Aesthetics Chieut's BJD faceup journey

Hello! I'm making this thread to record my progress on faceups.
I recently bought a head for a cheap price and I want to practice multiple times on this same head. I think it'll also help me figure out what I did right and what I did wrong since it's easier to compare multiple tries on the same mold.

I'll be recording what I learned through each attempt. I'm also inviting critiques and tips.
This thread will be permanent. I will keep posting attempts.

Most of these are notes to myself. I don't expect anyone to read them, and I don't mind if you repeat my self critiques so you don't need to worry and read through my own assessments ;o;

My current goal is to get used to the tools, and generally learning to work on a 3D, resin textured surface. I'll be using the same look until I feel more comfortable with the tools I'm using.


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ATTEMPT #1



This is the reason I didn't start posting on the forums immediately. It was terrible!!

I used:
-Cheap pastels
-10 year old watercolor pencils I had lying around
- UV cut flat MSC

After hours of looking back at my artist career and crying about it inside (lmao) I quickly erased what I had done and took a break. Then I was composed enough to troubleshoot the issue.

THE GOOD -
1. Eh, the eye creases aren't that bad for a failed faceup.
2. I also figured out that mixing "too much" water with pastels created a cool, watercolor effect. I quickly figured out that I should experiment with this technique a little later though.

THE BAD
1. MSC: I sealed it once, didn't wait for it to dry and immediately started working. The pigment wouldn't stick, and I generally had a hard time. The surface just didn't have enough tooth. It wasn't even properly sealed all throughout the head, as I would find out later on my second try.
2. Blushing: I got ahead of myself and decided to start abusing blue tones. The end result was a patchy looking blush job.
3. Erasing: I couldn't find my kneadable eraser and used a hard eraser. I decided to partly erase blush work. The rest is history. It looked super patchy help

Honestly, the biggest problem was not sealing the doll properly.
I mostly learned the importance of sealing, and generally about the difficulties of working on a resin head. I also got a general feel for how each medium applied to resin.


*****

ATTEMPT #2



Again, I was unimpressed and quickly took a snapshot before moving on. I regret this terribly. Note to self that failure is okay and it's much more worth it to document everything -_-

I used: (New supplies are marked with **)
-Pastels
-Watercolor pencils
-Black Acrylic**
-MSC

The next day, I went out and bought myself some black acrylic for eyeliner work. I also took the time to watch a couple of faceup videos to get some clues on parts I wasn't sure of. I was most concerned about making the faceup look a little more bold and pigmented.

THE GOOD:
1. Using black acrylic for eyeliner was a good move. It made the faceup look a little more complete.
2. I did a little better with applying pastels. It still came out extremely patchy, though. I didn't tone down on the blue and I still used hard erasers to erase blush lol chieut .. ... ...(smh) at this point I just decided to stop erasing blush at all (even with kneadable erasers) unless I specifically wanted a hard edge.
3. I got some hints to layering pastels, especially on the lips. I just had to be patient and actually layer them..... also I finally figured out that pastels won't stick enough if I only use one thin, patchy layer of MSC.

THE BAD:
1. There was a problem with sealing, and created a foggy patch on the doll's forehead. It's not visible in the photo.
2. The eyeliner shape didn't quite work. The eyeliner width was even all throughout the eye, and reached from exactly one corner of the eye to another. It was unnatural. The black eyelashes were also a problem for me; the fish tail shape looks very awkward to me.
3. I finally noticed that the eyebrows are very sparse, especially after putting black acrylic on his eyes. Also, the pencil lines were grainy and generally unpleasant to look at.

******

ATTEMPT #3





I used: (New supplies are marked with **)
-Pastels
-Watercolor pencils
-Black Acrylic
-Gouache**
-MSC

THE GOOD:
1. I sealed the head with three layers of MSC and actually waited for it to dry for each layer. This helped a whole lot and made shading considerably easier.
2. I finally stopped going crazy with blue. I figured out that it's better to apply it sparingly under the eyes, and probably where the skin would be thin enough to show blue tones.
3. Eyeliner looks a lot better. The right one looks better on the inner corner of the eyes; it creates a smooth, well connected line compared to the other side, where the corner is square shaped. I drew extra eyelashes with black colored pencils. I sharpened the pencil and used multiple strokes, which helped the grainy-ness a bit.
4. The eyelashes show that my hand's a little more steady than before.
5. Eyebrow hairs. They look like hair and it looks like I figured out what direction eyebrow hairs go in.
6. The eye creases weren't so grainy for some reason. I figured sharpening and layering helps? I started to further sharpen my pencils with a knife.

