Painting Faces ~Sister Kyoya's Customs

Well since I've always got a floating head around here, and many that are finished are ones I did I figured I might as well post them. Mostly this is because I'm currently working on 3 faceups, 2 of them with head mods. I wanted to show off what I'm currently working on so maybe I could have others be excited with me. I love this hobby so very much but sometimes the isolation really gets to me. A party by yourself is not that thrilling, even if you get cake in the end.

 

Current Projects:

 

DDH-04 {Not pictured yet b/c her faceup isn't started} My first DD with pierced ears. So that was kinda different to do. She is my anime/DD remake of my favorite Barbie head sculpt from the late 80s and also Dakota's older sister. It really cracks me up knowing all these years that Dakota is a 'rebel Barbie' while her sister is very much what I think of as classic Barbie. Her story is going to be a lot of fun. I've already had to start stalking up on pink stuff and glitter... and pearlex powder for her eyeshaddow.

 

Kyoya Ootori is posted over in the Smart Doll customs megathread (only because I figured I'd get scolded for putting a Smart Doll sculpt here.)

 

 

And then there is Peter White (heavily modded Sheryl Nome sculpt) from the manga Alice in the Country of Hearts. Raven bought the manga the other day and I just fell in love with Peter. I knew at one point I'd probably have a humanoid DD but I wouldn't have guessed it would be a rabbit. Bigger surprise to me was that I have everything to finish him already around the house and he was only started 3 days ago. He will need to share a body for now, but so do many of our other DD. Custom eyes are going to be needed since I had a royal derp moment and started modding his eyes while tired and before removing Sheryl's faceup. Never, ever, ever do that unless you have a very good reason. Luckally it sill worked out okay for me but his eyes are a bit big. I'm just chalking it up to the fact that he's part animal so it's just part of his weirdness.

 

Still working on his faceup (obviously) but his clothes are going to be a challenge as well. The ears and tail I've got figured out, but his wig will take some time. One thing I'm a tad stumped about is if he's a white rabbit, what color should his eyebrows be?? Light tan or light gray? I really should have doen the paint around his eyes as a shade of brown, but I guess my past gothic tendancies got the better of me before I even thought about it.

 

 

Nicholas [KosMos] is currently shelved because he does have a faceup now, but it really doesn't suit him at all. It lost the younger boy feel that this pic has. I'm thrilled with the blushing but frustrated that the entire faceup needs to be wiped and then I need to see what or if staining needs to be dealt with to redo him. So very, very sad because I love the blushing even if I got excited and kinda overdid it. He started out as SWS and is now a bit darker than NS. I know I should take a pic of his current faceup but I'm just really resisting since it didn't turn out like I had hoped. Don't get me wrong, it's not done badly, it's just the style that's wrong/too heavy. Not to mention that wig is just not right for him (and why it now belongs to Eddie) but it's too big for his tiny head.

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Previous Faceups (in random order):

 

 

Tamayuki [DDH-03] (and Dolly)

 

 

Yuriko [DDH-01]

 

 

Naiomi [DDH-01]

 

 

Lucas [modded DDh-05]

 

 

Ralph [modded DDH-01]

 

 

Darla [DDH-06] (She's the faceup I'm the most proud of. I still look at her and think 'OMG! I can't believe I painted her!!')

 

 

Lorelai [DDH-02]

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Complete Fails:

 

 

'Gothic' Rainie- This was my first lesson in how the depth of the eye holes can make a massive difference.

 

 

'Clown' Rainie- Where I attempted to see if more paint could fix it. It didn't. At least you can see what I was attempting to get her eyes to look like, if you mentally remove the flesh colored paint (that somehow didn't have the same translucency as the vinyl. ) Rainie's current faceup that I adore to pieces was done by Anouc. Sometimes you just gotta know when to ask for help.

 

Hopefully my varried attempts encourage more people to try their own faceups if they have the desire to. I am not a natural born painter in the least. I've just spent some time learning and time praticing, trying to improve as I go.

