Aesthetics Female and male face ups

I think your control has improved a lot and you're making good color choices. It's nice to see your progress and the different kinds of characters you're making I especially like the vivid pink on the first face paired with that soft brown on her lashes and brows. The brow placements are good too!

Have you tried incorporating a magic eraser sponge (melamine) as another tool to help you shape your areas of blushing or clean up if needed? They have helped me a lot over the years!

 

Understandable. If you want a second opinion it takes a lot of pressure and effort to use the magic eraser to sand/polish the resin. It can be done, but I don't think you would do it by accident. If I use it in faceups it's with a very light touch.
Anyway these are looking cool great job!

 

Great job on them both! I especially like how thr pink color scheme for Azalea

 

Great job! I love the linework you did on the lips and the eyebrows!

 

It does look like you are slowly getting the blush and the line work under control. Keep dong what you are doing for practice, because it seems to be working!

I may have some advice for the lips. I have several dolls with heavy solid lip colours and I remember struggeling to get nice clear edges where I wanted them the first times I tried it. So this is roughly how I do it now:
1. Lay down basic blushing to shade the area around the lips to look natural. This is a sublte step but it adds a bit of life and dimension. Without it, the solid lips can dominate the area and make the doll look plasticky and artificial (well, more so than it actually is). Seal.
2. Using a water colour pencil in a shade very close to the doll I lightly draw out the countour line for the lips. This will be covered later when painting the lips, it's only there to guide the painting later. Using a water colour pencil means that it's easy to wipe and redo as many times as needed. Using a light hand ensures that the sealent isn't scratched. A damp brush or q-tip can be used to wipe off the pencil if needed. If you feel confident, you can move on without sealing, but if you need a little bit of extra security, go ahead and seal.
3. The lips themselves I do in acrylics. I use three colours. One shade colour (darker than I want the over all lips) one main colour (the actual colour of the lipstick I am simulating) and a highlight.
3a. I lay down the shade colour first, starting with the edges, using the water colour line from the previous step as a guide. This is the only time I need to deal with the edges of the lips in paint, so I let it take it's time and go as slowly as I need. It's very dificult to remove this without disturbing the layers beneath, especcially if it's a dark, vibrant colour, so try to get it right. Should something go wrong you may be able to wipe the paint with water if you are fast, but some pigment may have settled in the sealent and you can't remove that without damaging the texture.
Once the edges are there, I fill in the rest of the lip area with the shade colour, making sure to get it all the way in between the lips and to spread it thinly and evenly. Don't let it pool. Let dry.
3b. Now the main colour. Paint it on the main areas of the lips, but stop just shy of the edges, letting the shade colour still show at the edges and in the line between the lips. This gives depth and definition and because I don't actually go all the way to the edges it's a much less stressful step than the last. Let dry.
3c. Highlight the lips. You can use the highlight colour to give some illusion of texture by doing crease lines, or you can use it simply as a classical highlight spot if you want a lore stylized glossy look. I prefer to keep it simple myself, but it's a styliztic choice, the technique is mostly the same. Let dry.
4. If you have other areas of the face still unfinished, it may be a good idea to seal before moving on. If not, acrylics don't absolutely have to be sealed. Once they are dry they are not going anywhere. When the entire face up is done, you can add gloss to the lips.

I like using Citadel paints for this, as they are extreemly pigmented and don't build any thickness to speak of, so colour can be built up in layers without any visible brush lines or clumping. They also dry very fast, making it possible to work in layers without long wait times between. Regular artist grade acrylics or even student grade may work, but you need to be a lot more aware of your painting technique and you may have to blend wet on wet or come up with other methods for reducing layers. And drying times will be a lot longer, so you may need to adapt your work flow to suit them Test it out on something else a few times to find a method that works with your paints.

 

Ok so straight up stealing the pallette from the male, just fyi. I like his lips colors

But I've found q tips for water color paint/pencils function as an eraser and have totally abused it to fix my lack of control. They even have pointed ones to get in small spots. It's a little more control then the magic eraser. I've mostly used it personally as like, a "highlighter" on areas I feel I went too heavy and go light on pressure so I'm just scraping the surface, meaning what I've put on top of the resin. I'm paranoid so I always reseal after using the eraser though, lol.

 

The first advice I was given when I started doing face-ups. Is to work in layers. I would dilute the paint to a tint. That way you can build up the areas like lips to get the shape right. Also it will be easier to fix edges or wipe mistakes. Full pigment can be hard to correct since it dries so quick and can stain. Resulting in you having to redo the area over. I personally use only pastels. I crush the pastels to powder. And I apply it like make-up using a small brush. I start with a first light layer and seal it. Then apply a second and seal. Repeat that process till the color is at a level to your liking. I find it easier this way to erase mistakes instead of starting from scratch. You can use paint in the same way by diluting the color. And apply it lightly and build up the layers. Especially helpful when you have shaky hands. Also water color pencils can be used on the lips to frame the lips. Draw the outline of the lips and seal. Then paint within the area. Happy painting!