TUTORIAL: Getting your barbies to stand on their own

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Hello my lovelies! Wow this weekend has just flown past me, I had a flu all weekend and my younger sister has been in hospital (but she's ok now) at least it's labour weekend and I have Monday off from school! YAS! So I decided to show you how I got Chandler to appear standing on her own :)

This was my first time taking photos on a beach and it was really hard to deal with the blazing sun, lucky I found patches of cloud. But they were very over saturated so I had to fiddle around in the editing, but i LOVE how they came out.

I was going for the tourist poster vibe with the lady walking along the waterfront but her sandals in her hands, I could have gone down to the water but I really couldn't be bothered walking that far! haha

But how did I get her to stand like that? Magic? Well let me tell you some things.

For me doll and toy photography is all about the illusion, making the doll seem to come alive! Making her hair be in that perfect place (though my dolls always have flyways, I'm working on that) etc..

So in the past I have used a wire that I wrap around the dolls waist and then blue-tack it to the ground but I don't recommend that because when editing it out of the pic it got a bit distorted.. Anyways i have recently gone and tried using Kebab sticks and i've had some great results ;)

So here are some unedited pics showing how I got the doll to stand up, now if you have photoshop you can usually photoshop the stick out (thats what I do when I'm getting frustrated and can't get the angle quite right) But if you don't have that kind of software DON'T PANIC! As I said earlier, it's all about the illusion,

The sun was a bit of a pain. But I put the kebab stick up dress and rested it in the small of her back, that's where I find you can get the most stability.

1. When using the sticks you want to think about it being another leg, look and see which way the doll is falling and position the stick to where the doll is off balance (Or if one of the legs it up or not touching the ground, then make the stick become the 'missing' leg)

2. Now if you took the photo from this angle and didn't have photoshop then everyone is gonna see the stick and it ruins the illuison, but fret not! Notice what happens when I scuttle 90 degrees to the left (A quarter circle).

WOAH! Where'd the stick go?! How is she standing?! And that my children is how to wow an audience :)

Her front leg is actually hiding the stick so there is no need for a crazy editing system like photoshop!

Cool huh?!

Now if you look closely at how she's holding the shoes you may notice what I used to get them to stay in her hands... BLUE TACK! My actual savior! But I will talk about that in another tutorial

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful! It will work for any smaller doll that the kebab stick can bear the weight of. Now if you take photos of larger dolls (like AG dolls or the larger monster high dolls) the same rules apply, but don't use a kebab stick. I use a metal skewer. But if you like I will make another post with some tips I have found when exploring my larger doll photography.

Now please, I am no expert, I am just a crazy girl with a camera and some dolls but I have picked up a few useful tricks along the way and wanna to share my (minimal) knowledge with you guys. So please comment down below if you have any questions about this post or future tutorials. I will make a more in depth post in the future when i have experimented a bit more :)

Happy Doll Loving!

Lydia

6 comments

Phyllis23 October 2016 at 20:05
Very nice, Lydia! I will have to try this trick!
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Norah24 October 2016 at 16:34
Great tricks, Lydia! I will have to use this with my Barbies. If you don't mind my asking, why was your sister in the hospital? I'm glad she's OK.
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Farrah26 October 2016 at 18:09
Great tip! I've used the kebab method as well and it's perfect! Looking forwar to more of your tips. Such a pretty photo :) I'm glad to hear that you're all ok..they flu can be pretty scary, yikes!
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