 

I was thinking the other day that a cheap way to pratice the super fine brush strokes, playing with the paint+thinner consistancy, or just having a chance to work on controlling a paintbrush smoothly is to get the head sealant, brushes, paint, etc. and do the same thing on a ping-pong ball. Normally they come in a pack of 6 for just a few dollars. Sure they are tiny compared to a DD head, and that's the point. Those fine lines are the most difficult part about the faceups (at least for me.) Plus you can play around with the selant and learn how to use that right. Even in the beginning I screwed that up by coating it too thickly at once and Dolly's head was still sticky a year later!

 

Be creative and have FUN!

 

~Sister Kyoya

Kos-mos makes a really good boy, I wouldn't have expected it! Nicholas in that photograph has a resin-doll sort of look to me, almost like an ethereal storybook child.

For Peter White's eyebrows, I think light grey might look good because (from Google-Image searching white rabbits lol) it seems like white rabbits often have greyish fur in areas where the fur is a bit darker? And human eyebrows seem darker than hair, usually; for instance, my hair is dark brown, but my eyebrows are black.

 

I'm interested to see how he progresses!

KosMos is the smallest DD sculpt we own so the size helps on the smaller body. As I found out though you have to be careful of the faceup because it can quickly turn it girly again. As much as I don't want to I think I'll have to take a pic of his faceup, in part to remind myself what not to do when it needs to be redone. Really the thing I did wrong was to choose referance photos that I thought would work instead of just working with the sculpt. I was just really trying to avoid doing a repeat of Tama's faceup. Anime boys have so very few lines to work with compared to the girls so it's difficult in it's own way.

 

The 'resin-esque' quality he has most likely has to do with all the shading/blushing I did. When doing girl facups, a lot of pink shading is used but boys need more orange and tan. Shading under the nose, under the jaw, upper 'eye lid', and even the ears are really important for boys. For some strange reason I totally love shading the ears. It took me a few hours to do just the blushing because the layers need to be built up and the ocasional spray coat. Basically I was trying to do my best to make him look realistic. All the more reason why I'm mad at myself for ignoring my intuition on how to do his faceup. Oh well, I guess it will give me more blushing practice. I completely zone out and the world disappears when I do that. So relaxing.

 

I really think gray would be best for Peter's eyebrows. I did that with Tama because of his gray hair and it looks just fine. I'm a tad worried that the black eyeliner on Peter will look strange with everything else being so light, but if I changed it then I would probibly put him in lighter/pastel colors because of my stupid OCD. So having the dark lines add more to a gothic look, expanding his options drastically and he would fit in better with the curent family. I'm still not used to taking a character from an anime/manga and making them my own. It just seems wrong shomehow, no matter how much I can't resist doing it. No updates on his faceup yet since it's been too hot to do any more.

 

~Sister Kyoya

{For clarification, the following pics are of Nicholas.}

Alright, I finally did it. Looking at his faceup again and I'm really trying to isolate what I think the problem is. Was it the hair? Are his eyes too big?

 

 

This is the position his eyes have been in for a while.

 

 

Then I shifted them so he's looking a bit up, bringing the bottom of the iris up so the eyes don't fill the sockets as much.

 

 

And is the problem just that he doesn't have his glasses on? (Still trying to figure out how to make custom glasses without needing welding tools...) Or is the biggest problem just the faceup itself??

 

 

And here's just a pic showing how much blushing I've done. The headcap is still in the SWS the whole head started with.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Hmm...if you don't mind me chiming in, I'm going to say maybe Nicholas' brows are a tad heavy for a younger boy? They can be higher rather than lower, but the thicker the brows are the longer the face would seem?

 

Generally I find that shorter faces tend to look younger/child-like, and the more you expand the height of the face, the more adult the effect gets. (I think this is why DDh01 looks very young to me.)

 

He did look really young in your earlier photo so it's definitely a matter of adjusting the face-up?

