Doll Rescue #2 -- Broken Barbie gets a faceup and a prosthetic leg!

Hey guys!  Remember Janus, the Ken doll with a prosthetic leg?  Well, here comes another doll amputee story!

Today's patient is a very old Barbie doll - actually, she was my first Barbie (I named her Jen) and is the oldest one I own.  Years of play had rendered her right knee unbendable.  I was willing to put up with this, but when the rubber on her foot dried out so bad her toe broke off, I decided to use Jen to test out some new prosthetic leg techniques.

***Warning!  If you're squeamish about doll surgery, you may not want to read this post.***

Here she is.  Her hair was very dry and rough.
















The offending toe.

Before messing with her leg, I decided to do Jen's faceup.  I used boiling water to take off her head...
















...removed her hair...

... and wiped off her face paint with 100% acetone nail polish remover.













Since she's really a technique-tester doll, I used some cheap hair from a red Halloween wig to reroot.











Here are the first stages of her acrylic faceup.

And here's the result!  This was my first attempt at repainting a Barbie doll face.  I have to say, it's way harder to paint on a Barbie than a Monster High doll.  Jen's features are so tiny!  But I managed in the end.

Now for the leg.  I got out a bunch of dried-up ballpoint pens from my junk stash.

I also got out another Lego ball hinge joint, the same as the one I used for Janus.

Luckily, a piece of plastic tube from inside one of the pens fit perfectly onto the bottom peg of the joint.

I used Jen's leg to measure and cut the tube.

Then, I found two more pieces of plastic tube to fit inside each other.  These are hard plastic from the outside of two different pens.










I glued all the tubing together, sanded down the top of the upper tube, and glued it to the bottom of the knee joint.

Next, I marked on the leg where the leg would be attached...

...and cut the leg off with an X-Acto knife.  The rubber was easy to get through, but the plastic skeleton underneath was really stiff.

I also had to hollow out the end of Jen's thigh to make room for the cylindrical attachment on the end of the joint piece.  I could have cut that part off the joint, but this way, the join between thigh and prosthetic is stronger.

I also made a slit so that the plastic can push out a little bit, making it easier to get the joint glued in.

I hot-glued the joint in place (it detaches from the lower half, which makes things easier) and used a twist tie to keep everything tight until the glue dried.

To smooth out the surface of the leg, I used hot-glue and pieces of plastic packaging to fill in the gaps on the Lego piece.

I painted over everything with black glossy enamel paint.

To cover the join between the thigh and prosthetic, I glued a strip of black faux leather (cut from an old purse) around the leg and filled the gap at the bottom with more paint.

For the "carbon fiber" running foot, I first hot-glued a wire armature into the bottom of the leg.

Then, I covered the armature with hot glue, making sure to keep everything as smooth as possible.

One more coat of black enamel, and the leg is finished!

I decided to glue a red mini-gem into the hole in the upper leg, just to add some sparkle.

I whipped up some workout clothes, and Jen's ready to rumble!

















Jen proves that you don't need to be symmetrical to be awesome!  Creating her was difficult for sure, but I love a good challenge.  And now that she's finished, I hope she will inspire someone else to give an old, damaged doll a new lease on life.
Questions and comments are always welcome at modelhorsemagic@gmail.com, and stay tuned for my next update!