Supplies Acrylic Thinner

Water. . . .

 

Seda, it's not a good idea to use water with acrylics.
Maybe try Liquitex Flow-aide? That's acrylic thinner for the paints. If you are looking for Japanese brands I am so sorry I can't help!

 

You can use water to thin acrylics, but you do get a much better smoother flow with a Flow Aide, Flow Medium or Acrylic Thinner, as the stuff is known.
I'd say go with Liquitex, as it's a brand I trust, but most craft acrylic flow-aides should work.

 

Tamiya has an acrylic thinner. They sell it in tiny containers and big bottles, and tamiya should be available at Gunpla stores in Japan.

 

Turynn,

Mr.color thinner is for lacquer based paints. Not acrylics. It is very toxic which is why it smells so bad. Acrylic thinner has no smell to it. If you are using liquitex paints, you can get your hands on liquitex flo-aid.

 

It feels so strange to bump a thread this old
But it's on the topic so before I create a dupe, let's try here!

From your experience, is it actually fine to use a thinner with any paint used on a resin doll? I'm just thinking that thinners can be used to wipe the face up off, so won't they damage the sealant and perhaps even the resin underneath?

I've seen a really good faceup video lately (by 6Anli), not that new, but I'm just late to the party hahah, and the artist doesn't say what kind of paints they use. It's stone form though so I'm thinking watercolors rather than acrylics.

Anyhow, any advice would be much appreciated!

 

I have been using Liquitex acrylic paints, flow aids and other mediums for all my face ups and repaints and I have never had any issues with their thinner eating away at the fixative nor resin (other plastics). I have never worked with any other paint brand, not just on dolls/toys but on canvas as well. So, I don't know about other paint thinners, but Liquitex's won't damage the fixative. I have been using Liquitex for painting on toys for over twenty years now, and you should use water with it according to their ratios.

There are no terrible fumes either, in case that is something that worries anyone. Hope that helps. (:

 

Thank you! I've been using Tamiya, which is alcohol based:/ although it never stained through the sealant nor did any damage to the actual sealant layer, but I've never even thought about diluting it and now I'd be sort of scared because of the likely alcohol content in the final mixture. But we're talking about 15+ years ago when I was first getting into the hobby, so I have a lot of outdated knowledge and materials; the range of stuff available nowadays is incomparable to back then (I'm in central-ish Europe).

And for a so-so artist with a relatively steady hand, but not much actual experience when it comes to faceups or art materials, would you recommend diluted acrylics or watercolors? I was thinking Kuretake as they're supposed to be of minimal necessary chemical composition. (edit: I just read that watercolors are simply not recommended, what is 6Anli using then??) I'd need to buy either anyway, be it acrylics or watercolors, because I'm not risking the damage anymore. I may have done enough of it wiping off face ups with the thinner, having seen someone recommend it as the method used by "many renowned BJD companies".

I guess this would be for a different thread, but if I can offtop a bit, what would you recommend as the safest (and effective ofc) method of removing a faceup from resin? Including tan

 

Oh oh and what sort of liquitex exactly would be suitable for resin? I'm seeing acrylic paint in quite big tubes, acrylic ink (?) and some other stuff. Something not as huge per color would be perfect. Not sure about the availability here but I'd look for something similar.

 

I use Liquitex artist grade acrylics, the regular 4oz tubes work fine for repaints and go a long way. The specific mediums meant to be used with those, are what I use from Liquitex as well. They also have student grade paints called basics, which should be safe to use on dolls, but are less pigmented because they are student grade (meaning more binder less pigment, so less expensive for students to be able to afford). I don't use ink, so I have zero clue how those are to work with, nor do I know if they are safe to use on dolls/plastics of any sort. I lead a strict lifestyle since birth, so my choices of paint when I was a (very) young traditional artist were limited, so I went with the ones that were "known" back then to be less of an issue for that lifestyle choice of mine. Watercolors were something I never tried due to that lifestyle choice. People use watercolor pencils and paints, for face ups, but I can't comment on those since I never tried the paint and don't really care for the pencils. Sorry, I can't be of more help with the varied products Liquitex carries other than the artist grade acrylics and mediums, as I already mentioned I also never tried anything outside of their profesional acrylics line.

Here on the customization section of DoA, is a master list of all the materials and tools that are recommended to be used on resin BJD. There are lot of sections, but all have links you can easily reference for any materials you want to read or learn more about. (:

 

Artist grade will be suitable for resin, but I find that soft body acrylic is easier to work with, needs less thinning down. Heavy body acrylic is meant to create texture more easily on paintings.

If you’re looking for smaller containers of paint, maybe check out a local hobby shop or similar. I was able to find a lot of smaller bottles of paint at the Warhammer shop nearby. The guy there was pretty helpful so that I could avoid metallics, find other mediums like gloss and thinner. The thinner btw, I have not noticed any bad vapour from it.

I do mean to replace my artist grade acrylics which dried out, but the Citadel paints are workable as a cheaper/smaller alternative for now

 

I managed to buy the paints (soft body) and the thinner, it says to add it in a 1/20 to water ratio? Is that how everyone's using it?

Now my biggest issue is the degree of diluting the paint and the brush. I have a tiny modeling brush from Tamiya, but the hair is also super short and can only soak in so much liquid. I find it very hard to operate... It either splashes the paint or doesn't leave any on the surface

How runny do you make your paint for the brows? I've seen a very cool video of the painting process on YouTube but now I'm 1000% certain the artist was using watercolor. Just like recommended here.

