There is something about the promise of spring that makes me want to do things. Here’s what I’ve been up to lately 🙂
Airbrushing.. Oh lord, what a headache. I’m still struggling so hard with the varnishes, and I have no idea what I’m doing wrong. I’ve had a chat with a couple of airbrush users and I did get some tips, but I’m still having issues.
With Vallejo matt varnish, I’m not getting any tooth at all, which makes me believe that it’s not actually coating the doll at all, or very little. It also flaked off down to the “skin” of the doll when I tried to erase a mistake.
I’m having more success with the Liquitex method, but the surface looks almost fuzzy, and I’m having a hard time erasing mistakes or removing excess pastels. Liquitex is still the one that works best for me, because at least it gives me some tooth. I wish Vallejo worked for me as it doesn’t need to be thinned, so I feel there is less chance of errors. I will keep trying though 🙂
I dont think I ever posted a pic of this girl:
I really like her, I’m not good at drawing eyeshapes so for this one I tried replicating a shape Andreja did on one of her dolls, an I love the result 🙂 She may be my favorite MH doll 😀
And as I’m testing varnishes, I decided to go a little wild with the faceups too! I’ve always loved soft brown and pink tones in my faceups, because I’ve always had so many issues working with crazy colors, but I figured I didn’t have too much to lose right now. I had wiped my Frankie doll’s faceup a while ago, and I tried giving her a new face, this is a WIP picture:
This was so much fun to do, even if there are so many errors 🙂 I swear her eyes looked so symmetrical when I sealed them the first time, but as I kept working on her I saw that they were in fact not symmetrical at ALL! I’m also working on a Rochelle, and I have the same issue with her. I don’t mind too much right now, since I’m just having some fun and testing things out. More photos to follow I hope, unless something goes terribly wrong and I have to remove everything XD
I was also lucky enough to go treasure hunting in my aunts attic. She had some boxes that belongs to me there, and I found all my old my little ponies. They were in worse shape than I remembered, but it felt amazing to see them all again. I brought home one small pony that I cleaned, I think her name is heart throb, and I remember I loved her so much (and it shows). All my ponies were played with, so none of them are perfect. I even found my old Megan, but she is missing a shoe :/
These are not all of them, I have 3 brothers and 3 sister ponies as well, and you can kind of see Megan in the background there. I also have 3 very tiny baby ponies 🙂
I could only find tail rust on one of them, which I believe is baby cotton candy. You can see little heart throb to the right of the bride pony, you can see her hair is standing straight up!
Her hair got a nice treatment and looks way better now 🙂 The does have a scratch on her cheek blushing, as well as some spots here and there. My favorite pony was Firefly, and this girl reminded me of her for some reason, so she has been played with so much.
I want to get more of the ponies back home so I can try and remove any spots and stuff, and I should probably help the one with tail rust too! I think it may be a good idea to open up my sea pony, because she has been in water there might be mold inside. I’m really scared of opening up the ponies, a part of me wants to inspect every pony to look for mold, but I’m not sure if it is a good idea.
Anyway, that is what I’ve been up to ^^ I hope everyone had a magical easter/holiday, I hope to have more faceups to show you soon!
Some more photos of my little cat:
Category: Face-up
Compressor, airbrushing, and staying safe!
My compressor arrived, and I have been messing up stuff since day one!
I thought I was prepared, I really did. But here is a short story on how my first day went:
I got out my old trusted mask respirator.
I started mixing my varnish with water. I think the first batch was too wet, way too much water. The other batch was too thick, and my airbrush clogged. I cleaned it between every spray session.
I kept my mask on, and about 15-20 minutes in, I got an instant insane headache.
This is when I started to suspect that my respirator wasn’t functioning properly, so I started to do some research.
Respirator filters have a life span of maximum 6 months, after being taken out of the sealed bag they come in. I got my mask as a gift years ago, with the filters already installed, so I have no idea how long they had been installed before I got them. I was pretty much starving myself of oxygen, while trying to stay safe.
I couldn’t find a local shop that sells the filters, so I had to get a new mask that don’t have replaceable filters, you basically throw it in the trash after about 6 months. But I wanted to spray during the weekend, and even though this stuff is all non toxic, it is not recommended you breathe it in. The same goes for acrylic paint, the small particles in the air can get in your lunges, and that is NOT good.
I tested my new mask today, and my first thought was “oh my god I can breathe normally!”. I could feel a significant difference, it did not feel nearly as stuffy as the old one. I feel a little bit like an idiot, I should have done some research on this as well, not just on the airbrush itself.
Ok, so here are my expirences with trying to use Liquitex matte medium.
I cannot for the life of me get it to the right consistency. I also cannot figure out how thick/thin my layers should be.
I thought I had it going pretty good, when I went to remove a speck of dust from the resin face I was working on, as I have done many times in the past with MCS, and I got a HOLE in the medium. From this hole, I could tear her entire face off, much like if you’ve ever had a sun burn and you can peel the skin off.
