First face-up failure...any advice?

I also just had my first faceup failure, so I’ll be watching this to see responses! I do know the answer to number 4, though- regular white erasers or kneaded erasers! A kneaded eraser was amazing for when I accidentally dusted pastels somewhere and they wouldn’t brush off, while the white eraser was better at removing pencil lines or cutting into pastels at clean lines. A couple of pencil lines were stubborn, but I did get them mostly off- I don’t know if there’s something stronger or if it’s just persistence.

 

I am no face up artist by any means, but I have been a traditionally trained artist my whole life. When I tried my first face up, it was incredibly disappointing and a real eye opener, just how different miniature toy painting is. Don't feel discouraged for failing the first time, it's really fun once you start to see progress, even if it takes a while!
1. I spray two super light layers of MSC, then let them dry for ten to fifteen minutes, before working on top of them.

2. If your pastels are artist grade, they should have a lot of pigment and very little binder. There's still a need to build up the layers, as you don't want to have them too thick, then not have the fixative not have a good grip between the pigment and the plastic. Pan Pastels are pure pigment, if you want to try something more saturated. I prefer Rembrandt, because I like no-makeup looking face ups.

3. Tap your brush after picking up pastel pigment to remove excess dust. You can use needing erasers, cotton swabs, clean brushes or other tools to help blend and/or remove stay dust.

4. I use and prefer acrylics, so I am not sure. If you haven't sealed the pastel underneath the paint, whichever method you use to remove the paint will also remove the pastel.

5. I never had any issues with acrylic paints. However, they are my media of choice since I could barely speak. Are you thinning your paint enough? You can also use acrylic mediumd in your water and definitely don't use thinning medium alone or too much of it. I kind of want to try painting some of my largest BJD, using only acrylics now, that I have learned the magical way of painting 1:6 AF properly. DX

Hope auto correct didn't make this more confusing than it already is. Good luck and I hope it helps a little! (:

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Chiming in on number 5 because oh god my first several faceups were absolutely wretched because of the paint. I was using "straight" paint and so every brush stroke showed, everything looked so chunky, it was awful.

For me, what really helped was using airbrush paint -- it is much much thinner and plays so much nicer, you just need a rather fine brush for it. I assume you could get a similar technique mixing a high flow medium, but for me it was just easier to start with a high flow airbrush paint instead (they also tend to come in much smaller sizes, which is way more reasonable for doll customizing).

Good luck! My first were so bad too! I know it's discouraging -- just think of it as a known part of the process

 

Advice: it’s not a failure, it’s a work in progress.
Keep progressing and you’ll ( eventually) meet your expectations.

 

I am using only pastels (artist grade Mungyo and rembrant) and watercolor pencils (faber-castell albrecht durer) for my face-ups so far.

The pastels i am using are not really saturated, but i like to build up the layers to achieve natural skintone. And i invested on some good eye make-up brushes made of goat/pony hair which they can picked up pastels very well.

I remove any mistakes with kneaded eraser and damp (water) cotton bud. I never use magic sponge as they are abrasive and can actually remove the MSC coat if you are not careful enough.

About the inside of the head, just cover the inside of eye sockets with tissue or cotton ball. But i usually forget to do it, i just wipe the dirty area with alcohol after finish with the face-up

 

The soft pastels I use seems to be not as pigmented as I would like it to be so I grate its surface first with exacto knife, creating a dusty surface so my brushes can pick up more of the pastels. However this may produce more excessive pastel dust but I just find it easier to apply. Just use a very soft brush. I use a make up blending brush.

Watercolor pencils are very easy to remove. Just dab it with a wet brush or cottonbuds.

Acrylic is a challenge for me too. I recommend trying watercolor. Just don't use too much water as it will bead(?) on the doll's surface.

 

1. Two layers a little while apart is how I do it too. Exact drying time varies depending on temeprature, humidity and circulation in the area where the parts are left to dry, but 15 minutes is usually long enough.

2. The level of pigmentation of the pastels does matter. Artist grade pastels are usually a lot more pigmented than student grade stuff. not that the cheap ones can't be useful, I have an old set that I use a lot for subtle shading, but it does take a lot more layers if you want saturated colours. Artis grade pastels can usually be bought one at a time, so you can pick one or two up without too much of an investment and try them out. If you don't like how they behave, try another brand. Most of the well known brands have good products, but they do behave a little differently.

3. Make a few tests with differnt brushs. A firm, pointed brush will be easy to control, but harder to blend with, while a soft, looser brush will blend things nicely, but will be very hard to target specific areas with. The smaller the brush, the easier it will be to hit just where you want to, but it will also pick up less pastel powder so it will be more work. For really defined areas, sometimes a brushstroke motion is best and sometimes a stippling motion is better.
I use a kneadable erazer to pick up stray pastels. I also use it to help define eye brow shape.
If it comes out blotchy it may be a problem with the sealent. If it has gone on unevenly or if there was some problem with the curing (humidity, not enough time to dry, too cold etc.) that will cause the pastels to go on unevenly as well. It could also be that you are simply trying to but on more then there is grip for. If so, working in thinner layers is the answer.

4. Water colour pencils are water soluble. As long as you sealed the layer before properly, you can wipe them off with water.
One thing to watch out for is to make sure the last sealent layer is completely dry before starting, as a sharp pencil can cut into the sealent if it is still a little gummy and that will mess thing up. Apply the pencil with a light pressure and just as with the pastels you may need multiple layers to get truly saturated colours.
If you find the pencil lines to be too grainy, you can smooth them out using a very thin, sharp and slightly damp brush to activate the paint. It does take a bit of practice.

