The beloved dolls of Niki and then some

[NikitaRose]

Well I guess I'll go with the Barbies first~

I've been practicing face-ups the last few days so that I can eventually do my Obitsu dolls without worrying about ruining them. I actually ran out of dolls I could actually practice on (the rest I love to much to mess up with my blobby painting) so I just bought nine more off of Ebay so I have more test subjects

Anyways~ this is Tiffany. No. I did not give her a full face-up, I just fixed her up cause the factory paint on one eye was crackled and faded so badly it really needed some attention. And her lips were fading out too.


My terrible second attempt at a full face-up. I didn't even take pictures of the first. And horrors of horrors... I used acetone to remove the factory paint and my first paint job on her. But she's come out alive and entirely unaffected by the stuff. I didn't know you were not supposed to use acetone until I'd already done it, then I was poking around in the forum and discovered my mistake. *shrug* still... the doll is alive. Oh yeah... and her hair. I did that several years ago. That's why I decided her her suitable for my experiments.


My second face-up! Yay! So much better than the first two. But still~ I have a lot to learn. I used acrylics and watercolor pencils this time unlike the previous attempts when I just used acrylic. And please, I'd love critique and help because I'm very new to this all ^-^
The paint is pretty blobby~ so I need to work on making it smoother.


My favorite Barbie of all time. I really love this doll a lot. Her name is Phoenix. I made her dress, and I did a bit of enhancing on her face too.



And my beloved Obitsu dolls, Eliss and Cainna. I did most of their clothes, and then I modded and fitted a few factory pieces for them. I made all the jewelry for Eliss using bits of pieces from my growing collections of tiny Steampunk goodies. And I made Cainna's wings a while ago before I really studied the structure of real wings, so they're a bit inaccurate, but I still think they look stinking cool on him. They actually have itty-bitty wedding rings that fit their fingers, but they aren't wearing them in these pictures... so they're not married yet in dolly world? XD






So when I eventually get around to painting their faces~ Eliss will have ice blue eyes and Cainna has dark chocolate brown eyes
I'm getting two more Obitsu dolls as soon as I get the money, a 21cm and 23cm, so they soon will join my little Steampunk crew.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

I love the steampunk outfits on your Obitsus!

As far as the face-ups go - I can definitely see the progression and improvement between the two you've shown - keep practising when your new test subjects arrive and you'll soon be doing face-ups you like. I can't offer any tips as I'm not much good doing face-ups that scale myself! (Well, don't touch the head if any sealer is not dry and your hands have traces of paint/pencil/pastel on them - nothing to do with your face-ups, btw - I'm just guiltily eyeing an Obitsu and a vinyl Dollmore that need re-doing because I was silly).

[yarwel]

Your face-ups are looking really good.
You might want to try using a little chalk pastel to blush a bit, though.

[NikitaRose]

Chalk pastel for blush! Thank you for that suggestion! I was trying to do blush with the acrylics and pencils but it was failing miserably.
Oh yeah~ what work work as a good matte finish sealer? I have something for my sketchbook so the graphite won't smudge... but I doubt that would be a good idea.
Aaaand... for the Barbie with her hair chopped all off, I know nothing of rerooting hair, so is there some sort of wig that would fit a Barbie?
^^; not sure if this is the proper place to be asking such questions, but I'm feeling to lazy to go digging around through the forum and start another thread.

[Yanagi-sen]

Here is the link to the recommended list of materials.

http://www.dolliehsanctuary.com/sanctuary/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=25

I'm going to second using chalk pastels (like NuPastel), rub it on scrap paper to grind off some dust and use a soft brush to apply. Works best if you use MSC (Mr. SuperClear) first to give the vinyl or resin some 'tooth' for the pastel to stick to. Then MSC to seal in afterwards. Very sharp watercolor pencils are great for fine lines (eyelashes or eyebrows). Like so:

[NikitaRose]

Hmm~ the water color pencils I have don't get that nice of lines on my vinyl heads, no matter how sharp they are; they're old so maybe I need some new, better quality ones
I obviously need some smaller brushes too for finer lines. The ones I use are too big.

[absynthe1972]

Hmm~ the water color pencils I have don't get that nice of lines on my vinyl heads, no matter how sharp they are; they're old so maybe I need some new, better quality ones
I obviously need some smaller brushes too for finer lines. The ones I use are too big.

For fine lines, I LOVE the brushes that Junky Spot carries. Those are my favorites for small lines like lashes and eyebrows. I use acrylics for the fine lines. I still have a lot of practice to do, but as long as the acrylic isn't too watery, I usually do all right.

Your second face looks really nice. I can't paint eyes for the life of me. I cheat and get the heads with eye holes. Have fun. Those outfits, details, wings...amazing!

[NikitaRose]

I thought about getting head with eye holes, but I didn't even know they came that way until I already had Eliss, so it would have been weird to have Eliss with one kind of eyes and Cainna with the other.
There's a wonderful little art supply store here in town where I live, so I'll check and see if they have the brushes I need, and if not I'll diffidently check out Junky Spot.

Yes~ and I tried the blushing, it worked great! (I did end up using my PrismaColor sealer on her, and it seems okay enough)

Yay! And thank you everyone, you're all being really helpful! ^-^

[Yanagi-sen]

With pigments you get what you pay for... I invested in a set of Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils (when I had a nice 50% coupon for JoAnns), I pretty much ONLY use them for faceups. They hold a nice point and have less filler than crayola. The handy thing about being an art teacher is I get to test out stuff before I invest in them.

Oh... didn't say it before, but I LOVE the outfits your dolls are wearing. That's what got me into dolls, wanting to sew for them. I love costuming and cosplay, and dolls use a lot less fabric than I do, even the 1/4s. ^___^

[WhiteDove01s]

I'll second the mention of Junkyspot's brushes. I use an Insane Detail Brush and a Psycho for most of my faceup work. I don't use any pastels. But one thing I do that would help with the blobby paint is that I thin my paints.

I have a bunch of 1 oz plastic art dropper bottles (actually, still gathering enough to do all the colors). In each one I use a measured plastic dropper (they're cheap, check any place that sells essential oils) to put 30ml of water, 1.5ml of Liquitex flow-aid, and then add 15 tiny pea-sized gobs of paint squeezed from the tube (right at the point where the length of what I've squeezed out eyeball-matches the diameter). Not the best way to measure the paint, but it seems fairly accurate so far.

This makes the paint just a tint when I use it. It doesn't glob up or show brushstrokes, and I can do it up in layers if I need it darker. So far I haven't seen a need for pastels. I could post a couple pics later, but all my works are still in-progress due to time constraints and interruptions.