2023 The 60th Anniversary Collection
The intention with this year’s Save a Sindy project was to make something as a celebration to Sindy’s 60th anniversary. My inspiration was of course the first Sindy sold in 1963. I wanted the Save a Sindy dolls to have a Weekender kind of outfit, like hers but with a more modern look and each outfit unique.
I also knew that I wanted these dolls to have more movable limbs – as the type of dolls like Barbie Made to Move and such. And since I’d work on a project to create limbs myself, suitable for vintage Sindy torsos and pelvises I wanted to use those for this project.
The Limbs
In 2020, when the Pedigree/Kid Kreations dolls were sold I was a little surprised and disappointed that they weren’t more flexible. (Although I was thrilled that they had used the vintage look from the 1980’s in their design! I was also amazed how lovely they looked and the attention to every little detail that was put down in the design of both the dolls and their outfits.)
I contacted both Pedigree and Kid Kreations and asked about their thoughts and they explained their target group is 3+ years and no more movable bodies would be produced because of this. So then I decided to try to make Sindy-like limbs (arms and legs) for my mini-me Marta, to start with.
First I made prototypes in Fimo/Cernit clay. I carved the parts out of cylinders that I had “baked” in the oven. Just to tryout the movements and how to make the best joints.
When I was done with the limbs, Marta got her first prototype body and she got to try it out. I noticed how much more fun it was to position and take photos of Marta
in her new body and I realized I wanted to try to make limbs that could fit some more Vintage Sindy dolls.
So I started working on my computer in a 3d modelling program called Meshmixer – a free download product. Every little change made, took forever but I printed out parts, tested, changed a bit and tested again and so on until I felt I had limbs that worked as I hoped.
I tried ball jointed and hinged joints. For these 10 dolls it ended up with something in between.
I needed to be able to print it all out and then assembly them without any further work or other items, like screws and such.
Even though each part of the total 32 parts of the arms and legs are identical between each set of limbs, there might be tiny differences depending on the temperature in the printing room, the mixture of the resin and so on. So they are still like handcrafted in a way.
I printed out the sets of limbs in four different skin colours, to best fit the vintage head, torso and pelvis, which also took time. Not easy to get the best mixture between the basic colour and the added red and black.
For these ten dolls I used Pedigree Sindy heads that were in quite good condition but didn’t have their correct or complete bodies. Then I choose ten Pedigree Sindy torsos with pelvises but no legs and arms and I put the heads on them, thinking of the most matching shades of their skin colour.
If you want to read and see more about the process of the making of TLSM’s Save a Sindy 2023: 60th Anniversary Collection, please check out Mam’selle A Sindy Doll Magazine or visit Issuu directly.
Bonita did a 20 pages Supplement with the ten dolls and talented as she is, it of course turned out great and I’m so proud and grateful for that opportunity!
Thank you truly Bonita!
The Outfit
So I took my inspiration for the outfits from the first Sindy’s blue, red and white top and the denim trousers with the white sneakers.
I did some quick sketches and explained what I wanted to my mum, Mai, who was the one that was going to make them.
I had bought used T-shirts (in the same kind of striping pattern as the first Sindy’s top) and different types of denim clothes from Sellpy, an online vintage shop in Sweden.
When they arrived, I brought them to my mum and we discussed the designs again. Later, after she was done, she showed them to me and of course she had made some adjustments that she thought were better… But I wanted the outfits to be as I asked so she had to change some things, poor mum but in the end I’m very pleased with how they turned out and so is she!
I wanted to make some shoes for the ten girls and I choose to do different styles of shoes depending on the different type of outfit they had. It took of course a while to create the shoes in my 3D program and they had to be printed out and tried on the feet. I couldn’t find any white flexible resin so I had to print them out in a mixture of half see-through flexible resin and half white hard standard resin.
Even though I used 50 % flexible material the shoes turned out very hard and inflexible. Also, I had to make them big enough to easily get the foot in but sadly that meant they also easily fall off… But since I was born in 1971 I played with Sindy when all her footwear (except her boots) dropped off very easily so I guess they will survive these too!
Click on a photo below to see and/or read more about the ten dolls!
Since this project was a big one I also wanted the dolls to be delivered in a unique box.
So I used the empty boxes that had contained the Uv Resin bottles.
Luckily they had a perfect fit and I had exactly ten of them!
Click here if you want to see more photos of the box making process!
When all TLSM’s Save a Sindy 2023: 60th Anniversary Collection Dolls where done I was going to have a revealing party on Instagram, on September 6 – Sindy’s birthday.
<- The party invitation
Everyone that took a photo of their doll and used #tlsmsindyparty2023 and posted on Instagram took part in the festivities.
You can see all the lovely photos on Instagram if you click here or you can scroll further down to have a look.
The Revealing Party People Thank you all for joining!
A few days later, on September 9, there were a Sindy meeting in Örebro, Sweden where I brought the dolls and showed them irl for the first time.
The meeting was organised by Annika Norell @barbieblackwidow_offstage and me and we had a great time with old and new Sindy loving friends. If you want to see more photos from the event click here!