Although this campaign has ended on Indiegogo and we didn't meet our full target goal, we are still pushing forward raising funds and are continuing to accept contributions, monetary donations, private investor injuries and doll preorders through our new website, Herstory Doll Facebook page and email (herstorydoll@gmail.com) via email money transfer and PayPal,which has been highly requested for people to continue to help us reach our target goal.  Also, our our Brownstone Kid giveaway $20 raffle perk is still open for the rest of December!

THANK YOU ALL FOR GETTING US THIS FAR!!

We couldn't have done it without all the love and support and belief in what I am creating and the importance of it all.

HERSTORY DOLL

Herstory Doll is an 18 inch articulated play doll line.  Herstory Doll is a reflection of diversity within kids of African Descent with different brown skin tones, more true facial features, and textured hair of different types. The added bonus to the doll line is the joint articulation and our building of an platform to allow those who purchase them to use their own creativity and imagination to build further on the character THEY choose to create, in a reflection they can Identify with and be proud of, as opposed to buying something that is already given an identity by a company. Herstory is more than a beautiful representation of girl characters (and eventually boys), it is also about putting creativity into the hands kids encouraging them use their imaginations and artistic abilities through creative writing, storytelling, photography, videography, crafting, sewing and more.  Our goal is to build an online global community where youth have the platform to share their creativity through their doll characters, how they've defined their own unique characters in their own ways and share them with other youth in a positive creative sharing space.

Each Herstory Doll comes with a Herstory notebook and writing utensil which serves as tools to write down their creative writing ideas, DIY crafting and design ideas, and other activities and projects that will be posted on our website regularly for girls to download and get creative and artistic.  On our website will also have a section where images can be uploaded of projects kids have done, their creative writing stories to share, their creative doll photography or videos or other design and sewing/crafting projects. Every month there will also be a theme that with aid them in their creative brainstorming.  Our online community will be an engaging platform in that it will continuously encourage, challenge and bring artistic inspiration to those who join; getting youth to try their hand at different artistic skills or take on themed challenges in a variety of art forms they may like to create and experiment with.

I do not want to build a doll line that tells the consumer/potential doll owner who the doll is or what culture she is from. I want to the consumer/doll owner to be able to make those decisions of representation for themselves.  The dolls featured so far are only 3 of the 5 skin tones and hair textures that I am striving to release. Our second goal level will allow us to add on the next 2 dolls.

Who Is The Creator Of Herstory Doll?

For those who don't know me, online I go by Queen Dollylama. I am a doll artist and I customize dolls to give them a more realistic Black representation. I would use what was out there in the toy market whether it be play dolls, ball-jointed dolls or other collectible dolls and transform their images into new characters that I felt reflected Black people or Black fantasy-like characters.

Examples of my works:

I am a mother of 5 and a wife. By career I’m a singer/songwriter/actress. I run two organizations; one about empower women called When Sistahs Get Together; building a community sisterhood and the other is my not-for-profit Be-You-tiful Girls Club Inc. that is about empowering girls and building esteem through different artistic means and experiences.  I am also a community activist and I run a home daycare.

I started my custom doll art when my daughter turned 5 and I was ready to buy her dolls of the human looking form, and have conversation when it came to images. I wanted dolls that were a positive reflection for her as a little Black girl and also reflective of the diversity of females in her family and our cultures. I then began customizing for clients from all over and have been doing it for 4 years now.  I eventually became ready to create my own play doll line and still be able to offer my doll art customizing services, and nervous as I was to enter into a business arena that was new to me, the importance and positive impact would be too great not to take my love for this a big step further. Herstory has been 2 years in the making with a lot of research as to what exactly I want my brand and dolls to represent, the materials used, the quality. the functionality, plus making sure I found the right company with the right experience to do what I wanted. It wasn't easy and has been a long process with a lot of work, designing, with a lot of investment to which I want to thank my mother Sharon Grant and husband Leon Robinson who are my partners, but great things don't come easy and this I know is important to many many people around the world, both kids and adults.

A Look Into The Development Process.

Herstory Doll has already gone through all development stages, and is now at the point to move forward to the next faze, which is production.

Here is a look a the development.

The doll was design was illustrated by my eldest son Origin Robinson to my specifics. I wanted her to have features that more resembled African features, a broader, rounder nose and lips that were more full. I want her eyes to be bright and her face to have a pleasant look of joy and wonder. Also, details of the hands and feet.  The company then did clay mold from my detailed illustration, which allowed me to make any changes I wanted to fix during this process.

Next was the wax mold, and my company name branded on the doll head. This was also the final stage to be able to make any changes.

