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crapolicedolls · 7 years

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Hi! I remember seeing a photo of you doing a faceup on your dollfie dreams face. I really want to do my own but lack the confidence. Tons of tutorials but can't find much for dd's, specifically. Can you tell me the tools you use? Any tips, too?

Why hello there!

It’s cool, anon. It is hard to find a tutorial out there for these gurls, especially since they’re of a very porous vinyl. You know, my first doll into this hobby was my 06 DD, and I didn’t know anything about properly going about it. I wound up using some tube watercolors to paint her, but it looked like shit. I wiped it and the paint had stained her brand new head!! I could have treated it, but I left it there to teach me a lesson lol. (It’s covered up with the new faceups anyway.) Sure, I watched some videos here and there and looked up materials and stuff, but I realized along the way that just doing it really really helped.

super long post so everything’s under the cut~

So, basic materials (what I use):

Mr. Super Clear or ZM Finishing Spray

soft pastels (not to be confused with oil pastels) (Derwent is nice)

watercolor pencils (Derwent or Winsor & Newton)

acrylic paint (Liquitex)

Pearl Ex powdered pigment (for shiny shiny and can be found in different colors)

Tamiya Color X-22 gloss

91% isoprophyl alcohol or Winsor & Newton brush cleaner (for wiping faceup if you fuck up)

vapor mask (extremely extremely important! don’t just hold your breath or anything like I did the first few months because I have a permanent cough now because of it)

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (I cut it up into 1x2in blocks to erase any minor mistakes I make. If it doesn’t work dry, moisten it a little, wring it out, then try it again!)

a rubber eraser (I cut it to a point with an x-acto knife for more precision)

a kneadable eraser (for picking up and erasing pastels)

various brushes

a large fluffy (unused) makeup brush (for dusting off excess pastels or dust)

optional: white cotton gloves

Now I’m not a pro, I just kinda…do what I do and it works out really well for me. I haven’t had any DD faceups chip or anything so I guess I’m doing something right? If anything, I’m just wasteful with materials, but I have nobody to really compare my material usage with so *shrugs* ahdunno.

SO, what I know about DDs is that when I lay down my base layer for creating tooth, is that it has to be a lot. I’m really paranoid about stains on the face because what if I put a mole there? and it never comes off ever? Basically I once had my pastels actually stain the vinyl. It wasn’t all that heavy. It really surprised me because the black pencil I used didn’t stain, but the pink pastel used did.

This is probably the most important thing to me because when I started doing faceups there wasn’t that much info on spraying or sealing and I had no clue what I was doing for the longest time. Hopefully this will help you out or at least give you some kind of jumping off point.

When the head is washed and dried, I lay out the head without the cap and spray heavily, maybe 9-10 inches away from the head and shake my hand around like a madman so I can get every spot. I spray until the surface just starts to look a little wet, and then I stop because any more and it’s start gathering and you’ll have some kind of drippy-looking mess going on. (Make sure you have your mask on!)

After it’s dry I take it inside and let it dry completely under some tupperware or something so the dust doesn’t get to it. After a few hours I take it back outside and start doing burst-coats. I basically spray little 1-2 second bursts of sealant until the head is evenly coated. I will go back inside and let it dry for like five to ten minutes and do it again. And again. And again. Like five or six of these burst-coats. I see a lot of people in tutorials using only 2-3 coats for a base on BJDs and I have no idea how they do it! For me that’s not nearly enough tooth so I do a lot to ensure all my pastels and pencil stick.

Once I’m finished and the spray’s fumes have dissipated and it’s dry I take it inside carefully and place it on a table or some special area and cover it with a tupperware again. I’ll wait a day for it to completely set with the vinyl.

After all that you can start laying down your pastels and start your layers! Don’t be afraid to use multiple layers as this builds the vibrance of color. Using cotton gloves is important so that your natural hand oils don’t get on the face, as this will cause pastels and pencils to not lay down correctly. Watercolor pencils lay down a lot nicer on vinyl dolls than they do with resin, so go crazy with practicing with pencils!

Um, I guess that’s all. I don’t really have any special tips like the pros, but I think faceups are fun and it’s mostly a learning curve! Don’t be too afraid of messing up as stuff can usually be erased anyway. If you wanna have a practice head that you don’t mind messing up on, here are some 1/3 Obitsu heads you can buy for cheap. Doll Family also has a cheap practice head too if you want to practice on resin (here’s an anime styled head if you want that instead).

Hope this helped. If not, maybe contact @jadepixel because she’s a pro and her faceups are really fantastic! Anyway, good luck with your faceup journey!

#ask #anonymous #faceup #crappy talks

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