It's easy to do a good job, but it's not a simple thing to do one thing repeatedly until it's done to the extreme.
In an obscure studio in Canada, a Russian-born girl named Marina Baichikova is rummaging through a cupboard for formal props.
What she is doing is a doll that many people think is a child's plaything. However, the porcelain dolls she makes can reach the price of tens of thousands of dollars, and even as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the doll in her hand, it is not too much to describe it with the word "stunning".
Marina was already very fond of dolls when she was 6 years old, and most of them liked dolls at that age, but not many would try to make them themselves, and Marina was one of them.
Whether Marina is talented or not, she cherishes the dolls she gets and makes herself. This passion influenced Marina's choices, and she chose art and design as her specialty when she entered the university.
She can't accept the cookie-cutter mass-produced dolls, because in her eyes, these dolls should have a "soul", "life".
"The reason I love making dolls is because it's an art form that can encompass multiple disciplines." In fact, the doll in Marina's hand really can't be described in terms of just one or two domains.
In order to make her ideal doll, Marina started with the material she started from, kneaded the shape little by little, polished it, carved the pattern, and then processed it with high temperature.
The silky smooth texture looks very fragile and cracky, and each component needs to be carefully handled, and there is no room for sloppiness.
In order to create a sense of refinement, coloring is a very important part. Marina compares the swatches several times to achieve the ultimate visual effect.
The eyes are the most time-consuming part of the whole doll, because the eyes are the windows to the mind, so if the visual effect of this part gives people a feeling of lifelessness, then the whole doll will lose its "life".
Every time the pen is written, there is no chance to change, as long as it is shaken or the color is wrong, the entire part can only be remade, so each step must be carefully done and in a very quiet environment. There is no distraction, and it is most appropriate to describe Marina at this moment.
A few days, or even a week or two, may just be to draw a pair of eyes, and you can imagine Marina's persistence.
Moreover, the dolls made by Marina are different from other dolls, and it is very obvious that her dolls can rotate and move in joint positions such as arms and legs. That is to say, these dolls can pose differently according to different needs.
Details such as hair, horizontal lines on the fingers and soles of feet, nails and other details Marina took into account and used various tools herself to carve.
The most distinctive thing is the "reality" of the doll in Marina's hand. The reason for this is that these dolls are fully feminine.
Because Marina has never regarded her dolls as dead, she does not want to be bound by stereotypes, nor does she want to erase the most special things that nature has given to women. Therefore, the dolls made by Marina have the characteristics of female first and second sexual characteristics.
The second difference is that Marina did not limit her style. In fact, because he lived in an area adjacent to my country when he was a child, he was deeply influenced by oriental culture.
In addition to different styles such as medieval, magical, dark, folklore, fairy tales and myths, the ancient oriental style is one of Marina's favorite styles.
In order to more perfectly show this culture through dolls, she collected a lot of information, and also looked for inspiration from various film and television dramas, carefully compared, and then designed headdresses, clothes, and even socks and shoes that matched them.
So starting with a new doll, Marina will first learn about its culture, refer to a large number of literature, and then write dense text and data on the draft.
Sculpture, industrial design, painting, carving, mold making, metalwork, fashion and jewelry design are all things that are needed to make a porcelain doll.
That's because Marina not only shaped the doll's external form, the doll's behavior, clothing, expressions, ornaments, all tell a story. "If there is no hidden story behind the doll, it can only be a toy", this is Marina's original words.
Therefore, such a porcelain doll is often made in more than a month or even two or three months.
In addition, Marina used a variety of expensive materials for the doll's ornaments and costumes, including silk, Swarovski crystals, glass roses, gilded or sterling silver materials, leather, and even pearls and precious stones. From this aspect, we can see Marina's "madness" on the road of making porcelain dolls.
(Detachable variety of expensive clothing and accessories)
Perhaps it is this madness that makes the porcelain doll born from Marina's hand so unique. Sometimes it can be full of magical elements, as if she is a noble girl in the magical world.
Sometimes it can also be like a fairy tale world, representing a sacred, beloved princess.
It could also be a very ordinary girl in a small village, staring into the distance after the festive bonfire, as if remembering something.
In the eyes of each doll, it seems to tell a story that happened to her. There was sorrow, there was joy, there was sadness, and there was a life of her own.
As long as you look at these eyes, the strings of inner emotions will be plucked, trying to understand the girl's heart, the past.
Injecting the soul into the doll may best reflect what Marina is doing now. Because Marina, make your own dolls perfect, do it to the extreme, and do it amazingly.
Because of this, Marina now enjoys a very high reputation in the porcelain doll industry. Many people around the world have entrusted Marina to create a porcelain doll for herself, a porcelain doll of her own, with a "soul".