I'd also second that perhaps the brows are too thick for a young boy--I think the noticeable thickness of guys' brows doesn't occur so much in young boys (unless they genetically have a tendency to have very thick brows)

 

I think the color may also be too dark, and that a lighter brown, a little darker than the shades used in the blushing (which is really well done!) would be better. It looks like you did something similar (i.e. lighter brown) for Tamayuki's eyes? The simpler look of Tamayuki's eye makeup also seems to enhance his young, innocent look.

 

I look forward to seeing what you decide to do once the weather becomes reasonable again!

The eyebrows are probably another big problem. (Pun most likely intended.) They are even out of scale for the size of the sculpt. I was just thinking about the level of detail that I normally aim for with my blushing, and how the facup on Nicholas is entirely contrary to that. He's supposed to be a Victorian boy who's a science nerd. Somehow those two thoughts collided and I started to wonder about redoing the blushing but then doing the faceup with watercolor pencils. I did it with Lorelai and my sister did it with her 07 girl (who's faceup is a lot more delicate) and I wonder if it would give him a more antique-ish look. Makes me think of old photos, especially the sepia ones. Using the pencils instead of paint means you have to be super careful with spraying the layers because it can make it bleed if not done right.

 

I'm really proud of how fine I was able to get the lines in the corners of his eyes. But if a faceup is wrong, it's wrong and it will forever plague me. I really appreciate you talking this out with me. It has helped a ton in figuring out what I did wrong and what needs to change for Nicholas to be right. Thank you!

 

~Sister Kyoya

I like how you did the mouth especially, it looks very much like a guy rather than a girlier lip style? The blushing is also good even if it does differ from his headcap somewhat. Looking forward to seeing your Kyoya; always been a fan of the Shadow King!

Thank you! Tama was the first boy I did and it took me 6 months to work up the courage to do him. For a long time I thought about what the differences are between guys and girls and it's helped me ever since. I wasn't worried about Nicholas' headcap since his hair will cover it, but next time I won't blush him so much so he will still match the body he's going to go with.

 

I have been a complete wreck over just trying to figure out the 04's faceup that I'm even more daunted by Kyoya's. I just want him to be perfect but that is also the problem when I'm not a natural born painter. And then after that comes his clothes, but at least that's something I'm much more confidant in. Not looking forward to him requesting alterations for his 'official' outfits because I know I'll be redrafting patterns until the cows come home. My OCD combined with his perfectionest personality... I hope I can survive it.

 

At least I finally have some good news. Spent 2+ hours in Illustrator working on nailing down what I want to do for my 04's faceup. THIS is my reference photo and here is the mockup:

 

 

The length, placement, and spacing on her eyelsahes is wrong but I plan on fixing that when I do the faceup. I've learned the hard way more than once that drawing on a flat image is different than painting a 3D head. Her eyeshadow is not going to be painted, despite what it looks like. I think it might be a bit too exagerated in size as well but I'll figure that out as I go. I'll need to work on her eyes over time so she will eventually have customs, and I think these aren't quite straight with the head pic so they look a bit odd for a few reasons. I still haven't made full resin eyes before, but I figure I gotta start somewhere. Those teeth aren't going to be easy either becaue unlike Illustrator I can't zoom in to make the brush strokes easier to control.

 

If I can get pretty close to this I'll be delighted. Now I just hope that reality, and my skills, will be kind to me.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Well, so far so good... Let's hope this trend continues.

 

 

Her eye shadow is really bold because, well it was the 80s. And the fact that the pearlex powder grabs a lot more to the sealant than it does white index cards. Trust me, it was LOADS more vibrant before (the pink/magenta) trying to remove it the best I could. It actually works really well so far (never used pearlex powders before) but it doesn't have a sealant coat yet so the color might darken. I really should have started with a pale pink. In my defense though, the color DID look a ton paler in the Amazon image. The purple is just the chalk pastels (not Volks) I normally use for faceups.

