Faceups Faceups and body blushing for my Harolds!

Hey all! I thought I'd make a thread here to chronicle my progress with airbrushing.

I've started with a few of my Harold sculpts, of which I have four color combinations but basically two when it comes to blushing: a light gray and a tan (analogous to Harucasting "gray" and "Maji dark tan").

I've been wanting to use my airbrush more, and thought this would be a good opportunity. Previously, I have only airbrushed one head (my 3d printed prototype Violet head, which I turned into Sphinx Violet, mentioned in another thread here but I'm not sure the finished result was ever posted, as she's 3d printed). Otherwise, I've been using it as a clear coating alternative to MSC, which has been really useful here, as I live in Florida. For this, I use Vallejo Mecha varnish thinned a little bit with thinner (I eyeball it but no more than 1/5 ish?). I always test the consistency on an extra painting board I have.

I first do three coats of this before any painting.

It took me one not-great attempt to then change the paint proportions the next day, where now I feel it is better. Before, I had used paint with a little thinner and a little of the mecha varnish, but I found it was still too saturated-looking for my taste. Photos of this attempt are the top images of the gray/smoke Harold in the gallery here; I didn't want to put too many images in this post here.

So the next day after that attempt, I changed what I was doing and, using the same paint mix, I added more of the mecha (basically just adding more clear medium to it), and this helped immensely. I was able to have less pigment come out, but not have it thinned too much. I find now it's basically the same principles as when using acrylic or oil paint. I guess previously I just thought you'd use thinner and not a medium, but, that was incorrect lol. Too much thinner just makes it runny and then the air pressure blows streaky paint all over the place.

Anyway, here are the first two I'm working on, which are gray/clear. Initially, I had brought the hand blushing up a bit too close to the wrist, and while it was a very light coat of paint there, it still chipped the first time I moved it despite having three layers of Vallejo Mecha varnish on top and curing for 24 hours.








So, I sanded some of it away with my microfine sanding sponge. Idk what grit that is, but feels 1000-ish.





Then, I went over it again. It's not as gradual of a fade as previously, but I think it looks okay for these guys.





You can also see in these last two images that I added a little bit of darker pastel for the fingertips, ears, and tips of the head fluff. I also defined the nose and mouth. I'm going to do a few more layers, hopefully this weekend, to refine them a little more. I think I'm done with the airbrushing aspect for these, but I found it very helpful as a base coat of color, and I will also continue to use it as the clear coat between layers.

For the topmost layer, I still plan to use like three layers of MSC before I add any gloss accents. However, I'm happy with the airbrush clear coat layers in between. They do more easily come off with water, which is why I won't abandon using MSC entirely, but they hold up well enough when using other mediums between that.

 

(link to image gallery in case images don't load)

I also just tested out the tan color. In the mockups I made (and most of my drawings of Harold), I do a sort of desaturated blue for the head stripe and tail tip. Here is the airbrushed base coat for this other color variation:





This is a tan/smoke Harold and I'm unsure how to approach blushing the "smoke" part. I'm going to try just doing some dark pastel in the bumpy void bits just to accent the sculpt a little. I don't want to airbrush color onto this part because I don't want to mask any of the pearlescent effect that Haru added into the resin for me. It was initially requested that this be a transparent dark gray, sort of like an opposite to the clear color posted above, although the transparency ended up not being possible because of the resin thickness. The tips of the toes and end of the tail pieces are a little bit see-through, though.

 

(Imgur gallery link)

The two gray/clear ones are complete! I did my final MSC coats last night, and this morning I did a gloss coat over the claws as well as parts of the nose, mouth, and eye area. I did a small photo shoot with both of them as well. Because I made another thread for that, I'll just put a couple here that more show the completed faceup work.

I'll be continuing working on the tan ones next!

 

Thank you!

Thanks so much! I love sculpting hands, and because opossums basically have four hands, his little feet were fun to sculpt as well. Oh, and Ashuradarkeyes custom made the eyes for all the Harolds! I gave her artistic freedom on the colors and she picked some really pretty ones.

 

(Imgur album link)

Yesterday and today, I airbrushed the tan Harolds. I had three of the solid tan, two tan/smoke, and one that was just a faceup (for a solid tan body).

Yesterday, I started with three coats of Vallejo Mecha matte varnish; I then colored the pink noses and also did the first layer of blue.












Today, I did a second, darker layer of blue (almost black) for the tips of the fingers, toes, and tail. I also did black for the ears. Here are two really fresh hand ombres while they were still wet.





And here they are all lined up (minus my personal Harold, who is drying somewhere else). I didn't take more photos today, as I didn't want to disturb the sealant as it dried.



Overall, I'm happy with using my airbrush for this and I think I'm learning a lot. It is so, so fragile before it is sealed, though; I was extremely careful and still scratched a few bits, such as the tips of a hair, claw, or tail if it bumped into anything. Easy enough to patch up, but still annoying, as I find changing paint colors to be really taxing.

My next step will be more focused on pastel to add some shading to this. I'll likely darken the tips of the hair fluffs and then just sorta shade parts of the fur and void bits with pastel. I'll do msc as my final top coat (I usually do three coats), and then will gloss the claws, nose, and a little around the eyes at the very end.

 

Oh, I have forgotten to keep up with progress on this post, but want to show some of the finished dolls! Here is a look at how I did the heads; basically a layer of dark brown and black pastel on the tips of the hairs, with white pastel inside the nostrils, a small line of white watercolor pencil under the eyes, and a bit of red to accent the tear duct and parts of the nose. I filled in the mouth line with acrylic and flow aid and also some brown pastel to blur it a little.



I lastly did the gloss layer, which was just on the nose, mouth line, under the eyes, and usually a tiny bit on the inside of the front of the ears.

Here is one of the solid tan ones, which I just filled in the void bits with a darker pastel. For the tan/smoke Harolds, I did the same, but with a black pastel for the void bits.



This is kind of a weird picture but you can see where I filled in the extra colors. I would typically do the tail tip and then three segments down with some of the secondary color. In the solid colors, I would color the feet as same as the hands, but not with the special colors like clear and smoke.



Here are the five tan-variety fullsets (not including my Harold, who looks like the two on the right). They are waiting to be dressed for their photo shoot!

I wanted to share these eyes by Ashuradark, because they were so PINK. This was taken as I rounded up the painted Harolds for a little photo session in the backyard (I'll make another post with the edited DSLR photos).



The robes dollsbynika made are also really cozy. It just feels nice picking up and holding a robed Harold, lol.

Anyway, as I'm done painting them now, this will likely be my last post on this particular thread. It was really fun learning to airbrush these and I think it improved my work flow a lot.

I will say, I still don't like using MSC as my final coat (I do three layers as a top coat, and my airbrush layers had clear airbrush varnish on top of them before the pastels were added). I did experience some issues with the paint still wanting to chip as I rubbed pastel onto it, mostly on areas where there was a pointy hair tip and I used a short bristle brush to rub pastels into it. I fixed this by just using a regular paintbrush in some of the left over airbrush paint I mixed, but still, I'd like that to not happen in the future. I do think the airbrushing is pretty secure now, though, and haven't experienced issues with it after the MSC layers. I dislike how poison MSC is, but I do think it works well enough that I'll keep using it, at least as the final layer only.