Finally, the copper permanent mold was made and my doll has it's very own product number that is specific to my company's doll. Which means that this is my doll mold, my design, it belongs to my company and cannot be reproduced by the company, as per our contracts to protect my design.  Once the doll copper mold was done, we had to get the specific skin tones that I wanted for our first 3 dolls. Then it was picking specific eye colour and iris styles, face make-up (to which we wanted our dolls to look very natural). Clothing ideas were toss around and decided upon, shoes styles, outfit combinations and then the wigs. Our dolls are wigged and not rooted into the scalp. This allows for use to create custom hairstyles for each dolls specific to our visual design. This also allows for my customizing aspect within our doll line to be a more easier process down the road. Once we establish our dolls we can offer different wig styles to allow for an even more customizable experience accompanied by my other personal customizing service options.

And here they were fully finished. I have received my doll sample to so I can have them in hand to see them up close, see if there are any tweaks I'd want to make, see how they play and get some feedback from other kids.

PRODUCTION TIME!

Why we are doing this Indiegogo campaign.

We are doing this campaign to help get our first run into production. Our numbers required for our first run is 600 dolls which will be 200 of each. We also have our custom box packaging to get finish made as well the Herstory Doll notebook and writing utensils which will come with each doll.

The Herstory Doll notebooks are a key tool to write down creative writing ideas, DIY crafting and design ideas, and other activities and projects that will be posted on our website regularly for download.  We will also have a section where images of projects can be uploaded, creative writing stories shared, as well as creative doll photography or videos. Every month there will also be a theme that with aid towards creative brainstorming.

Queen Dollylama Doll Customizing Services.

I will still be offering doll customizing services, whether to re-image a doll to look a specific way or even to transform into a whole new creative character. There will be an order option on our website for doll customization inquiries. 

Future Additions.

Herstory Doll would like to be able to add clothing items, accessories, props, journals, sketchbooks and other creative arts items to our line which will help to fulfill the Herstory creative experience everyone can have. It will also allow Herstory Doll company be a one stop shop for all our 18" doll needs and wants and all the creative that with go along with them.

As we move further long and meet more of our goals to make this Black doll line a successful creative outlet and play line, we would like to add boy dolls to the line.

The Impact

We live in a world  where our images as people of African descent are still being made and given to us by people who are not of African descent and who do not understand why it is so important that Black and Brown children  Our image has always been under represented in every medium, in anything that media and marketing wants to show as good, fun, enjoyable, special etc.. Children of all ages look around and see Brown skin of different hues amongst their own families, friends, neighbourhoods, cultures etc., but when it comes to reflecting people in toys, the representation isn’t there.  It is like in the toy "human" world brown skinned people are lacking when you look on the shelves. Companies may market and advertise their toys to show diversity by placing a Black doll in their lineup of white dolls but when it comes to actually stocking shelfs they are hard to find, which translates to not important, not cared for, not wanted, not needed, not special enough.

Being Canadian who’s culture is Jamaican and origin is African, the label of Black being just African American in the industries needs to fixed through education and knowledge. When you want to look for any toy that is a Black doll you have to type in African American. There are so many of us who grew up identifying as other cultures and are not African American. So for me I make sure that when I am referring to Black dolls, I make it known that they are dolls that represent visually people of African Descent or Pan African people, because Black people come from many places around the world.

Potential Risks & Challenges We May Face.

Risks and challenges we may possibly encounter, could be production delays which could delay shipment mailouts, as well as perk productions. We will strive to do our best to make sure timelines are on track and will always keep our donors aware of any such issues.  Also, running out of stock due overwhelming positive response, there may need to be a waiting list for next shipment if this were to happen.

Additional Ways You Can Help Make This Impactful.

I hope you all will be a part of this journey as we strive to fill void in the market with much needed representation. It is something many of us understand and are passionate about when it comes to proper representation on all platforms and more representations for Black/Brown kids in play toys or collectors need to be present as well outlets for youth creativity. Dolls are great positive play toys for all kids. We will keep everything up-to-date and all the exciting components that will be a part of this doll line brand. So travel with us every step of the way as we reach our goals together.  

Please Follow Us At:

INSTAGRAM - @thequeendollylama   -   @herstorydoll   -   @eklipz1

FACEBOOK - Herstory Doll  &  Queen Dollylama

TWITTER - @herstorydoll   -   @WSGT_queencee    -    @eklipz1

If you are a blogger, have a podcast, radio show, web show and can help us with promoting our campaign or doing interviews, please email me at herstorydoll@gmail.com