Handmade monster babies and the people who love them

When Arend Smith first learned about the “reborn doll” community, he was an investment banker doing fantasy sculptures on the side; after teaching himself to work with Super Sculpey, oven-bake clay, and wire armatures, he quickly became hooked. Soon, his talent began to attract collectors interested in masks, statues, and garage kits. When a client asked him to make a vampire baby, Smith was drawn into a new subculture that would later influence his decision to pursue fantasy art full-time.

“I came up with a character that was loosely based on … Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is one of my favorite vampire designs ever — the bat form that [Dracula] takes in that movie,” Smith recalls of his first reborn doll. “The reborn community … was...

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