I've been working on getting some shots of Giorria, the darling bunny by Depths Dolls that everyone has been talking about, and wanted to find out a bit more about French artist Aurélien Fravalo-Atallah, or "Tama" as most people call him.
I asked him to tell me his story so I could share it all with you.
I’m 28 years old, french dude from the south of France, and I’m into dolls since I was a very young boy. At the age of 4 maybe, I've used to play with the barbies of my big sister. I felt in love with "The little mermaid" and then "Splash" movies, and I’ve started an obsession for mermaids.
My parents were kind an open minded enough, and they bought me two mermaids barbies ! one with a blue sparking tail, and the other one was an Ariel barbie. I started to customize them, cut the hair,… and then cut too much ! So I tried to reroot the head of my Ariel with red wool... Of course if was a disaster, but Meh ! It’s something to expect from a kid of 6 years old XD.
And then teenage time, I had to stop the dolls for a while because it was not something a teenage boy was suppose to play with… at 16 I’ve discovered the BJDs, and I’ve fall in love. At 17 when I went to the university I started again to collect Barbies and Tonner dolls, and then BJD’s. I’ve got the chance to meet a ton of great people in the doll community, and one of the top creators in France, Enaibi, became my best friend.
I was sad to not be able to find a mermaid BJD of my taste, and Enaibi pushed me to start making dolls (and kicked my ass to finish it !!). And then in the beginning of 2012 I started to make my first mermaid doll, called Abyss. It was first experience for almost everything : sculpting, molding, casting XD.
And then, with years, I've started to make different dolls, other mermaids, small human dolls, and Giorria the small bunny girl with pinup features. And I still have tons of ideas, I want to keep sculpting and inventing new things. Humans, mermaids, anthropomorphic dolls, elves, faeries… I love the fantasy world, it stimulates my imagination a lot !
For next year, I hope to release more dolls with Jpopdolls, maybe some of my mermaids, and I’m working on a small MSD size doll too. I want to keep learning sculpting, improving my skills and trying some new faces, body types… but I want to stay faithful to my style. This year I went to the BJDC convention in Austin, and it was awesome !! I’m already working to come next year at the end of July, with some new stuff
You can find Giorria exclusively through Jpopdolls.net
To follow Depths Dolls and his upcoming cuties, check out his
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