Andrea Lee has an unusual talent — she meticulously paints doll sculptures to resemble human babies. She began selling her dolls on Facebook Marketplace in July 2021 and quickly garnered a following among doll collectors worldwide. Her customers say that among all the doll sellers they know, Lee’s dolls look the most natural, detailed and realistic. Lee specializes in both vinyl and silicone dolls, with the vinyl dolls ranging from $400 to $4,000 and the silicone dolls fetching between $4,000 and $10,000. Lee’s process is a 3-stage one: creation, detailing and dress-up. In the first stage, sculptors shape the dolls before sending them to Lee. Once a sculpture arrives, Lee begins by priming the doll kit — which includes the limbs and head — with a thinning medium to improve paint adhesion. Then she “bakes” her babies in an oven to seal in the first layer of paint. The next phase is the detail artistry, which can take between 3 and 6 weeks. This is followed by the process of hair rooting — inserting the hair into the scalp one strand at a time — which can take Lee up to 40 hours. After that, glass beads are placed in the hollow parts of the doll to provide a realistic weight before the kit is attached to a cloth body using zip ties. In the final stage, the dolls are dressed in outfits from real baby stores. Lee’s dolls are a hot commodity. She produces about 26 dolls a year, with her most expensive doll being sold for nearly $6,000.
