Little Darlings Artist Dianna Effner

In today's post, I want to focus on Little Darlings artist Dianna Effner aka the Khaleesi, the Mother of Darlings, Queen of the (an)Dolls...well you get the picture. I think it's of utmost importance to point out first that without Dianna, we would not have these wonderful dolls that so many of us collect and enjoy. Not only did she develop, perfect, and then teach her painting technique to the other artists, but she actually sculpted and created the dolls themselves. 

Annie, painted by Dianna Effner

I do not own a Dianna painted doll, and I have specifically not reviewed any artists whose work I have not seen myself in person. Luckily, my good friend Janice sent Annie to my house for forwarding on to Australia, and she allowed me to open her up and have a look. The first thing that struck me about Annie was how natural her freckles looked. She absolutely looks like a sunkissed little girl in the middle of summer. I was really impressed when I noticed that even her little chest is freckled! What great attention to detail. 

Close up of Annie's eyes and face

As far as Annie's eyes go, I love the color that Dianna is able to achieve. The color is so realistic, which I think is hardest to achieve with green eyes - I could be wrong but from looking at many, many dolls, green seems to be the hardest to nail down. A friend of mine subscribed to Dianna's Reborn Revolution videos at one time, and in those videos Dianna details the process used for giving the eyes their life-like effect. She uses photos of real children and expertly mixes colors together in order to get just the right look. With this doll in particular, you can really tell the level of care that was taken in her creation. 

A photo of Annie dressed by her Mumma

If I had to use one word to describe Dianna's style, I would say "natural." She goes for an all natural look, one that is very realistic. It's easy to imagine this girl playing in a sandbox somewhere because her features so resemble that of a real girl. 

Thanks for reading Little Darlings artist series so far! These are all the dolls I have at the moment, but I am expecting a Pat Green doll anytime now, so as soon as I receive her, join me back here for a review of her style. 

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Little Darlings Artist Lana Dobbs

My newest Little Darling is from artist Lana Dobbs. I placed my order with her back in March of 2014 and received my doll in May of 2016...a two year and two month wait. But it was so worth it! 

My Ginny, painted by Lana Dobbs

Lana's painting style is one that gets lots of realistic colors into the dolls eyes. While most of my other Little Darlings have different hues of the same general color, Lana somehow blends various iris colors together to make a very realistic eye.

You can see yellows, greens, and browns all in her eyes.

The eyelash and eyebrow painting is very delicate and fine, even more so than some of the other artists. I can't even imagine how she gets a brush stroke so thin on the the doll's brow. 

The lips also are a little darker and fuller than some of the other dolls I have. I think this gives her a more mature look, so I see her as "older" than some of my other Little Darlings. 

I think a good way to sum up the way I feel about Lana's dolls is they are very realistic. If you get a chance to stare into someone else's eyes (or even your own eyes in the mirror), you will see the different flecks of colors that occur naturally in the human eye. Lana is able to capture this feel with her painting style, which I think makes her dolls so highly coveted.

Join me in the next post for a close up look at Joyce Mathews' painting style!

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