Eye placement tips?

One tip I've been told is to make sure the light reflections on the eyes are in the same place on each eye. It's really difficult, though, for me, too. If I want to make sure the eyes look natural for a photo shoot I tend to put them in so the doll is looking off to one side rather than straight ahead.

 

to the side and slightly up.
I roll them up into the head so about 1/4th of a pupil is covered. (this is the most important thing, if the pupil is fully exposed it makes your doll look dead or wide eyed)

sometimes it can take forever to get them positioned right, but you just play with them and keep taking test photos till they look right.

 

Agreeing with what Knibitz said. I position eyes so that the upper lid just grazes the top of the pupil. The bottom edge of the iris should then just sit on or near the upper edge of the lower lid.

Also, when we focus on something, our eyes converge on it. So, setting the eyes slightly turned in helps capture that focused look and avoids the "rabbit caught in the headlights" blank, dolly stare.

Having eyes that are the wrong size for the eyewell can make both of those difficult to achieve.

As for lighting and taking photos, the traditional lighting for portrait photos is positioned so that the catchlights (those little reflections of the light source that you can see in the eyes) are at the 11 o'clock position. I am not sure that adhering to that will help the eyes look focused, but it might be worth trying.

And don't forget to take some time to move yourself and your camera around until the doll appears to be looking straight at you. This is where having a DSLR can help, as you are seeing exactly what the camera sees. But the slight difference in view through the viewfinder of a non-SLR camera shouldn't be too difficult to work with. You just need to be aware to compensate for the position of the viewfinder with respect to the lens. So, positioning the lens where you know the eyes are focusing, rather than the viewfinder. It takes a bit of practice to imagine, but can be done.

And spend time making sure the eyes are even. So many times I have taken a shot where the eye that I was concentrating on is looking straight at the camera, only to find that the other eye is looking off into the middle distance. Spend time setting the eyes and that should help.

 

I have trouble with it too. unless they're facing straight forword. one of mine has one white eye though so I don't have to worry so much about him.

 

I could swear there's another thread about this in the Workshop, but I can't find it right now. >__<
I have the worst time positioning my doll's eyes and I usually just give up and hand it over to my girlfriend, but I have had some success with the following: Take the head off so you don't have to work around the S-hook. Check the eye placement by looking at your doll's head upside down - both pupils should still be looking at you. Do the same thing (right side up) in a mirror.

 

Personally, this is what I do. Whenever I align eyes, regardless of what direction they're looking in, I put my finger across the bridge of their nose, spanning both eyes. This is how I check if they're aligned and stuff. I've been in the hobby for almost two years, and eye placement still stumps me sometimes! When I get lost, I asked the nearest person, usually my sister, to look in a particular direction, just to see what looks natural.

 

I prefer when my dolls look at one side, instead of straight forward. but thats my personal opinion. And I hate changing position of the eyes, it's a bit tricky. But keep practicing!

 

I hate putting eyes in, because it's hard to make both eyes look in the same direction and naturally. I gave up on the "straight" forward looking eyes, cos I can't position them like that. My dolls have side glancing eyes, with the top lip covering part of the pupil. When positioning the eyes, I take the head off the body, and check by tilting the head left, right, up and down, just to see if he's looking normally in all directions. This is so I won't have to adjust it anymore when I take photos. Yup, if you get the eye placement right, it'll be easier to make them look at the camera.

As for looking at the camera, it depends on which direction the eyes were placed as well. For me, I need to tilt my doll's head to one direction for me to look directly at me.



This one is kind of off, but he's showing just one eye so it's okay.




What I usually do is make them glance to the side though:

 

Only tip I could say is sit in front of a mirror with the head(off the body) facing the mirror and play with the eyes

 

Agreed with Knibitz....when your doll looks forward, have the eyes positioned up a little bit...this will help your doll look less "chihuahua" like...which is cute in person sometimes, but doesn't translate well into photographs!

As far as realistic looking glances go....It can be hard to make your doll not appear to be wall-eyed. (A wall-eye is also called a "lazy eye". I have a family member with a lazy eye, and they don't like this term. I'm terribly sorry if these terms offend anyone -- my sister with the wall-eye prefers the term "wall-eye" because it makes her feel better to call it that. No offense is meant either way!

If your doll's eyes have a glass stem in the back of the eyes... or if you use Glib acrylic eyes....which also have a stem...

Put your eyes into your dolls' head. And then, put the stems (that sit inside the head,) in the same position.

If one eye-stem is faced downwards and to the left, move the other stem to the downward left, too.

I just figured out the stem thing recently. It's helped me a lot!

 

All these tips are wonderful. I have something to add. Make sure you focus on aligning the pupils (if your dolls has them) rather than the irises. The easiest way to do this is imagine lasers or strings shooting out of the pupils to the same point. If both lines can't meet that point in a straight line, you know the eyes are off. Heck, if you really wanted to, I'm sure you could do this with an actual string. As for reflections and such, well, the more lighting you have the better, and it really depends on the material and shape of the eyes. Glass tends to reflect better than acrylic. My best advice is to just play around with lighting.

 

This is all very helpful. Thank you for sharing!

 

This might be useful in avoiding the dazed, crazed or china doll look: http://www.denofangels.com/forums/s...ye-Alignment-and-Human-Expressions-A-Tutorial

 

I was always told to position them to it looks like they are focusing in on something. It doesn't have to be something in the picture, it could be something in the distance.