Tiny faces are his canvas

May 24, 2016 1:16 AM

Noel Cruz is an artist who purchases Barbies and official franchise dolls, strips all of their factory paint, and remakes them into faithful portraits of iconic celebrities and beloved characters using acrylic paints and tiny brushes. His dedication to detail extends to hair styling and commissioning custom clothing to bring a doll to life.

Mr. Cruz is also an accomplished portrait artist, rendering his subjects with sensitivity and fine technique in graphite. His full gallery at deviantArt has some NSFW dolls, but they are separated into their own gallery. His commercial web site features a short Q&A that goes into his artistic process.

posted by xyzzy (17 comments total)

OK, as someone who would sometimes like to buy the odd franchise figure but doesn't because they're all kinda shit, I'm officially impressed.

No Mal Reynolds figure though…
posted by Pinback at 1:31 AM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Most of them are really well executed. They should employ him to make all future versions.

A side note: the Lindsay Wagner portrait brought back a flood of childhood memories from the Bionic Woman days. Hadn't thought of her in years.
posted by greenhornet at 2:10 AM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

His work is truly amazing, but I do wonder why he doesn't give 'em new wigs instead of styling the doll hair already stuck to their heads. His figures look incredibly life-like, but then they have these Barbie doll hairlines and it can sometimes be jarring.

(When folks are agog-ling at stuff like this I always point them to Hot Toys. Those people manufacture dolls so eerily realistic they could sometimes pass for a photo of the original actor.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:44 AM on May 24, 2016

This just reminds me of how awful I'm going to be at my repaint of two Barbies to become Korra and Asami.

And I'm not even doing that much repainting.
posted by Katemonkey at 2:52 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Although of course this artist is exceptionally skilled at contouring, this still goes to show how good the base sculpts are for a lot of these franchise figures. I wonder if it's frustrating to be one of these sculptors: really putting your all into absolutely nailing it and knowing you've succeeded, but also knowing that nobody is really going to see it because capitalism demands mediocre paint on mass-produced toys. And imagine then discovering that there is a whole community of people who repaint these figures, not only truly appreciating your work but lending their own expertise to basically collaborate with you in creating something truly beautiful. Perhaps these sculptors never even realized how good their sculpts really were until they saw them painted by someone equally skilled. Of course, this being MetaFilter, I'm sure a toy sculptor will chime in telling us exactly what it feels like.

But say what you will about the cyberpunk infotech nightmare dystopia we have created for ourselves, without it we wouldn't have access to such little miracles as a commercial artist seeing their work taken seriously like this. Just a handful of years ago, the original designers of these toys would be doomed to melty eyes and utter obscurity forever.
posted by Krawczak at 2:53 AM on May 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

Presumably, he has to resculpt the dolls' faces as well as just repainting them? I mean, you can repaint all you like, but if your doll's nose is a completely different shape from your subject's nose, that's still not going to be a good likeness. Same goes for the contours of the chin and cheekbones, I'd have thought. I wonder how that aspect of the job is achieved?
posted by Paul Slade at 3:28 AM on May 24, 2016

Paul Slade, there doesn't seem to be any resculpting. If you look through the galleries you can see some step-by-step examples of his work. E.g. It's all good shading.

My only gripe is that he stops at the face. Some of the necks look weirdly plasticy; he should go down to the neckline.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:57 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Takes me back to a beautiful small outdoor market on a lovely Sunday morning in Seville, 25 years ago. Strolling along looking at the variety of artisan and food vendors' offerings and happened onto a man selling Ken and Barbie dolls he'd re-clothed and positioned into some of the most creative S & M positions I'd ever seen - truly beautiful kinky art.
posted by lometogo at 3:58 AM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's the same idea as contouring makeup, I'd think? A lot of the finished dolls have much warmer, more naturalistic-looking skin than the original waxy looks, and a skilled artist can change a lot about the (apparent) angles/curves/shape of faces and features by using small variances in shading and lines.
posted by Krom Tatman at 3:59 AM on May 24, 2016

Amazing! I also wonder how his face-painting skills would transfer over into putting make-up on people. I mean, his eye for detail and understanding of colour/shape is incredible.
posted by Halo in reverse at 4:19 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I want that Elizabeth Taylor doll more than I've ever wanted a doll before.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 5:33 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Reading the description, I'd assumed he bought generic barbies and turned them into celebrities, but the fact that he takes dolls that are already the celebrities and still manages to improve them to such a tremendous degree is actually more interesting.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:56 AM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

I got a serious uncanny-valley body horror squick from the utterly convincing photo-realistic Farrah Fawcett head on a perfectly posed, shiny plastic body with clear rubber band restraints.
posted by Illusory contour at 6:21 AM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

That is seriously amazing work. It's just incredible.
posted by xingcat at 6:40 AM on May 24, 2016

So the commissions start at $1250. Except Kate Jackson, she starts at $5100. That's more than Cher and Diana Ross combined.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:40 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Talented guy but in comparing them to the originals, does "factory paint" mean painted by machine or painted by a team of poor bastards who have to get 600 finished in a 10 hour day?

..also, I couldn't live with them in my home.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:15 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I want that Elizabeth Taylor doll more than I've ever wanted a doll before.

I did a doubletake because that one looked so much like a painting :D

It's interesting to see how his technique changed over time. His earlier repaints look like airbrushed publicity photos, but the later examples, while still very idealised, have subtle elements of realism about them.
posted by Eleven at 1:11 PM on May 25, 2016