#naturalfaceup

I repainted my wife’s Soom LittleGem Special Order Golden Light Shale unicorn Centaur with open eyes. Her old Faceup was from a long long time ago, like 12 years, so it was high time for a redo (it was in good condition, but faded and I’ve learned a lot since painting her last).

Here’s a few pics of her in my hand taken with my phone. I’m glad I got to paint her horn this time too, it really needed a silver accent!

Of course I needed to make a comparison of the two faceups. The before is from when I’d just finished the Faceup back in like 2014. I’m especially hobby with how much more natural he freckles look now! I also chose to give her black eyelashes instead of grey as they look nicer and work better with her medium grey hair.

I’ll end the post with some quick owner snapshots from her in the doll cabinet! The ring around her horn is the engagement ring I’d gotten for my wife. Her wedding ring naturally is on her finger, but neither of us wear our engagement rings (mine is too small now, and hers has an Opal for a stone and she doesn’t want to lose or damage it).

So this doll has become an expensive and fancy ring holder hah. I do need to restring the doll, she’s super floppy, but I dread it as she’s a centaur and they can be complex to restring…

This old gal, a Planetdoll Mini Riz, was a little challenge to paint, as she's a small mature 1/6 scale. The client asked for all over freckles and to match her to her grey wig.

Here's a pic of her with her wig on, and some random eyes I had laying around. Both the client and I are happy with how she turned out!

Here we got a Volks Dollfie Dream 06 head in flesh skin that I even handmade eyes for! I'll be listing her for sale soon with the eyes.

I'm also really proud of the eyes, I made the bases out of epoxy putty, and hand painted the irises with acrylics and coated the whole thing with gloss. I don't have any resin at home, so I improvised.

This little fella is a 3D Printed AelithArt Kabbit Human Sharky in a pale skin tone. He is a fun little character that I was happy to bring to "life" for the client. Freckles are always a great addition to any faceup. I sadly didn't have any big enough eyes for him (the ones in the picture are 20mm and still gapped!) so he may look a little crazier than intended haha.

Here we have a real blast from the past, a Hujoo Girl in apricot skin! I remember these dolls from when I got into the hobby back in 2011, they were a real staple as a budget friendly BJD company. She's not made of resin, but ABS plastic instead. It's a pity they are no longer around, the dolls were really cute!

The client did warn me that she was a little scratched up around the lips from a past faceup removal, which did become apparent when I was blushing her. But overall I think she turned out lovely.

I got to redo another older doll, an original release Soom MD Golden Light Children Shale romantic with unicorn horn from 2011 in cream white skin. The last time I painted him was in 2015.

It's really amazing to me how much I've grown as a faceup artist in the last 10 years. My blushing is more varied with colors, and my linework is much stronger.

I also acquired a light box for faceup photos, before that I laid them on a satin white cloth (which I still use) under a daylight bulb desk lamp.

The big reason he got a new faceup was because he got new eyes from Ashuradark (such pretty eyes...) and when my wife put them in, his old faceup, which was already faded after over 9 years, paled out even more. So my wife asked me to paint him again, and this time she also let me paint his horn with gold.

I got to paint another Smart Doll Chaos head in cocoa, to match the previous V01. head I painted a while back. I had to cut off the pour spout and cut open the eyes, so that was an interesting task. I didn't do badly though with that!