This is officially the first doll I have done a total customization on, outside of the usual sleep eyes, a bit of a faceup, minor carving, eyelash type thing. She is a dark skinned Blythe on a Hujoo Berry body. I dyed the mohair in 8 shades – black, chocolate, raspberry, brown, pink, maroon, violet and burgundy. She has a coolcat scalp, which I am not completely satisfied with – there is some overhang that I can’t seem to get rid of and at the moment, don’t want to take a scalpel to her. It could possibly be that I rooted her super thick (though the cap stays down snug on the dome, just doesn’t want to match up on the faceplates) and I wanted the plugs more or less random in thickness to emphasize the various curling tendencies, so the underneath part of the scalp is more like a sweater than a lovely individual plug viewing affair 
I probably could shave off some of the vinyl on the scalp, but too lazy and since she is my doll, and it doesn’t show behind the hair, I am going to leave it. I disassembled a Hujoo Berry body and sprayed it with SEM paint to match the face plates (light oak) and restrung it with 3 mm BJD stringing elastic. The neck stem fits really well into the Blythe head, but it is wobbly without reinforcement. It gives really good range of motion if you only partially reinforce with rubberbands (which is what I did), but having it snugger might be better. I strung the body really tight, but think I have to take it apart and string even tighter, as the torso wobbles a bit – she has a lot of hair and the head is ultimately a bit too heavy possibly. The body is terrifically poseable, though, and I love this type of body. And, the miracle of miracles – she can stand on her own unsupported! Hujoos have monstrously big feet, so she won’t fit in any of the cute little Barbie/ Blythe shoes other than the doc marten type shoes – she is 3.5 mm in length at the shoe and a 3.5-4 mm shoe is optimal. I don’t think a Hujoo body would work well for an unpainted blythe, as the color match is awful unless you disassemble and paint the whole thing including the blythe head. There are no nice light colored vinyl paints other than white and sort of beige. I had no trouble with the paint adherence. No scratching or peeling. The hair rooting is my first one and it went really well. I have been dyeing fiber for 30 years, so that was a no-brainer for me, which was nice, since I know some people sweat it a bit. I boiled the crud out of it, though and it did shrink quite a bit. It turned out longer than I had imagined, since I thought it was going to shrink so much as to be about 2 mm! The hair was just raw mohair that I washed and carded, dyed with Procion dye using a boiling, no soda ash method (ask if you need help with dyeing, I might have tips). It combs out well, maintains it’s curl and doesn’t seem to have a matting issue. And honestly, it was a mess with all the rubberbands slung around it for securing the scalp to the dome. Combed out nicely, no matter. Anyway, first attempt, successful with a few problems. I am going to make a darker skinned doll next, as she is lighter than I had intended, but has a really nice color all in all. I think she might be an island girl, so she will need some island clothes.