THE BAD:
1. The eyebrows. Because the gouache was applied thickly, the eyebrows looked thick, dense and untamed. These eyebrows are cute and all, but that's not what I was going for. I tried to apply it with more water to make it transparent, but resin doesn't work that way. The water just clumped up into drops and the pigment got transferred in messy droplet shapes too.
2. Wait for gouache to dry, and then apply MSC. I learned that the hard way when I tried to draw over them with pencils and the pencils just scraped the gouache right off.
3. Eyelashes are still grainy how do I fix this someone send help
4. I tried to wipe off some gouache while I was shaping the eyebrows.
5. I got a little scared with shading. The head could have used some brown toned shading.
6. It's generally messy. The dirty way, I mean. There is a gray smudge on its nose. I didn't take a photo but there's dirty gray smears all over the bottom of its chin. I sealed over dust that sat on the head.
7. Lips are uneven. I fixed the bottom lip but didn't notice the upper lip. HMM. I also colored over the lines on one corner of the lips.
8. The reds in the eyes and lips are too red for my liking.

???
1. Can I use transparent wet materials at all??
2. How do I prevent grainy pencils?
3. Do I really need to get a different brush or is there another way to really press those pastel pigments onto the surface?

Further action:
1. I'd like to try drawing eyelashes and eyebrows using wet medium.
2. Maybe I should ditch pastels and shade the eyebrows on with pencils? Not sure how that'd turn out though.
3. Experiment with different brushes and tools to figure out what works best for me.

-bottom lip shape, watch out for under lips
-separate upper and lower lash

 

Nah, I won't tell you to get lost, don't worry haha I honestly feel really lost and alone here (esp because I'm new to the hobby and I don't have any existing friends who are into BJDs as well) so any help is really great!! Also they were plenty of advice, I appreciate it a lot.

The lips kept getting gradually bigger as I tried to fix its shape tbh, so I didn't realize that it got so big until you mentioned it. Also thank you for the tips on the lash shapes. They're both huge hints and I'll definitely keep them in mind on my next try. I'm sure my next try will turn out better with your help!

 

thank you for all the help, everyone!! Every adviced helped a lot in my next attempt.

ATTEMPT #4








and a terrifying flash photo so that the blushing and shading is a little more visible



I used: (New supplies are marked with **)
-Pastels
-Watercolor pencils
-Black Acrylic
-MSC

I ditched gouache. Not only was the application difficult, I was very nervous that the gouache had stained the resin when I was removing the faceup because it didn't come off as easily as acrylics did.

THE GOOD:
1. Shading turned out alright. Still turned out patchy as hell but in terms of where I put which shade, it turned out well. I managed to put some blues in there without the messiness on attempts 1 and 2.
2. My powdering accuracy got a little better and I'm more experienced with applying pastel powder onto resin surface. Experimenting how each ingredient reacts with another helps me the most. I used pastels to make the eyebrows and color the lips.
3. The eyebrows turned out alright. I still need to figure out how I want to draw the hairs but I did figure out how to actually apply them.
4. I really like the lip color. This is significant because this helped me notice the difference in color with a coat of varnish. This will definitely affect my color choices.

THE BAD:
1. Better, but still patchy. I keep forgetting to dust off the fallout before sealing. Even if pastel dust isn't visible to me at first, they become more apparent when I seal them. It's also apparent that I'm not very great with using powders in the first place, since I had multiple occasions where the shading was applied unevenly. My only option is to practice.
2. The eye creases don't look that great, and there wasn't enough effort put into the lashes and general details under the eye. The eyeliner's uneven and I didn't finish filling it in. At this point I'm reconsidering using pencils. Adding water did soften up the grainy lines,(thank you for the tips everyone!) but at this point I'd just rather save the effort and use wet medium for hard lines. I'll be using wet medium for the eyes, but I will continue using pencils for lip creases and eyebrow hair. I prefer to have a bit of pink showing on the outer corner of the eye, and I noticed that eyelashes start unnaturally close to the eyes.
3. I still chicken out with shading. Adding blush and blue undertones isn't that bad, but when it comes to making the eyeshadow effect that I want, I chicken out and never layer enough pigments to make a difference.

My shading has a lot of room for improvement in terms of application and generally being neat, but it was done well in terms of color. It's a shame that my camera can't pick up what the shading exactly looks like since that means less potential feedback for me o(-( You can however tell that the shading is very clumpy on side views.

???
-. How can I make my shading neater? What's causing the patchiness?

Further action:
-Pick up some acrylics and ditch the colored pencils for eye details.
-Keep experimenting and practicing with pastel powder.
-Each pastel color reacts differently. Pick out those that work well and remember those that don't.
-Work on makeup details now that i'm getting used to applying pigment onto resin surface.

 

Hi, Shadowedforce! Thanks for the feedback! I'll keep that in mind next time I shade.

ATTEMPT #5



Also here's another attempt; unfortunately I couldn't get more photos since I had to borrow a friend's phone to take this photo since mine was.. dead..
I think acrylics definitely work better for me. I can't seem to get rid of the grainyness so ? ? ? I do think that I can work with them for lighter colors like Wolfie suggested.

One problem is that I need to water down the acrylics a little more; the eyelashes turned out a little too thick and unnatural from what I remember. Next tiime I'll be focusing on shading.