Can anyone recommend a brush that's fairly comfortable for extra thin strokes?

 

I switched from majority acrylics to majority watercolour as I'm still very much a beginner and watercolours are much more forgiving – if you paint a wobbly line, or slip, you can erase and blot with water and no sealed layers will be affected, whereas I found acrylics dried near instantly even with thinner/paint retardant (I used Tamiya retardant).
With watercolours, you will need to put down a pastel layer (most often I use white pastel) or the watercolour will be bead and not apply properly. This might be a reason some people don't recommend them. Watercolours also sometimes require painting an extra layer if you're after opacity.
Finding out what paint works best for you is an individual thing that probably comes down to available materials, how you control the brush, and what effect you want from the paint.

I participated in a group order via Taobao for Acatbo's faceup brushes – a set of 5mm, 2 x 7mm and a 9mm. These are very fine, long brushes that have massively helped with painting fine details like eyebrow hairs, eyelashes, inner eyes and lip lines.
Perhaps looking for a set of specific BJD faceup brushes like these might help?

 

You will need practice and time to learn the paint consistency you want or works best for you. It is usually recommended for the paint to be the consistency of ink, juice or just super watered down depending on what type of paint work you're doing - example; blushing, shading, contouring or actual hair strokes. I usually follow the brands' suggestions for mixing the mediums and water and paint ratios accordingly. I have been painting using only acrylics, with no other art media other than the fixative with no issues, on my latest re/paints, for the past year and a half to two years now. I am an old-timer, old-school traditional artist so I do prefer paint over other media. I did begin learning how to do "proper" BJD face ups, in the earlier years using mostly soft chalk pastels and went heavy with those and only did line work with acrylics. However, I find that using acrylics only, work best for me -- because I am a fan of acrylics for painting in general.

As far as brush sizes, that will also depend on what works best for you. If you have a steady hand, a liner brush will probably work best for you, as you can get the longest, thinnest lines with a liner brush. I don't, I sadly, have a steady hand. I discovered that the hard way while learning to do my earlier BJD and OT dolls repaints. I have terrible shaky hands, so I use smaller round brushes -- which sadly are not universal in size within all brands, so I can use one brand's 10/0 round brush, but then it won't be the same exact size as another brands 10/0 small round brush. However, I also only purchase brushes in store, so I can see exactly what sizes I am getting as not all round brushes have a sharp point and that's what works for me. Liners, on the other hand tend to work better for line work, if you do indeed have a steady hand. The size of the brush will depend on the size of the doll's face and how thick or thin or long, you want your lashes or brow hairs to be. Hope that helps, and good luck! (:

 

Thank you so much for the advice! Could you please share how you do the blushing using acrylics? I can't get rid of the border line, I've tried soaking it up with a sponge and using a clean, dry or slightly damp brush to smudge the edges around, and it just doesn't look good I specifically want to apply this technique on the lips because I rarely can get enough pastel on them. Strange thing, the slightest accidental touch anywhere else leaves traces but I can even rub pastel with q tips and it just doesn't want to stick to the lips.

And, a small update about my brushes: I settled for like, 6-7 sizes of nail art brushes and they're perfect for the job. The only drawback is that it can be difficult to get dried paint off them w/o damaging the bristle base. Or more likely - I haven't figured out a good way to do that yet. But they were dirty cheap so worst case scenario, I'm going to replace them.

I'm going to try some good quality watercolors too, once I get my hands on them. I'm getting better with the acrylics but it IS a pain when a mistake happens and it's just no longer possible to fully wipe the paint off. Scrubbing also affects the layer below, making the texture slightly different and it ideally has to be sealed again to work properly. Or at least dry for at least 10 minutes, otherwise any newly painted line just spreads around on its own.

Oh and going back to the original question - with the amount of paint I use at once, I haven't really noticed any difference between paint that's just been watered down and paint that's been diluted with water AND the flow aide. I add a drop to the water reservoir I use to dilute most of the time just to follow the protocol but it just doesn't seem to be making a huge difference to me. I even tried adding way more than the recommended amount. High chance I'm still doing it wrong lol

 

You need to heavily watered-down your acrylics for shading and blushing. As well as for any other type of painting, that you don't want to look like cake-on paint on the plastic surface. You can look at tutorials for repainting 1:6 action figures on Youtube, those are the best for learning how to use acrylics only to paint custom head sculpts. You can then apply the techniques to any style you want. I have repainted many 1:6 action figure head sculpts in a more realistic style, but also fashion dolls and a tiny BJD, in a "BJD" style using acrylics only, using 1:6 action figure repainting techniques and my own learning experiences from doing it that way.

This is the first face up I did on my mature tiny MYou Bettina male, using mostly acrylics. I only added a tiny bit of pastels at the end, because I was impatient, but I have since then repainted him many times with only acrylic paint and have had no need for pastels ever since. All the heavy reds were done with acrylics only added a light layer of blues and brown pastels in a few areas.

This OT fashion doll is also done with only acrylic, the smooth gradients can be done with the paint, just wipe some of the excess paint on a paper tower, and if something goes wrong, use a clean dry brush to blend it out or completely remove it using water. The heavily watered-down acrylics dry super-fast, so you won't ruin everything, just whatever you're trying to clean or blend on top.




You want to add your flow aid and slow drying mediums to your clean water, that you'll use to water-down your paints with. Don't use mediums alone, as that will make the paint never dry and will remain tacky forever. Always use water as well. Hope that helps and good luck! (: