Dollieh Sanctuary

Oh dear, needless to say I need lots of practice, I feel so bad for it because they're so cute lol, but I included my love for bloody noses so I guess it's okay, if I buy another one I think it'll be too cute for me to ruin unless I'm confident in my painting, I'm horrid at painting so I still have a long way to go.

Trust me, it's definitely not bad for a first faceup. Many people underestimate the amount of patience and concentraction it takes to paint on a small, non-flat surface. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it looks as if you've gone for the "beaten up by someone" look here, am I right? May I ask what materials you used? Some of the thin consistency of the faceup might be because of the kind of paint you used. I would suggest a bit of moderation, and checking up on some simple Halloween tutorials about how to do bruising and blood effects. To achieve the "beaten up" look best I would rely on a combination of pastels, and highly pigmented acrylics that come with an optional thinning agent (you can buy a set relatively cheap at the Volks USA website). The biggest issue I see here is the rather sharp edges of what I assume is bruising. While in real life bruises do occasionally form these jagged, defined edges, on a plastic/vinyl doll it looks like a makeup mishap. Halloween tutorials will show you how to do a more "softly blooming" bruise and teach you to dab different pigments of chalk in there to make it look real. The eyebrows and tops of the eyes definitely prove you have the steady hand for detail work. The trick is to make all the elements separate but cohesive instead of running into each other on the face. Do the eyes in sharp, thin strokes and keep everything bright and heavily pigmented. For the blood, I would take the red acrylic, add a TINY drop of dark brown to it, and a tiny bit of thinning agent. This will allow you to give it a bit of a natural "drip" pattern while giving the paint a different sheen and look from the eyes.

I hope this helps a little! I really like this idea and I don't believe I've ever seen someone do anime eyes on a Monster High girl before, it really, really fits them!!!

Note: Please understand I mean no offense with the above message. As a fellow artist I have an endless list of flaws. It just sounded a bit as if you wanted some constructive feedback about her. I think she looks great, ESPECIALLY for a first faceup. Oh, I'm always so hesitant to post constructive criticism. I don't want anyone to feel bad!! Please know I mean everything in only the most helpful way possible.

Thank you!! That really helps a lot actually, I actually picked up the wrong kind of paints, getting oil paints instead [haha oops] which for some reason don't even dry all the way, Uhm, and yeah I have a pretty good handle on make up, like bruising and that, but it seems to only transform to my face well, not so much a tiny doll lol, But thanks for the advice and I'll definitely take it into consideration.

Oh, haha, I'm so glad you appreciated the advice! And yeah, oil paints and doll faceups? That's a no-go. It can't even be craft store acrylics, they'll just flake off of the faceup in pieces. It has to be the expensive acrylics used for modeling, try Testors, or Liquitex. As for the bruising, that's why I suggested pastels (forgot to mention CHALK pastels though, no oil base ), because I do special effects makeup on my own face as well (when I used to go out on Halloween people would think I worked at one of the local big budget haunted houses ) and I can achieve beautiful bruising effects with a simple child's facepaint kit, but with dolls and their non-forgiving surfaces there's no way to "blend", which is what gave the faceup the jagged edges around the bruising. Ground up pastels on a q-tip (I'm sure there are a million tutorials that explain the process better than I do) are perfect for creating that blooming bruise effect. But still, knowing you used OIL PAINTS and it came out that way....wow!!!! I would LOVE to see the kind of faceups you could do when your materials aren't fighting against you. Congratulations on wrangling those paints to do what you wanted!!

I'm unable to see the pic Would really like to though!

I would also very much like to see the pic!

but hey, don't let your first try get you down. you can always erase it, and start again and I guess its more about making the doll "yours" and "ooak" then just pretty :"> (thought thats a bonus!)

I'm also new to face-up ing Monster High and Ever After High dolls :"> I hope we can learn from each other! don't hesitate to ask me anything