Holy mackerel, that's a lot of hair. I'm a bit at a loss about her hairdo. The high ponytail she often wears doesn't look good on the doll because the wig is a bit too bald in the neck for that. Next I tried a braid that goes over her shoulder to the front, like she wore in the tavern in #2 or so. That doesn't look good either though, it's way too thick to look convincing. (Too few hair for one hairdo, too much for another! Go figure!)
A low ponytail would look good but completely blocks her eye mechanism. Open hair would also be nice but hey - I know myself. The wig would be ruined within a week when I run around with her to take photos. Two ponytails would work but no. Just no. She looks like a child like that.

Oh, forgot to mention: Her neck problem is much better now thanks to the added foam. No more bobble head.

In the end I give her a ponytail that sits slightly above the eye mechanism. The doll is now so top heavy that she easily falls backwards unless I pose her very very carefully. In the showcase she'll get a doll stand for extra security but I hope I won't need it that often for posed shots.

What next? Since she already has the tendency to drop backwards I decided against adding a hood to her jacket. Maybe I will make her a hooded cape one day though. For rainy days and winter, you know. One day I might also remake her clothes from different fabric because this one isn't that great. The folds are pretty bad in this size and it looks so fuzzy around the belt and such.
The earrings went into the trashbin because they didn't dry. I suppose there's something similar to a past-by date on metallic paints then. The pot was 15 years old, he he. I will remake them with acrylic paint.

Since her outfit looks a bit bland on a doll she'll also get some accessoires.
Later on she'll also get more outfits because I hope to have several Seekers dolls one day and take many photos.

A little bit later: Nareen is basically done.
I remade her earrings, finished the belt of her little bag and added a tiny purse or material bag to the belt.

Her purple dress will be remade very soon from another material, just to see if it looks better then. I can't get rid of the feeling that this fabric widens every time I have to take the clothes on or off. Even the jacket is too big now.

Nareen got two hair decorations. A hairband and several strings of beads on a pin that are simply placed in her hairband.

The doll will soon be ready for photo action so expect to see photos of her in other albums. She'll also star in a wacky photo comic.

All that's left to do is to assemble some pages with clothing templates for print-out.

In conclusion, am I happy with how she turned out?
Yes and no. I'm happy that the face turned out nicely and that I was able to make her earrings and other things just like in the comic. What I'm not happy with is the varnish desaster, of course. Her body is still a bit damaged from that. The new sealant is a bit too glossy for my taste and also very sensitive to scratches, so for my next doll I'll look around for a more expensive brand. The clothes could be better.
The worst is her head though. The weight from the eye mechanic and the hair still doesn't work well with the frail, movable Obitsu neck. Most of the time Nareen looks up to the ceiling because her head is drawn backwards from the weight.

For my next doll I would either look for one that has a type 3 body and stick to that or if I'm gonna use an Obitsu body again (I like them for their great flexibility) I might leave out the eye mechanic and just glue some nice eyes in place. Or maybe I can leave out the scalp and replace it with leightweight rubber foam? My husband suggested putting a leaden counterweight in her chin but I'm not sure if her neck wouldn't snap with even more weight on!
There's still much to learn about dolls, in any case.

Conclusion of 2013:

As you can gather from my various notes in the text I learned some things since then. And some I learned in a really rough way. Some weeks ago (I write this in December) Groove finally published the "Make It Own" series, a line of unpainted dolls. All of them, from Pullip to Isul. I always had terrible problems with customizing because I was just sad to destroy an existing character. To this day I sometimes miss Nero, also because of her pretty white lipstick that I never saw on a new doll since then.

I bought one Make It Own doll of each kind right away and painted the Pullip version. It was the first time I worked with a type 4 head and I was surprised by the difference. The head is now slightly lighter than before since there is no scalp anymore. There is just a front and back that are screwed together. This way there is less wobbling, especially with the soft foam added. Since the new dolls have a much shorter chin and their neck sits closer to the front (I didn't even notice that before!) the neck pin of an Obitsu body doesn't fit into the head without extra work now. As I said I had to sew off the upper 2/3 of it. The rest is enough to hold the head in place though. The hole for the head now has a weird size so that one side can slightly move into a furrow and the doll tilts her head slightly. Just slightly though. That can be stopped by making the thin part of the neck thicker. I'll show that another time but basically that just means cutting some tape into a thin stripe and wrapping it around the neck several times.

If you don't want to mess around at all with an Obitsu body you can use the stiffer original body too, of course. The Make It Own dolls come with one. I even heard that some people only exchange the arms and thus have the better Obitsu arms on their Pullips. I didn't try that since I would surely be bothered by the inevitable difference in colours but if the outfit of the doll allows for it this might be the best of both worlds.

In any case I still love my little Nareen and that there's "fresh" heads for painting without any remorse for me I took up my old plans for more Seekers dolls too. Now I can even make Takchi, Eloya and the other guys provided I can find decent male wigs for them. :)