3rd face-up, disaster nr 3?

Paint is definitely the hardest part of faceups, but don't give up! I went and looked at your earlier attempts and you're definitely making progress!

If you're still not getting precise enough strokes for your liking, you may consider experimenting with other brushes. I've used tons in all different shapes and size and have consistently found longer bristled brushes are better for lines because they help stabilize things--the extra length of the bristles not only holds more paint so you don't have to refill your brush as often, but they absorb the shakiness of our hands so your lines are smoother and more tapered. I use a set of Winstonia Berry Wine nail art brushes for all my faceups now. I absolutely love them and they're the best lash/brow brushes I've found, out of the dozens I've tried. \

I personally never had luck using watercolor pencils with brushes to lift color from them, because I could not control how much pigment I get. When I switched to using gouache paint, that was what did the trick for me - I use water mixed with flow aid to help slow down the drying time and prevent the paint from beading up on the surface. Watercolors and watercolor pencil can work, but I've found them less reliable. Since gouache reactivates with water, too, I don't have to worry about wasting it. Whatever dries in my palette can be reused for another doll later. ^^

Hang in there. You'll get it!

 

I don't know if I'm going to reassure you or not, but it took years for me to click and really enjoy doing makeup. Before this click, it was painful for me to do them and I was never satisfied with the result. One day, I don't know why, I tried another way of doing it and it was really night and day compared to what I was doing before. (It was 6 years after my first faceup)
In other hand, some people are faster and learn more quickly. I remember a girl on an other forum that did fantastic faceups after her 5th only.
What is sure is that in drawing and painting, progress is made by leaps. You don't make any headway for a while, and then poof! You make a definite progress. And then you don't make any headway again and so on. So don't despair! If you keep making faceups, you will make progress for sure!

If you want to train at painting lashes and brows, you don't even need to do it on a doll. You can begin with trying to paint thin lines on a paper. The medium is not the same but the gesture is.

 

Keep trying, if you enjoy it! For me, the process itself is soothing, although I haven't yet tried a faceup on a really expensive doll.

 

Just wanted to chime in and say that even seasoned artists have periods where it feels like their skills just arent On. Even peoples styles you see and think are super good will have times where things dont turn out well or like they wanted, and thats all part of creating.

I think this is great work, and really shows a big improvement in terms of line stability and understanding of shading! The planes of the face are NOT easy to understand, it takes time!

Making mistakes and trying stuff out is also part of the process, to find out How you like to do things. I second looking at fine line brushes, but i also find that very sharp watercolour pencil crayons can help for fine lines. Sometimes I also apply fine details with paint on a toothpick. If theres a shape for eyeshadow im really married to i'll make a stencil out of washi tape and use it on the eyes too!

There's lots of tools to play with.

 

Practice makes perfect, even though I know it's frustrating. I think it already looks quite good

I've never used watercolor pencils for color, just acrylic, but what was helpful for me to realize is that it takes a light touch to get the thin strokes, and as someone mentioned, a brush with longer hairs could be easier to work with. In addition, building it up from lightest (most watered) to dark strokes as well, letting the paint dry in the middle

 

Oh, I remember this frustration. Think I might have whiped my first 5 or 6 times before I was happy. For getting saturated lids and lips I've found I need to build colour up gradually sealing between multiple layers of sealant and to make sure to get the sealant down into the crevices or I'd brush it off in the next layer. I've used very sharp watercolour pencil crayons to directly draw in the lashes but they can end up a bit too faint and don't taper. I'm working on switching to painting lashes myself and found that paint designed for painting mini figures/Warhammer-such as Vallejo, etc-are helpful. They are acrylic but can be thinned down a lot while still being highly pigmented and seem to stick better without beading. You could also practice your lines on a coated headcap, same material and set up with more room to experiment!