So I decided to remove it from the MH head and the resin head. I grabbed my acetone-free nail polish remover. The MH head got insanely sticky, and the resin head got a little bit sticky. The resin head worked out in the end, but I continued to spray on the MH head and now she looks glossy (new batch of medium, could be that I sprayed it on too thick)
I have SO much to learn, and I’m not a fast learner when it comes to this sort of thing.
I even practiced some aiming with some acrylics on a piece of paper, and my aim is currently a little off, so I’ll need to work more on that too.
I decided to go ahead and order a new varnish, the one that Xhanthi uses in her videoes on youtube, Vallejo matte. She doesn’t dilute it, so hopefully that makes things just a little easier for me. It also gives me an idea of how thin things have to be to go through the airbrush, so maybe I can learn to use the liquitex later 🙂
I think I might also buy some airbrush-ready acrylics, because this just isn’t something I enjoy trying to learn to be honest. I just want to aim my brush and paint away!
I’ll continue practicing over the weekend anyway, it cant hurt (at least not after getting proper protective gear!).
I highly recommend watching Xhanthis video on the subject, her voice is so soothing to listen to and she covers a great deal of things that gave me a boost of confidence about all of this. She also states that her first layer is usually really thick, and that she leaves it to cure for 24 hours. That makes me more confident because it means that I wont mess up if my layers are a little thick. It’s only the first layer that is so thick though, to protect the resin. I may try 3-4 lighter layers like I’ve done with MSC.
Wish me luck!
Say hello to this cutie
Easter is giving me a chance to do some faceup practice 🙂
I went from liking this face, to hating it, and now I sort of like it again:
The rooted head gives her the biggest forehead in the history of foreheads, but other than that I think I sort of like her 🙂 I tried not going for my default blue eye color, and turns out brown was a hard color to achieve 😛
Anyway, she just brightened up my day and I wanted to share 🙂
In bigger news, I ordered a compressor today! Because of easter it will take a while to get it, but it is ordered and I couldn’t be happier! I’ll soon be able to start practicing airbrushing!
Celine and some ponies!
I’ve given Celine 3 faceups in total, and I just cant get it right. I’m weird this way, if I cant get a faceup that I like on a doll, I get frustrated and cant really bond with her as a result. The only doll that wasn’t this way is Kira, my Lusis 😛 I’d bond with her all over again even if she had a sharpie faceup, lol ^^
I’m a little unsure of what to do. I’d trade the Celine head if she didn’t have the white spots from my modding (which I still find extremely odd). But even if she was perfect and I was able to trade her, I have no idea what head I’d like instead. I love the Nanuri 14 head, but those go for like $300 for just the head. I’m also loving the new Liria sculpt that isn’t available any more, but I’m not sure she is for me. I’m guessing she wont come cheap either.
In any case, I’m keeping Celine for now. I think. I really like having 3 MSD at home 🙂
Here is a bad pic of the latest faceup:
She always ends up so cold, no matter how much warmth I try to add to her colors. I dont understand why I just cannot get her to work. I’ll try to take a pic with eyes later so you can see it better, I ended the faceup where I did because I thought it looked good, but no eyes or wigs work for her. Poor dear!
Edit: I just snapped a quick picture to show what I mean, there’s something off about her:
I’m also having some fun with ponies. I have perhaps bitten off more than I can chew! One small pony and one large, the small one will only get a new face, while the large pony I’m hoping to re-root as well! I just need to find the funds to order some hair 🙂
Creepy, right? XD I simply put her head in hot water for a few seconds and pulled her head straight off. Removing the tail was easy, but the rest of her mane was a little worse, but not as bad as a monster high doll.
This is the tiny pony, I used the same process of hot water and pulling to get her head off. Removing her tail would be a little worse than the large pony, as the has a plug in her neck, it’s attached to her body. I’m guessing there’s glue there, so you’d have to soften the glue and prod with something to get it completely off, and gluing it back again once you’re done.
Both ponies are Fluttershy, my very favorite pony 🙂 I also want to buy a small Rainbow Dash pony to customize, her blue color is gorgeous 🙂
Poor Celine
Okay.. I made a horrible mistake…
I decided I wanted to modify her lower lip, because I find it a bit too full. I got my 1200 grit sandpaper, and started to slowly shape her lip. Everything was going great, it was looking better by the second. Somewhere around when I was happy with the shape, I stopped, and noticed a white-ish mark. Somehow there was a slight difference in color where I’d been sanding.
I have NO idea why this happened. I’ve modded eyes and lips in the past, and I’ve never experienced anything like this. I ended up trying to sand it away, taking a bit too much off the one side of her mouth, so I had to take off some on the other side. And behold, the difference in color appeared on the other side too.
I tried frantically to sand a little around the area as well, to see if I could even out the spots, but it didn’t work.
I also noticed later that I should have evened out the lip a bit, I think I took some off at a spot by accident.
I decided to try and cover it up with a faceup, but that wasn’t really happening. The two spots are so small.. I’ve since ordered some new sandpaper, the kind with a sponge backing (or foam if you please) but having NO patience I went ahead with the faceup.
