Why make your own drawings rather than just buy someone else's art?
In my case, you can blame it on how I played with my original Barbie dolls. It was about the time of the fairytale theatre fashions, and the Arabian Night pink "sari" flipped a switch in my brain. I took up sewing to costume my dolls, starting with Classical Greek draperies and Egyptian sheaths and more saris. So you can kind of blame my whole seamstress/costumer life on a Mattel marketing decision that clicked with Bulfinch's Mythology.
Often, I want dolls of favorite characters.
Before the 50th Anniversary Uhura, I had a DIY Uhura starting with a Sit in Style Christie. The hair was murder. I'm lousy at Sixties hair-dressing.
Right now I'm working on Gentoka and Princess Tamayori from Scarlet Fate -- not likely to come out in a box. There will be muslins, and the mock-ups, but I think I'll have to draft it all out as a Spoonflower yard to get those patterns we would silkscreen and airbrush in a costume shop. I could make her bustle armour from aluminum drink cans but the final version will more likely be black 2mm sheet foam (called foam paper by some). We'll see how it comes out. I don't have to buy a small anvil to shape that like the can armour.
Of course, there's wigs or rooting hair, and face painting, too. Rooting is soothing repetition, like crocheting. Painting is just fun.
I did start a set of Arielan dolls for S. A. Bolich (to be a surprise) but only got T'znan finished. The others were all lined up, and Chlira had her sculpted short hair that would fit under wigs, mistress of disguise that she is. Unfortunately, came our great disruption period and they weren't finished in time. I just found the box of them last month, ready to costume ...
My customizing themes are all paralleled in my adult collecting. There's the movie and TV dolls, which from other than Mattel rarely look like the originals, though we paid three figures for an excellent Sonny Chiba as Yagyuu Juubei.
There's a quartet of sari dolls made for the Indian market, including a Barbie and Ken set, as well as the Princess of India Barbie. (Every little girl in LA plays out the Ramayana with her dolls, with plastic monsters for demons, and a sock monkey.) They go nicely with the Arabian Nights set. Maybe I need more in that line. I do have Costume Patterns and Design to work from.
We got very disappointed in historical 1:6 "action figures" (they're dolls) when they got Manfred von Richtofen so completely, beady-eyed wrong. Toy Presidents had a pretty good sculptor, though. Alas, the company is no more. So with that, if I want a Red Baron who looks like him, I have to make my own. I think the BMR1959 first wave Tango face is a good start.
Right now I'm stocking up on Finnick Odair from the Hunger Games series. See, most Kens have rather square jaws, whether Harley faces or Sultan faces. Same to be said for the Peeta Mellark portrait. But this actor face has a narrower jaw that fits other portraits, like Gentoka. How long he'll be available, I don't know. You can hardly find a Blaine face anymore, that was so good for Orlando Bloom roles. The Tango face only appeared on FAO Schwartz dolls for the longest time, but it may be the closest for Johnny Depp characters.
Also, the Hunger Games figures are wrist-posers, with jointed wrists and ankles, as well as the head, shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees of the regular posers. The Twilight series, say, has only 5 points of articulation, and their pallor prevents body much swapping. Even that BMR1959 body has too much colour, though one can make do if they are fully dressed.
I had a friend who was a face collector, so I learned fine differentiation, like telling an Angel face from a Kira face. On the other hand, I became a body collector, because it bothered me how dresses couldn't fit all Barbies. We're not even talking short or stout figures, but the difference between a Poser and a Bent Arm, or a M2M and a BBB. I'm a trained dressmaker! The fit of commercial patterns is often dreadful, even for a doll typical of the period the pattern came out.
So if I'm going to have to draft from scratch, why spend the time on a Chanel suit or hoody when I could do a Louis XIII gown? And, of course, no one's ever done a good zoot suit/zazou/swing kid suit for all the male dolls.
Dragon has more bodies than Mattel, I keep thinking: I just didn't catch them all. A suit has to be tailored, not just thrown on, considering just the height difference between Classic GI Joe and Toy Presidents. So those will keep me busy.
Then there's economics. If a simple satin cape costs $20 and I can make it in under an hour for less, buying it seems silly. If I want a series costume the $300/doll company didn't choose to make, it behooves me to start with a $30 body and $40 head and start stitching.
So that's why I customize and don't just collect.
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