and we already did. I have several Ángel dolls artist cast that I keep for myself. And some more that are planned to be “one of a kind dolls”, but we need to re-make some silicone molds again since they broke.
I would love to cast some unique fantasy colors for Ángel in the future. And maybe new projects too 🙂 I still have some full doll ideas that I would like to do.
Links:
LittleRebel – previous interview on BJDcollectasy is HERE
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