Welcome to the world of bespoke dolls, everyone.
Mass-produced dolls often (if not always) look crazy unrealistic, which is part of their charm! However, a new movement has hit the artist sphere, centered around making dolls a little more “realistic.”
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Olga Kamenetskaya is an artist based in Kiev.
She specializes in OOAK dolls, otherwise known as one-of-a-kind dolls. She takes mass-produced dolls and totally strips them of all their paint and bad wigs, then repaints them to be more realistic.
She is so good that she was featured in Vogue.
“Some people are scared by the realism of my dolls; they find them terrifying. Others, on the contrary, admire such aesthetic,” she told Vogue in 2018.
She mainly uses Bratz and Monster High dolls.
But it’s Barbie who is close to her heart.
“My family was not rich, so our parents bought the first Barbie for me and my sister only when I was 9. We both adored her!”
Her work is constantly evolving.
“I’m never 100 percent satisfied with my work; I always think that it’s possible to do better with each new doll.”
Her preference is to work with Monster High dolls, but she’s recently branched into customs.
She removes the paint and finishes from the dolls in a secret process.
You can actually get access to tutorials and video guides from her on Etsy and learn how to paint your own dolls, just like Olga! Check it out here .
In addition to being an artist, she’s also a makeup artist.
She took makeup courses to evolve her makeup skills for her dolls, but got so good at it that she now also moonlights as a makeup artist for people!
She also redoes pop culture dolls.
This re-do of Scully from The X-Files gives Scully dimension, but it also gives her the wig she truly deserves. Olga also included Scully’s iconic beauty mark, which the original doll left out.
The faces can’t be too perfect, however.
“I don’t like when the new face of the doll is ideal and perfectly symmetrical, it makes it lifeless,” she said. “I always deliberately leave some flaw that may not be noticeable to everyone, but [gives] the doll invisible charisma.”
The flaws are what make them (look) human.
“Perhaps, this flawed beauty is the message that my dolls carry.”
If you want to follow Olga’s art process and see some of the custom dolls she’s been working on, check out her Instagram .
