Creating Oz dolls

When Oz the Great and Powerful came out, I decided to pick up dolls based on the characters. I didn't have a lot of Oz toys, and decided this would be a nice start. This was followed by picking up the new line of Barbie dolls based on the MGM film. Finally, I picked up a Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return doll that was the closest to her film appearance.

But being a fan of the Oz books and knowing of many of the Oz characters who have rarely appeared in film—much less be made into a mass-produced toy—I decided maybe to look into making my own custom Oz dolls. Specifically, Ozma and a Neill-inspired Glinda. (Thanks to the above, I had three Glindas already, two different costumes for Oz the Great and Powerful and MGM.) Getting another idea, I decided to add Polychrome to the list.

Finally, after spotting potential dolls to use for bases, I decided to go for it. I began looking online for dresses. I know how to whipstitch and mend clothes and back in the day made tiny plush characters, but by no means was I wanting to create a dress from scratch.

Here's what I picked up from Amazon:

- One rainbow dress.
- Two white wedding dresses. (Note: these came from a seller in China and took 40+ days to arrive, so plan ahead on this one or find another one.)
- One Barbie Fashionista Terrific Teal doll. (This would serve as my base for Glinda since she has red hair.)

These other items I bought on eBay or in stores, but I'm linking to Amazon listings for illustrative purposes.
- One Barbie Careers Farmer doll. (This would be my base for Ozma.)
- Kneadite (known as "greenstuff" by model makers).
- Various colored sequins.
- Red tulle
- Beading wire
- Rainbow colored ribbon
- Acyrlic paint, blue, cranberry (but I should've gone with metallic red) and metallic gold colors
- Hot glue sticks
- Paint brushes
- Velcro circles
- Small squares of red and green material.
- Red glitter nail polish.
- Black cylindrical coffee stir (this was free)
- A loose nude blonde Barbie doll from a thrift store, carefully selected for quality. (This would be my base for Polychrome.)

Items I already had at home:
- Needle and thread.
- Twist tie.
- Scissors.

I had all of Polychrome's materials together first and she was fairly simple The rainbow dress had a glittery belt that I didn't like, but it was easy to remove with scissors. I considered giving her the cap seen in Neill's pictures, and I suppose I could using a small amount of kneadite, but considering that kneadite + doll hair = a big mess to remove, I decided to use some rainbow ribbon around the head instead. Some more rainbow ribbon tied around her arms and shoulders, and the look was complete. I have since altered it with the use of hot glue, affixing the ribbon directly to her head and dress.
Ozma and Glinda both proved a little bit of a challenge. Their designs had been inspired long ago when I was digitally coloring a scan from the International Wizard of Oz Club's edition of The Oz Toy Book and I discovered a nice costume design for them that involved them having white dresses. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz specifically says Glinda wears a white gown, and Boq mentions that "only witches and sorceresses wear white." Ozma is neither a witch or a sorceress, but considering her level of authority and that she can do magic, it would not be disrespectful for her to wear that color.

Glinda has blue eyes according to Wonderful Wizard, but the Terrific Teal doll has brown. A task for a careful hand and eye (and I am nearsighted with glasses), I repainted the eyes using a bit of blue paint on the tip of a needle.

Although their dresses were actually completed last, I'll go ahead and detail what I did with them first. Note that I did cut off some material from the red square of material to make Ozma's poppies. The dresses I purchased had little brooches on the chest. Glinda's tore off while I was applying it. I didn't intend to show it, but had intended to hot glue red sequins over it. This allowed me to apply the sequins directly to the dress. Ozma's did not tear off, but I made a design with a bit of hot glue, applying a purple sequin at the top, a blue one to the right, a red one to the bottom, a yellow one to the left, and a green one in the middle overlapping the others. I had intended to put these on a base made of kneadite, but the design with just sequins looked better.

The Material was made into cloaks that flowed from their shoulders, tucked into the front of the dress and sewn in. Further tucks and folds were secured with hot glue.

Ozma's crown, I had to decide not to use the cylinder crown she has on top of her head in some illustrations. The only option would be to secure it permanently to her head with hot glue or kneadite. The circling tiara was made of beading wire, with the OZ logo made of kneadite and painted gold. The flowers were made of bits of red material folded in half and rolled a little crookedly, sewn to secure their look. They were secured to the crown using unpainted kneadite.

Now, you might say, "What is kneadite?" and it's a sculpting epoxy I first used back when I created Oz action figures. It's called "greenstuff" because it arrives in strips of blue and yellow epoxy, which you knead together into a green epoxy that can be sculpted into any form you like. It bonds to most surfaces.

Glinda's hair is secured in a hairnet that she wears in many illustrations. A hairnet worn for fashion rather than practical purposes is called a "spood," and I used red tulle to make the spood, bunching up the hair in the tulle and creating the hairnet look by twisting it together on the top of the doll's head, securing it with a twist tie.

The twist tie tie off proved to be the base of the cylinder worn on Glinda's crown that Neill designed. I went for a simple design, made completely of kneadite. However, before anyone copies what I did, I must stress that once that kneadite is on the doll's head, it's on there, so you're going to have to commit to making this change to the doll. It will be permanent. Once it was set and dry, I painted it with the cranberry paint, making it pink. I then hot glued some red sequins on it. A friend who has experience with redressing dolls suggested that I redo her crown with red glitter nail polish, which admittedly made a very nice effect, although I had to work around the sequins.

I decided to accessorize Ozma with her scepter and the Magic Belt. I picked up a coffee stir and trimmed it short, adding kneadite to cap off the bottom and creating the OZ logo at the top. Painting it gold finished the look. The Magic Belt was made with more of the rainbow ribbon painted gold. Velcro fasteners made it removeable, and a pattern of red then silver sequins were hot glued on.

 That's it, that's how I did it.

I might do more. Mattel has a line of petit body type dolls that'll work for characters like Dorothy, Trot and Betsy.

If you use some of my ideas that I've detailed here, let me know with a comment. You don't have to use the same dolls I used or the same dresses or ideas. Make these characters the way you want. That's the fun of doing crafts where you create a customized figure.