1/6 Repaint Practice!

[Nko]

My first attempt to make a complete face up... As I'm getting some dolls that cannot wear acrylic eyes I wanted to train a bit in repainting. This is a really cheap chinese doll that came with a furniture piece my mother neeeded for her pictures, I kept her to make some repaint attempts.
I don't like her expression at all (reminds me of Buzz Lightyear XD) But I'm quite satisfied for beeing a first attempt. I think I'll modify it some more before sealing it adding some blush, correcting the eyebrows and mouth (that I made too quickly). I'd also like to give the eyelids a more 3d effect as I saw in some great face ups bit that's really hard! >-<
Feel free to give me advices and constructive critiques! ^^

I noticed ordinary acrilyc paint, even if diluted in water doesn't stay flat once applied but keep the brushstrokes shape.. how can you make it more liquid without loosing the opaque covering effect?

[magkelly]

Barbie mouths are hard, IMHO. I've got 4 of them that I'm trying to do and I'm still having basically the same problem myself. I've got the paint as thin as it can get and it still shows brush strokes. It's a question of more than one coat and patience I'm told but I have yet to be able to paint a perfect Barbie mouth. She's a lot harder than the 16" girls I think.

[Evelien]

She looks really good, especially for a first try, I don't think I could do it that well..!

The 'before' faceup also looks really sweet for such a cheap doll btw

[Nko]

@magkelly Yes the opened mouths are a bit more difficult and personally I like the closed mouths best...
Obviously making face up on bigger heads is easier, I think repainting my Monster High is going to be a bit easier! They told me some modellism colors don't keep the brush marks, I bought one and I'll tell you is that's true or not.

@Evelien Thanks, I'm going to train more. Yes the original face up looked sweet, I thought that too but I couldn't stand her punch-in-an-eye make up!

I'm going to get a clear obitsu head, let's see what I can do on that! XD

[magkelly]

I was working on 3 Barbie dolls that had messed up smiles all this week. I finally got them all looking decent but I think I must have spent 6 hours all total getting there and I'm still not 100% happy with the Raquelle's smile. But it's far better than what I found her with so she's got no complaints. She's gone from having her lips and teeth completely purple and glittered to having nice red lips and white teeth. Definite improvement. She must have been some kind of factory defect doll. She was lip painted and over glittered like the person was on crack or something. She's got great coloring though otherwise, raven hair and blue eyes. I don't have any other FF Raquelle Barbies so I had to make the attempt.

I've still got a couple of nice FF girls that need their lips redone and their hair partially rooted. I'm determined to get them back to looking good and eventually on articulated bodies. I'm very fond of that series of dolls and any interesting one that I get usually gets the full treatment. I guess I'll get better at the Barbie repaint thing as I go on. I must admit though I find my big girls a lot easier to mess with that way. Small dolls are a lot harder. I've got a bunch of little Kelly dolls to do eventually. I'm kind of dreading those. As small as they are they must be a totally biatch to paint...

[anthrogirl14]

I usually use windex to thin my paint since it dries faster then water, also you can use chalk pastels to get a nice eye shadow (use PearlEx if you want to ad shimmer) also for the lips maybe a smaller brush would make it easier to paint them, I use a 0/20 and a 0/30 size paint brush.

[landwhale]

Looking good!

For thin paint, it really depends on the paint as well as a good extender. I don't use just water to thin paints because water does not like to stick to resin/vinyl. Use an acrylic thinner/extender instead. I recommend plaid extender. Cheap but great.

[Nko]

I was working on 3 Barbie dolls that had messed up smiles all this week. I finally got them all looking decent but I think I must have spent 6 hours all total getting there and I'm still not 100% happy with the Raquelle's smile. But it's far better than what I found her with so she's got no complaints. She's gone from having her lips and teeth completely purple and glittered to having nice red lips and white teeth. Definite improvement. She must have been some kind of factory defect doll. She was lip painted and over glittered like the person was on crack or something. She's got great coloring though otherwise, raven hair and blue eyes. I don't have any other FF Raquelle Barbies so I had to make the attempt.
I've still got a couple of nice FF girls that need their lips redone and their hair partially rooted. I'm determined to get them back to looking good and eventually on articulated bodies. I'm very fond of that series of dolls and any interesting one that I get usually gets the full treatment. I guess I'll get better at the Barbie repaint thing as I go on. I must admit though I find my big girls a lot easier to mess with that way. Small dolls are a lot harder. I've got a bunch of little Kelly dolls to do eventually. I'm kind of dreading those. As small as they are they must be a totally biatch to paint...

I thought to put the heads of my favourite Barbies on an articulated bodies too but I don't find the courage so for now they only get unstained, a shampoo and a perm! XD Could you link me pictures of your repaints? I'm curious to see them! Yes I heard glitters can be a pain to remove, and I see that for some nail polishes too! >.<
Omg good luck for the Kellys I hope you'll manage to paint them too!

I usually use windex to thin my paint since it dries faster then water, also you can use chalk pastels to get a nice eye shadow (use PearlEx if you want to ad shimmer) also for the lips maybe a smaller brush would make it easier to paint them, I use a 0/20 and a 0/30 size paint brush.

Yes the chalk powder blush is totally missing in this face up, I think I'll add it! I'm not very familiar with not eye opening heads face up...do you usually add the powder blush and eye shadow before or after you painted the eye color with acrylic?
I searched windex on google and a cleaner spray appeared to me, do you use that?

Looking good!

For thin paint, it really depends on the paint as well as a good extender. I don't use just water to thin paints because water does not like to stick to resin/vinyl. Use an acrylic thinner/extender instead. I recommend plaid extender. Cheap but great.

Yes I noticed too if I add to much water the color shrinks and doesn't stay in place.. Thank you very much, I knew extenders for oil colors but I never thought to search some for acrylic ones, I have to look for one! Does it have some effects on the color opacity?


Now I'll ask you some opinions! I just received the obitsu clear on which I'd like to make a face up (so everything I learned about making the color more natural and skin-like is going to be unuseful ^^) The head is still silver but they told me after I'll remove the color (I want to do that as in silver it doesn't match the body) it will look like this:


Wall di &gt;^..^&lt; maggz &gt;^..^&lt;, su Flickr

and the hairstyle and face up I'll make her will be similar to this: (not the same, I hope I can make her better eyes and expression XD) http://img.inkfrog.com/click_enlarge1.p ... =560304101
Do you think it could came out well if I do all the face up in shades of silver? Or I should add some touch of color (maybe in the eyes iris or lips)?
If you have any suggestions let me know! ^^

[Gift_in_Edge]

I think a shade of blue would be a nice secondary color.