Arend Smith was an investment banker producing fantasy sculptures on the side when he first learned about the “reborn doll” movement; after learning to work with Super Sculpey, oven-bake clay, and wire armatures, he quickly evolved to become zigzag.
His knowledge of him soon drew collectors interested in masks, statues, and storage kits. When a customer asked him to create a vampire child, Smith was attracted into a new society, which would eventually influence his decision to pursue fantasy art full-time.
“For my first reborn doll, I came up with a persona that was largely based on… Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is one of my favorite vampire designs ever – the bat form that [Dracula] adopts in that movie,” Smith recalls.
“With the collectors that I was used to, the reborn community… was something that I had not really faced.” Smith now runs Ravendark Creations, where one of his vampire babies – a posable 16-pound doll made of a grasp mildew – sells for a whopping $ 1,250.
Reborns are realistic (usually ball-jointed) kid dolls made of silicone or other materials with glass eyes. The group includes doll collectors, role-players, bereaved mothers and fathers, people who are unable to have children, and those who regard them as a figure of healing.2
Some people proudly display their reborn children in public, while others give a double-take when they realize the child isn’t real. Emilie St-Hilaire, a researcher, sees “promising implications” in the reborn-human relationship for AI companionship in the future.
“One of the best things about these dolls is that you can mend practically anything with them.”
Then there are rebirth dolls that are fantasy (or “alternative”). Child krampuses, elves, bugs, satyrs, fairies, and vampires are among them. Fantasy reborns include hybrid baby-animals, yetis, and ogres, mostly based on Pennywise the Dancing Clown and the Grinch.
Werepups are highly praised, but due of all of the hair, they are exceedingly time-consuming to create (potential mother and father can plane employ hair from a pet or beloved one). Many dolls are designed to fit preemie, new kid, or airline Build-a-Bear clothing. The blue Na’vi alien from the film Avatar is one of the most popular fantasy styles.
Rachel, who must only be addressed by her first name, was originally drawn into the fantasy reborns world by a Facebook advertisement for Avatar reborn. “I thought their soft lifelike bodies were so beautiful and I really wanted to purchase one for my daughter,” explains the Etsy collector.
Rachel’s collection now includes eight “Vlads” — a vampire reborn by award-winning doll sculptor Noemi Smith – and five “Bipsey” Elves, in addition to her husband’s ameliorate.
These are only a few of the DIY kits on the market, which start at around $ 120 and arrive as bare, unpainted dolls; some collectors learn to colour and stuff own avow dolls using YouTube tutorials, while others buy finished dolls. “Each artist I’ve found uses different paint, so some may have a matte finish and others a soft silky feel,” Rachel explains.
“However, you can see what you’re getting by investigating their work.” The tactile experience of gripping something “genuine” is frequently a huge part of interacting with a subject – Arend Smith uses matting powder to make the silicone seem like human skin.
Noemi Smith’s DIY fantasy reborn kits are some of the most popular on the market; Farnus, a satyr, is the most recent. Most people I spoke with had at least one Noemi Smith fantasy reborn, or had received their initiation with one.
Collector DuskKodesh got her start with one of Noemi Smith’s Vlad dolls, who was looking for a more “monstrous” alternative to waifish ball-jointed dolls.
It didn’t quite turn out the way she had hoped – she was going for a soft purple colour, but the doll ended up with wild Dalmatian-style markings to hide a splotchy dye job. “Once you’ve encountered troubles, you get over that mental hump… “All you have to do is breathe and believe that you can solve it,” she explains.
“The noble aspect about these dolls is that you can pickle almost anything with them.” How do you decrease a void in a corpse? Replace it with a new one. You break an arm? “All you need is one more arm.”
“Some of the consumers are a tad picky.”
While common reborn have begun to infiltrate popular consciousness thanks to shows like High Maintenance and Servant – albeit as expressions of concern, psychiatric illness, or misfortune – fantasy reborn have a stigma attached to them as a simply decorative interest. Rachel, who likes to display them on cabinets at home, says, “I kind of got a nasty reaction from family, being told they’re far too scary to have around my four-year-old kid.”
Concluding Notes
Despite their sentiments, fantasy reborn devotees are a marginalized segment of the mainstream doll community. “Sometimes they take these kids for the genuine thing, and they treat them like actual babies,” Noemi Smith explains. “That may seem strange to some people, but they look after their dolls and enjoy the art we created.”
DuskKodesh, who used to go to ball-jointed doll events before the pandemic, has resigned herself to keeping her feelings for monster babies alive on the internet. “Some people adore them, while others regard them as a slap in the face,” she explains. ”
A minority of the usual reborn group believes it is mocking them or is fantastical, but after chatting with others who love me, I don’t believe it was ever intended that way.” We’re just LGBTQ people who enjoy doing what we do. No one spends 50 hours crafting a doll unless they are completely engrossed in it.
