Hello hello! So I am back briefly to share some recent work. More recently I've been focusing on life in general and other personal projects than my dolls. However I did decide to try my hand with custom face paint on an American Girl doll.
Other "face-up" repaint doll artists' work I stumbled upon has inspired me to give it a go. For my project I selected a classic face mold doll, Isabelle, because I have way way too many of those floating around, Ruthie's grey eyes, and Julie's wig. I then used acrylic paints, which I have mixed feelings about using.
The other Face-up artist seem to use chalk pastels and air brushing techniques. This posed as a problem for me seeing how I do not have airbrush tools and with chalk pastels you need to fixate/seal the pastel dust with a a matte, spray on fixative for example. The issue for me would be protecting the eyes from a spray since I wanted the eyes in the head BEFORE doing the paint job.
So acrylic paint was the choice this time and I chose to leave the original lip and eyebrow paint in place. My issue is that you can see the brush strokes rather than having a smooth finish. In and of itself it is very interesting to look at but the style of that on the doll's face doesn't seem quite right. It was also difficult finding the right balance of water to paint ratio when mixing colors because acrylic dries quickly and is difficult to remove.
- Too much water cause the paint on the dolls face to separate and pool (like speckles).
- Too little water left the paint thick so it looked flat and unreal on the doll's face.
All in all, I am pleased but feel that my doll could use some touch up work done; however, I need to decide how to best go about it.
If you'd like to learn more about Face-up artist who really know what they are doing, I recommend checking out the Nicolle's Dreams youtube videos.
