By Wil Peterson
Jozef Szekeres is an artistic triple threat: comic-book illustrator, Disney animator, and high-fashion doll designer. It’s the latter, however, that’s his passion and primary focus.
The Sydney, Australia, resident introduced his first dolls, the stunning Elizabet and Kolatin Bizelle sisters, in 2003. On the heels of an unplanned hiatus, he revisited his original concept and released the GlamourOZ Doll line in 2020. The new spins on a previous concept include upgraded articulation and increased height, as well as faces conveying a range of emotions and alluring physiques that demand form-fitting garments.
“I’d say my GlamourOZ Dolls are the embodiment of my perfect doll,” Szekeres said. “I love that they’re 18 inches tall, yet also live compatibly within the 16-inch range of dolls, being able to wear their fashions and shoes.”
Kotalin Bizelle Ribbon Reveal — the blond mainline is an edition of 375 and won a Dolls Awards of Excellence Industry’s Choice award in 2020. The redheaded variant is an edition of 100.
Szekeres’ recent efforts have brought recognition, including an Industry’s Choice award in the 2020 Dolls Awards of Excellence competition. Meanwhile, additional plans are in the works, and he wants to pursue them if creative output continues to resonate with doll lovers.
“Currently, I’m self-employed with my self-funded startup business to support the GlamourOZ Dolls,” Szekeres said. “I’d love to do more doll sculpts, designs, and production exclusively to expand on the GlamourOZ Dolls line, but that will rely on the doll sales support by fashion-doll collectors. I’ve so many other design ideas I’d love to explore. I’d even love to work with other established doll companies to create more doll lines.”
A self-taught artist, Szekeres also has forged a successful career as a freelance 2D animator, storyboard artist, and painter in both acrylic and digital mediums. His longtime interest and growing skills in creating various forms of art provided unexpected opportunities. “By the time I was 19, I was skilled enough to be employed by Disney Animation Australia, where I became a senior 2D animator for about 13 years, and also sculpted maquette reference busts for the animators,” he said. “The skill of sculpting felt like a natural extension of 2D animation, as it engages a similar understanding of three-dimensional space, though in a different medium.”
Szekeres’ talent also attracted attention from the American-published comic book ElfQuest: WaveDancers. He learned how to paint for this assignment. “I had to lay out, draw, and paint in traditional acrylic paints — 24 pages and a cover every two months,” he said.
But while Szekeres drew upon his previous love of Masters of the Universe comics for those jobs, he remained obsessed with an abiding passion for dolls and a desire to design the “perfect” doll. “I loved Barbie as a child and brought that into adulthood,” he said. “Mel Odom’s beautiful Gene Marshall opened my eyes to the fact that dolls could be created by people outside of the big toy companies I knew of back then, which was basically Mattel and Hasbro.”
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Jozef Szekeres
GlamourOZ Dolls
Bindi Merinda wearing Cool Begins. The mainline edition is limited to 375.
