Supplies Face up splurge suggestions wanted!

Welcome back to dolls and faceups!

I'm still a faceup newbie but these are the Rembrandt pastels I'm using (and Tamiya acrylic paints):



Rembrandt's names/ID numbers are there, but basically the colours are - orange, cool pink, warm pink, cool brown, warm brown, cool blue (ultramarine), warm blue (teal/aquamarine), grey.

I'm sticking with realistic faceups for now instead of fantasy ones, and this palette is sufficient so far. Apart from grey (seldom used), I find myself using all the others routinely. Blue and orange being complementary on the colour wheel, I use orange/pink as the main colours, and blue as a faint contrast.

So far I've been erasing pastel with a kneaded eraser, but kneaded erasers sometimes develop this film that leaves a residue on the doll. I'm going to try using a very narrow Tombow Mono Zero instead (plastic eraser that comes in a clicky eraser holder). I learned this tip from another faceup artist!

I don't use an airbrush so I can't help with that. But for random faceup items - baking paper, toothpicks, and cotton buds. I use baking paper for my pastel and paint palette. Toothpicks are great for mixing acrylic paints, since I use so little paint per faceup. Cotton buds/Q-tips for blending pastels on the resin. Everything disposable so I can throw them away after use. Oh yes - I use a scalpel blade/X-acto knife to gently shave off pastel dust from the stick onto my palette, then pick up the dust with my faceup brush.

Hope this helps! welcome back, faceups are so much fun to do.

 

I'm still a newbie myself but I can definitely recommend pan pastels. They don't come in sticks. Instead it's loose powder, similar to how powder makeup is sold. And they can be stacked.
At first I just got one color to see what the fuss was all about and I ended up really liking it. So I got a few more. They are really pigmented so they show up a lot stronger than other pastel brands.

Other than that I also got these Rembrandt pastel sticks Vega posted and I like them as well.

 

I have a ton of pastels from various companies including, but not limited to, Schminke, PanPastels, Daler Rowney, Winsor&Newton, etc… my panpastels are the most pigmented and most expensive ones of my collection, but I only have a primary color set, so I only use it for really vibrant colors, along with white and black.

Now for the colors I use the most for blushing I made this simple list some years ago:

The last two are just some deep reds someone asked about back then.
these colors are the ones I use the most for blushing white skin to various shades of normal skins.

Let me share my entire pastel stick collection too;

The sheer amount of colors I have in sticks is why I do not feel the need to get all the panpastel colors available. I do agree they are great, but I love Schminke just a bit more. Those come in sticks, are heavily pigmented, soft, and they are easier to clean off the brushes. After using the panpastels, I have to clean my brushes with soap and water as the pigment just sticks to the bristles.

To get pastel sticks ready for applying I create a palette of colors by rubbing the stick against paper, that creates less waste of loose pastel dust and I can just dip my brush into the swatch so to say. When I am done I blow off loose dust into the trash and close the sketchbook. Then I can use the color swatches for the next Faceup again.

 

I agree with the other pastel suggestions. For natural faceups, generally you'd want several shades of pink, brown, black, and light blue. I also have a dark grey that leans towards purple which I use a lot.

For erasing pastel, I started off with a white plastic eraser (like the Tombow one aihre mentioned). It's great for precision erasing, but I often found that it would smudge the pastel instead of erase it, and once that happened the pastel was very hard to get off. So I've stopped using that in favor of kneaded erasers. I have two erasers of different brands (which I can't remember anymore, sorry ). One is dark grey feels quite dry but still malleable, I use this one the most. It picks up pastel well and I can drag it along the resin to create clean lines in the pastel. The other eraser is very light cool grey and is quite sticky. It picks up pastel even better than the other eraser, but it's too sticky to drag on the resin so you can only use it to poke or dab. I use this sticky one for picking up stray pastel dots or dusts, and very occasionally to clean up blushing if the other eraser doesn't pick up the color well enough. So, I suggest grabbing a few brands of kneaded erasers to find what you like best. The tiny ones are very cheap and you don't need a big one (though I find it easier to hold).

