Adventures in Momoko Customising

March 3rd, 2009
by Sue

I love to have a go at customising (with varied results) so, when I took a liking to Momokos, it was inevitable that one of them would soon be in pieces on my dining room table. When the lovely Jade had a ‘Wake up’ Momoko for sale I spotted my victim:

I didn’t really have a clue as to how customising was done with a regular small-headed doll, so I was straight off to my fave Momoko Flickr group to ask for advice. The lovely ladies there pointed me at the odd tutorial. It turns out that there are loads of tutes about rerooting Barbies and Momoko’s head is constructed the same way (but prettier, obviously). So the usual method goes like this:

1. Remove your doll’s head. This is surprisingly easy for someone who’s used to Blythe dolls; you hold the head in one hand, body in the other and pull.

2. Cut the hair very short with scissors. Then use tweezers inserted in through the neck to remove the remaining fluffy hair bits.

3. Now to put the new hair in. Take 5 or 6 strands of your new saran or nylon hair and fold it in half. Thread the loop created at the fold point through a sewing needle. Pull the hair a couple of inches through the eye of the needle.

4. Push the needle through one of the holes in your doll’s head and pull it out of her neck. Depending on the size of your needle, you may need to use a small pair of pliers inserted into the neck hole to pull it through.

5. Remove the needle from the doll hair. You should now have a loop of hair sticking out of your doll’s neck. Tie a knot near the end of the loop. Use a small pair of scissors to trim off any excess. From the top of the doll’s head, pull the length of the hair back through the hole, so that the knot is against the inside of the scalp.

6. Repeat.

I followed this method across the top of my doll’s head, but found it was getting trickier to get the needle out of the neck as I got closer to the side of the head. Clearly, it was time to get some more advice. I asked Rachael who’s got lots of experience in rerooting small-headed dolls and – woo! – she has an online tutorial. She’s going to give me one of her fabbo rerooting tools to have a go with. I’ll report back when I’ve had a go…

Anyone else done any Momoko customising? Give me a shout if you have any tips