Now, I had to try twice to get a faceup I was happy with. And I was happy. Until I tried wigs and eyes on her. The faceup is not working. I think my mistake was making the colors too cold, almost black. It looks so unnatural.
She’s staying like this at least until my sandpaper arrives, and I’ll see if I want to try and mod her a little more, or if I’ll try adding some warmth to her face instead.
Dramatic story, I know, here is proof of my failed faceup and mod:
She’s still a pretty girl, and my phone’s camera cant capture the white spots from the sanding.
She needs a warmer wig though, I’m running low on MNF sized wigs 😛
Obitsu hybrid faceup
This was challenging.. So incredibly difficult!
I think this is my 6th try, I’m not 100% happy but I felt like I had to stop before I went insane 😛 As always I learn so much when I try and fail, but wow. Getting the eyes placed right, getting them kind of symmetrical, making a tiny mouth. So much fail potential 😛
I used watercolor pencils and pastels, and as I’ve mentioned before I have some issues with shaky hands, so I struggled greatly through the whole thing 😛
I think she’ll look decent with a proper fitting wig, and with some nice little clothes 🙂
First faceup was a fail
I pretty much knew it would be, but it’s fine, she’ll be easy to clean 🙂
Since it is my first time working on an obitsu, and since she doesn’t have any features, I knew that placing the eyes would be a mighty challenge. I ended up placing the eyes too far up on her face unfortunately. I did a quick thing in photoshop just to see if she’d look better with her eyes further down (just to make sure it wasn’t that I am completely incompetent, lol ^^) and that works much better.
Here are the pics:
I also had a surprise with the paint I was using for the highlights, so that messed up quite a bit. I did learn a lot through this little process, and it was a lot of fun, so I’m not too bummed out by the fact that I’ll have to do it again. I do wish I had managed to get her eyes a lighter blue, so I’ll try and go for that next time. It would have helped to start off making the entire eye white first, because the pastels I used were really light but her skin color made it look so much darker.
All in all I’m happy with my first try, and I’m confident it’ll be even better next time 😉
Slightly better photos :)
Edit:
Played with the photos in an app, liked them so here they are:
Faceup debacle
Despite the crippling heath, I was determined to give Lexi a new faceup. Having a blank doll around isn’t much fun after all.
Attempt #1 was going SO well, I tried a couple of new things with colours and it was looking good, until my hand did a little dance while I was painting on her eyeliner. It went up to her lid crease and it looked clown-ish. I tried to remove it but the paint was stubborn, and no matter what I did the paint was pretty much on there. I ended up removing it, leaving her to dry until the next day.
I hadn’t been paying attention apparently, because she had a few stubborn MSC spots that I had to remove, so I needed to wash and dry her yet again.
Over the last couple of days, I was working on attempt #2. Laying down the bases, being extra careful with her eyeliner, things were going good. But I noticed, ad the faceup was nearing completion, that she looked pretty much the same as her first faceup. I was a little bummed, because the reason I didn’t like the first faceup was that it didn’t go well with the eyes and wig colours I wanted for her. I also think the colours I had chosen didn’t work well together, it wasn’t extremely obvious, just that something looked off somehow.
This is why I need to start learning about colours again. What colours work together, what to add if I have a tint of a colour I don’t like and so on.
Anyway, I decided to finish before messing her up even more (I did almost mess up because a little hair got stuck in the gloss on her lips, and I didn’t see it quickly enough so I almost took off a spot of colour with the hair!)
And.. The faceup is similar to her first, but somehow it works now! There are some subtle differences that work so nicely!
I haven’t taken a proper photo yet, but I just can’t wait to show her off, so here is a badly edited phone photo:
The photo is very purple, lol, so I hope to get some proper photos later today.
I am SO happy with her now, dressing her and playing with her will be a lot more fun now 🙂
The gorgeous Lexi, and thoughts about Blythe
I’m going to give Lexi a new faceup!
She was already really pretty, but her lashes was too dark and her eyebrows too red, I really want to have her in blue/purple eyes and white wigs, and it just didn’t work.
Since I was already going to remove a faceup, I made a tutorial in norwegian. I have tried without luck to get hold of Winsor & Newton brush cleaner, so I’ve had to find my own materials readily available here. The tutorial can be found in the menu under “Information and tutorials”. The pics are not the best, but at least you can see what I’m doing 🙂
It wasn’t easy removing all the paint and gloss inside her mouth, but I’m very happy with my results 🙂
The temperature is extremely high right now, and it’s humid, so I wont be starting her new face just yet. Instead I’ll be gathering photos for inspiration, trying to find the colours I want for her as well as what shape eyebrows I want. Of course, the results may be extremely different than what I had in mind 😛
I’m finally considering joining a Blythe forum. I wont be able to actually afford one for a while, as I have some photography projects I need funds for first, but I really want to learn more anyway before actually buying one. I’m scared and excited, because I still find them extremely creepy, lol ^^ No offense to Blythe lovers!
I hope everyone had/is still having a wonderful summer!