If you're going to use acrylics or acryla gouache, I highly recommend Volks' acrylic color thinner. I've tried several paint mediums and this one was my favorite. Definitely don't thin your paints with water, get some kind of medium/thinner.

One thing that I use all the time when doing faceups is an x-acto knife. I use it to get off stubborn dust stuck in the sealant, and for cleaning up the edges of fully dried paint lines. It's also useful when removing faceups to get paint out of small crevices like the mouth or eyelids, but you have to be really careful! Many people use a pin or needle instead, which is more foolproof but doesn't work as well in my opinion.

 

@IzabethS it's so funny because I sat looking at this thread last night and wanted to mention my favorite pastels but as usual couldn't remember the name, and I saw richeson on your packaging there
Anyway, my favorite pastels are the jack richeson. I used Rembrandt before that (I already had them from art school) and just stumbled upon the richeson randomly in a shop one day when I needed new supplies, but they are really fantastic, I'd definitely recommend them if you want to branch out. They are very soft and highly pigmented.
If you don't already have pearl ex or something similar I recommend you go out and get 1-3 colors straight away they are so fun to use in different ways for different effects. (From lipgloss additive to dewy skin effect). I really use only the duo and interference colors. Interference green is the one I use most because it works well as a good neutral/, complimentary sparkle.
As for your question about erasing pastel, I only use melamine sponge normally. I have never liked kneaded erasers for anything, going back many years.
If I were to recommend one pastel color everyone should have, in whatever brand of your choice, some kind of medium (not too light) extremely neutral pinkish beige/ taupe. This color becomes an absolute chameleon color in different situations and it's very useful on any of the light colored resins as a blushing to establish depth and tone. It's Mr favorite color on white skin resin especially. You can lay this color down and then add a different pink in subsequent layers to tweak your tone and give realistic flush.

I hope you have a lot of fun with your new supplies!

 

I recommend games workshop's sealant if you can get to one of their stores. They don't have a good setup to order online. It's called munitorum varnish. It's more humidity and cold tolerant than msc and it's kind of more unpleasant in hot temperatures for what it's worth.
I've never gotten into airbrush at all. But you can airbrush on an acrylic matte varnish to seal as far as I know. However I think you might still need a traditional ground put down first for tooth? I don't really know. I know in the case of using brush on technique completely in lieu of any sealant underneath the tooth is awful and the surface is much more fragile to simply scratching off.

 

I’m really obsessed with Volks’ pastel sets, if you can get your hands on them. They’re very soft and since they’re actually made for faceupping it’s like here is an array of natural colors or here is an array of Goth Lolita colors and I only ever use my stockpile of Rembrandts for some of the darker browns I use regularly in eyebrows now. (Idk what Volks has against dark browns!)

I also really love the two fine tipped tweezers I bought from Volks—they’re great for eyelash application. And I second the thinner recommendation, it’s amazing for thinning acrylics and giving some drying time to erase lines with a wet qtip if they look wonky.

Also a weird accidental thing I always use in my faceups is Liquitex’s soft body translucent white with some shimmer in it. I accidentally bought the iridescent instead of standard white and it adds that little bit of sparkle when I’m using it to mix eyelash and eyebrow hair colors that I really like. I don’t think I’d use normal white if I could help it now.

 

I use Mungyo hand rolled pastels, and a kneaded eraser or damp qtip or cotton ball to lift excess powder or remove it. I just splurged on the BJD faceup set with the book by Tianba on My Dollection a couple weeks ago though, so I'm looking forard to trying all that out soon! The brushes look really nice and better for faceups than the ones i currently have.
A lot of people do use liquitex matte medium/ varnish for faceups, but if you don't have an airbrush to apply it, it's usually suggested to apply very thing layers with some kind of makeup or other sponge as opposed to a brush, which may move pigments around more.

 

I can't read Chinese either, but i think there's video tutorials as part of it, and it looks like it has good pictures to see what's suggested! and i think some phones you can scan a picture and have it translated