Interview with Kimberly Lasher, Award Winning BJD Artist (Part 2)

In the second and last installment of our interview with Kimberly Lasher, Kimberly tells us about her creative process, and her new BJD collection.

BJDmagazine: How do your children respond to your creations?

Kimberly:  My daughter and son both think I have a “cool” job. My daughter likes to dress the dolls. She has actually dressed some of the Lilly‘s for me. And when I paint, I sometimes give her her own head to paint.

BJDmagazine: What is your process for creating a doll?

Kimberly: I usually do a sketch first so I have an idea of what I am doing. Then I sculpt the head. I already have the bodies and use the same MSD or SD body so the sizes are consistent. I spend a great deal of time on sculpting the heads, reworking them until I am satisfied. Some heads never make it to final production. Some, I put aside if I am frustrated with them, and pick them up again months (or even years) later. Once the final head is complete, I send it to my factory to have the molds and final resin prototype made. Then they send that back to me and I paint her, dress her, choose eyes and wig colors/styles. That process can sometimes take a while.

BJDmagazine: Do you have a favorite doll size?

Kimberly: My favorite size is always the size of the last doll I created.

BJDmagazine: Do you do the face-ups?

Kimberly: I do all the face-ups. I love painting my girls.

BJDmagazine: How does your character development benefit from having been an illustrator and graphic designer?

Kimberly: I loved life drawing class in college. I have always loved painting and drawing portraits. All that training has improved my sculpting.

BJDmagazine: Do you create all your BJDs’ clothing and accessories?

Kimberly: I design all the clothing and accessories. I have very talented people sew the prototypes for me. We take my sketches and choose fabrics and sometimes make changes. They make my designs and ideas come to life. I can sew a little bit, so in a pinch, or if I have time, I sew my own prototypes.

BJDmagazine: What place do costumes play in creating characters like Alice and Dark Alice?

Kimberly: I based my Simply mostly on the movie stills before the movie came out. I work months, sometimes years in advance, so the movie was not out yet. I only had random images from the movie that I could search out on the Internet. For Dark Alice, I used vintage drawings for inspiration and came up with her costume.

BJDmagazine: For your last character, you picked Alice/Dark Alice. What other heroine would you dream of creating?

Kimberly: Many! The ideas are endless….

BJDmagazine: How do you choose the names of your dolls?

Kimberly: Usually whatever comes to me, but many times my dolls are based on real life children or storybook characters. For instance, Azaleah started as a human. My son went to school with this darling blonde girl named “Azaleah” who always had her long hair in ponytails.

BJDmagazine: Tell us about Layla, and her many personalities?

Kimberly: Layla has been fun. I love using vintage fabrics and accessories that I don’t have to worry about reproducing in multiples. I guess it takes me back to the OOAK doll days.  I can just put a doll together with whatever kind of mood I happen to be at the time.

BJDmagazine: Your BJDs are Victorian angels. But is there a steampunk lurking just below the surface?

Kimberly: Most of the time! I like to call my style “Victorian Funk”

BJDmagazine: Do you play with BJDs? Do you own other BJDs? What’s in your collection?

Kimberly: Yes, I do. Not a lot, but I love Kaye Wiggs BJDs and we have done a few “dolly trades” in the past. I have Nettle, Annabella, Tan Nyssa and Sage. And I am always longing for a new dolly to play with, so always on the lookout for a new one. I also have a few Goodreau BJDs and Creedy‘s. I love them all.

BJDmagazine: What’s in store for 2011?

Kimberly: I showed all my new dollies at IDEX on Jan. 27th! It was very exciting as I had been working on them for so long. It is hard to keep a secret for so many months. But in general, fewer dolls, and keeping low editions. I just can’t do as many as I did in 2010. It is much more enjoyable for me to concentrate on smaller editions. I will have 1 SD (23 inch) doll for 2011 that is an edition of 150, but that is the highest edition size I have planned.

Please help us by linking, tweeting, and sharing this article with your friends.

No related posts.