 

I'm SUPER happy that I finally got her 'teeth' right. (Should have done a slightly better angle on her head so it wasn't looking straight back at the inside seam. Looks less great that way than if her head was tilted down.) The teeth were not as easy to do as it seems because its a really tiny space. In the MDD hand is the DIY liner brush I had to make from gel super glue, a toothpick, and bristles from a cheaper paintbrush. Sure the handle is short but it works really great and I finally have a brush fine enough to do detail work. I don't expect it to last too long, but since it only took about 5 minutes to make (4.5 minutes for the glue to dry...) I'm not worried about the disposable nature.

 

The one thing I'm really frustrated about is my inability to thin the paint without making it watery and needing multiple coats. I'm using the Volks faceup paint sets and yet they are harder for me to use than general cheap craft paint that I used for my earlier faceups. Adding the thinner that comes with them seems to make the paint sticky after it's dry, and since they are acrylic paints they can be thinned with water, so I went with that to avoid the sticky. I just really hate how lumpy/textured it turns out to be. If I thin it more, then it becomes watery and I have to paint multiple coats to get even coverage.

 

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?? This has been a complete hit and miss aspect of the faceups I've done and it's driving me crazy. Is there anything wrong with using the Delta Ceramcoat acrylic paint? I know that the Volks is higher quality and therefor has more pigment in it, but is it worth it if I have more trouble using the paint over the Delta brand? Does it even matter if the head is sealed? To be honest I'm not concerned if either brands of paint stain the sculpts or not since I don't ever intend to change the Kiddos or sell them off after they have been made.

 

Has/does anyone use oil paints on DD heads? Is that just an uber bad idea or does it work? I've never used oil paints so I thought I'd ask if anyone has any knowledge/ideas on the matter. I just really want to figure out how to make the faceups I do smooth so they don't look amateurish because of the texture issue. It just adds so much more stress to doing the faceups than I really need. I was so wound up and panicked about the exacting nature that I need for Bea's faceup that Raven and I had to go on a 2 hour walk before I calmed down enough to accomplish what I have so far. And Kyoya's going to be even worse.

 

I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the gloss coat that I intend to put over her lips will smooth out the lumps.

 

~Sister Kyoya

The eyeshadow came out pretty much exactly like you planned, I think? It looks great for that 80s vibe! I like the way the purple blends into the salmon pink~

 

Also, I generally use the thinner medium intended for the type of paint to thin it out; I've not tried with water but I think thinning with water leads to that uneven texture you're experiencing...? Probably always wise to seal the base if you're trying to avoid staining, but it helps the faceup to stay on as well since it gives the surface some tooth to adhere to...

 

No idea if DD heads can take oil paints - though it's certainly a taboo for resin dolls! - but I imagine using the least "lethal" of the paints (ie. water-based acrylic paint) would be the safest. ^^;; Are the Volks face-up sets acrylic? If you have any hobby shops near you, a small pot of acrylic thinner is pretty cheap and works well. (Retarder medium helps the paint dry slower as well if you require more working time.)

The eyeshadow was pretty easy compared to the rest of the faceup. And even by 80s standards it's pretty tame! I remember a lot of the 80s makeup ads, like this:

 

 

 

 

 

So yeah, by comparison Bea's makeup is pretty subtle.

 

 

Looked at her mouth again this morning and realized that I hadn't photographed it wrong much, I just painted out too much of the white when trying to clean up my lines. This is the same reason why sometimes the eyebrows I paint get a bit out of control. The puny brush will help with that a lot but I mostly made it for Bea's eyelashes. One reason why I wasn't happy this morning about having to redo her mouth (again!) is the color was custom mixed. Trying to remix them never give the same color, but this time it worked in my favor. Now it's a bit of a tad pasty pink, a lipstick color I really remember from the 80s!

 

The jar next to her is the pearlex powder I had to work with. Not subtle at all. LOL! Actually I should probably take a pic of inside the jar because it's VIBRANT! It surely is not muted like the pic makes it seem.

