#tutorial step 8

Materials: Fine grit sand paper, chalk pastels, rubber/cloth gloves, matte sealant, q-tips, soft-bristled paint brush.

Every artist I have seen has a different method of blushing their dolls. Someday, I hope to invest in an airbrush to do mine. But Airbrushes are pricey and I am poor. Ergo, I stick with the pastel method.

Now, when we last left off, Emily’s head was still detached from her body, although she was a lovely flesh color as opposed to green. It’s now time for us to put Emily’s head back on her body. You’ll remember back in step one, when we removed her head, the neck pin’s wings got bent upwards.

The first thing to do is take the pin between your thumb and index fingers and gently press them back down, so that both wings are angled downwards.

Once that is done, slowly and carefully push your doll head back onto the pin. You’ll probably want to squeeze the head and twist it back and forth to ease the pin wings back over the plastic flap inside the head.

Now that her head is back on her body, you’ll want to seal her with a matte finish. I GREATLY prefer Mr. Super Clear, (aka MSC) as it goes on very easily, dries almost instantly, and has great toothing- which is important to hold the color as you redo your doll.

Take her outside and spray 3 or 4 coats of MSC on both the front and back of the doll. One coat will not give you enough toothing. Pay special attention to her face, as that is where the most of your face-up will take place.

Once you’re done, she shouldn’t be shiny anymore, and instead should have a nice matte appearance and an almost paper-like texture to the touch. Your next step is picking out the color palette you’d like to use to blush your doll.

Remember: blushing your doll is NOT doing the face up. This is just base shading to give them a more natural appearance. Although you can begin adding the eyeshadow and lip color at this stage if you so choose.

Now, according to unrepentantly-weird, as this is their character, Emily doesn’t wear much make-up at all, so I chose a very neutral color palette for my blush choices.

I use the sand paper to file the square edges down to some form of paint- which to me makes it easier to apply the colors to the small areas of the doll. I tend to go with two mid-toned colors for major areas, a dark tone and a pink tone. Again, this varies from artist to artist, but I prefer putting the calk pastels directly onto the doll, and then wiping away any excess powder carefully with a soft paint brush. For any remaining harsh lines, I rub them out with a Q-tip.

Note: I want to apologize for this section of the tutorial. The blushing did not photograph well, so please stay tuned and I will create a ‘Points To Blush’ separate post for you all following along.

I use the two mid tones on the following areas: The cheeks, collar bones, around the belly button, under her breasts, the elbows, wrists, back of hands and finger pads, thighs, knees, ankles, shoulder blades, small of back, and under the butt.

The dark of the four tones gets put lightly over the eyelids and you can fade it into the joint ares as well if you want them a little darker.

The pink I put lightly on the cheek bones if you want a light blush, the finger tips, the tip of the nose and the knees. Additionally, if you want to start there, you can put it on the lips for a natural color. 

Please be very careful when working with the chalk. It will get all over your fingers and you don’t want to transfer smudges onto your doll. Seal frequently to prevent this, and keep a damp rag on hand to keep wiping your fingers on to keep them clean between colors.

Again, I will make an additional post showing this since my camera did not pick it up. This was the best shot I could get of the blushing final.

Once you’re happy with the blush, take your doll outside and seal her AGAIN with the MSC. This will keep the chalk from smearing or rubbing off.

You have now blushed your doll. Stay tuned for Step 9: Face-Up

All of my tutorial steps can be found on my blog under #monster high tutorial. As always for questions, comments and concerns, feel free to shoot me a message!