 

And I think I've figured out the gloppy paint issue. I just wasn't thinning it enough. Having the finer brush makes it so it doesn't really screw things up when I have to paint the same area multiple times. *points to her eyebrow comment above*

 

I really didn't think that oil paints would be good on DD heads, but I had never heard about that with resins. Interesting to know! I did buy some thinner but I discovered it was for oil paints and would be bad or 'interesting' to use with acrylics. (My guess is it would congeal the paint, make it separate, or be like oil & water.) Not a big deal since half the reason I bought it was because the bottle looks like it could be used for a DD sized gas can. Now I'm just trying to think about the clear coat to put on her mouth. I'm thinking it would really be best to just put it on her lips and not her teeth to give more definition between the two.

 

Ran across this pic when looking for the makeup... and now I really want to make one like the pink one for Bea. Of course Dakota would want one like the yellow one if the top was a crop top! LOL!

 

 

Trying to muster up the courage to do Bea's eye liner and eyebrows... At least I'm pretty darn mellow today. That helps loads.

 

~Sister Kyoya

She's DONE!

 

 

Urg, this has been one long day, but I couldn't be more proud. She's not perfect but she's just what I wanted. Her eyes will be done eventually but these ones are doable for now. When I was reassembling her and put her hair on I gasped. Truthfully I didn't expect to work. I'm so happy but exhausted so I don't know what else to say.

 

Kyoya is next on my list but I need to work on an Illustrator draft first to hopefully get up the courage. It helped a TON with Bea.

 

~Sister Kyoya

I think she looks fantastic! I like how colorful her faceup is.

 

Slightly unrelated, but I also have to say, I LOVE her earrings!

Thank you so much. After as much as I've stressed out over trying to figure out how to do her right, it makes me happy that other people like her too. Posted a couple of pics HERE.

 

Another reason she excites me is if I can make it, I can have whatever I waned in the 80s but was too young at the time. The 80s was kinda weird in the respect for the 'ideal' age to be since there really was two. It was an AWESOME time to be a kid, where even your favorite characters, Strawberry Shortcake, Barbie, and loads of others were so popular that they had tons of toys, cartoons, and even breakfast cereals! Being a kid in the 80s is something I never regret (it was just the 90s I hated! Grunge & everything being dirty, gray, & depressing after the vibrant 80s made me feel cheated.) But at the same time there was loads of equally cool things for the teen/young adult age in the 80s that I loved seeing but it all disappeared by the time it would have been age appropriate. With Bea, now I can 'have it all' in a way that would make sense. My sister and I have even talked about making DD scale colored toilet paper. I remember the ads with pink, green, blue, & yellow rolls of TP and Sis & I always said we would buy those when we grew up, not having a clue that they would be extinct. (We didn't grow up with a lot. Rarely could we afford bandaids and used TP & scotch tape instead, paaper towels were only used for company, and I ate more bologna & mayo on cheap white bread than I'd really like to admit to.) So for my sis & I, it's reliving a lot of super happy memories but making them better because we are only limited by our abilities. I really wish I could share some of what we've figured out so far but I don't want to spoil at least one photo story we are working on making props for.

 

OMG! You can't have an 80s outfit without the earrings! She's actually the first DD I've had with pierced ears. I wish the little stars showed off better but the sets I painted with nail polish weren't dry enough to use. THIS is the shape of the stars but much smaller & came in a pack of about 20. I just put it on a pair of studs I had sitting around after drilling holes in her head. By 80s standards, these are way too understated and small. Even by Superstar Barbie standards...

 

~Sister Kyoya

Being a 90s kid myself, I have a soft spot for the grunge, the pop music, and of course, everything for kids being EXTREME(with a sick guitar riff) but I'm also that weird young 20-something with a thing for 80s pop culture too for some reason. So I am totally into the style you're rolling with for Bea. That's really nice that you can be nostalgic and relive a really cool time with her and your sister!