5. It is perfectly possible to do a face up without acrylic paints. You can use watercolour or gouache for line work instead.
Personally I like acrylics. I use Citadel paints or other brands made for table top miniatures. They are very saturated and quite thin so they tend to go on very easily and cover well in a layer or two without any visible brush strokes.

I do understand your frustration. When I got into the BJD hobby I was convinced I could do my own face ups easily. I was a reasonably good artist, I had painted many doll faces on various cloth and art dolls and I had painted plenty of table top miniatures. Surely, if I had the skills to pant the fingernails of a 28mm tall orc model I should be able to paint a nice face up, right? Hehe... No. Not that I didn't have some use of my pervious experience, but the learning curve was way steeper than I had expected.
My first atempts were hilariously bad.
But then one day they were just a littel bit less bad. And then they were kind of ok. And now, I'm not even embarresed to show them off anymore.
Am I a master? Heck no, far from it, but I have most certainly improved. Failing in the beginning is prefectly normal. Keep at it and wou will start show improvements in no time.

 

For the first two coats of msc I spray them both about an hour apart and let them dry for an hour afterwards, I like to make sure they are completely dry. I also spray the doll from about a foot or two away.
When it comes to pastels I like to use a blade to scrape off pigment into a pile to use, don’t skimp on pastels get the good artist quality ones. Also to get deep colors use different tones on the skin, the skin has undertones of yellow and blue. Observe pictures of real people to get a good idea of where to place the tones. Using powdered pigment should help pack in the color, use a fan brush to gently brush off any excess pigment and a kneaded eraser will also help with any stubborn parts. Make sure to be consistent when applying layers of msc and wait for longer periods of time to ensure it is completely dry. I do different colors on different layers for the most part to ensure they don’t get muddy.
Watercolor pencil can be erased with kneaded eraser, it should work fine.
I like to use light body acrylic paint and I thin them out with a little water and use brushes the size of a hair. You don’t need to use acrylic paints, I usually only use paint for eyeliner, and watercolor pencil for everything else.
Good luck with your progress, failure is just a learning opportunity, skill takes time!

 

After reading these great comments I don't even want to try a face up. How do I find local face up artists? I live in No. California.

 

Hey there I have been doing faceups for almost ten years and I also do commissions. I just saw this thread randomly and I thought I'd try offer some advice.

First of all, it's so cool that you gave faceupping a go despite not being artistically inclined as you say. I commend you for that because that's super daring and I like to support people trying new things!

If it's any condolence, believe me when I say, faceups are a different ball-park than other artistic fields! I have been drawing my whole life and when I started with faceups it felt so HARD ugh. It takes a long time to get used to the process because it is slow, tedious and unforgiving at times.

To get to your questions:

1. How long do you let MSC dry and how many coats you do apply before starting? I applied two, app. 15 minutes apart. Texture seemed toothy enough, no stains or uneven texture, but it did come off with magic eraser.

Between 15-20 minutes depending on the weather. The weather will affect sealant especially if it is too cold or too humid where you spray. I don't know about the weather in your area right now, but I am in Europe and I have to let my layers of sealant dry for at least 20 minutes before continuing (and I do not spray below 10 degrees celsius - tbh even that threshold is pushing it sometimes). I start the faceup with 3 light coats of sealant on the head. If it came off easily with magic eraser perhaps the layers were not dry enough or you might have sprayed too far away from the head (has happened to me in the past).

2. Do pastels always build up so slow? I was afraid of overdoing it, but it felt so hard to shade with basic "skin-alike" colours. Like, I saw no difference in shade unless I started applying really deep red that was supposed to go in inner lips. And I had to use it at the eartips/nose tip etc. And even then it was so pale? How do you achieve a deep vibrant shade on the lips or around eyes?

Yes. But it depends. Some artist-grade pastels are softer than others (compare Faber Castell to Schminke). The softer ones will usually yield more pigment. You can try shaving off the pastel dust with an exact-o blade from the colours you want to use. This can help getting more pigment off the stick. Instead of thinking of "shading" rather try to lightly "buff" the pastel into the resin. Think of the difference between contour and blushing in makeup. Faceupping is more like blushing really (hence why the term Body Blushing is so apt ^.^). Soft, tapping motions with a brush that has a larger area with soft bristles (recommend using a makeup eyeshadow or blender brush) with a loft of pastel dust on it should help you put down more colour early on. What you described could allude to the pastels not being good enough quality or, again, the sealant layer not allowing any pigment to grip.

And yes, you have to build it up. There's no one-and-done with pastels. Especially if you're going for a red lip or a smokey eye. It takes multiple layers with constant tapping pastel into the area until you reach the opacity you want. For reference, even when I paint a "basic" faceup I have to invest at least 12-15 layers into it. And with 20 minutes of drying time between each layer due to sealant...yeah, no wonder some faceups take up to 8 hours. :/

Don't let that discourage you though! Just be mindful that with a faceup, slow and steady wins the race. Every time you've reached a certain opacity, seal it down. Wait, and continue. Rinse and repeat.

3. I had trouble with targeting areas, pastels seemed to fly around everywhere and I ended up using a big brush to sweep the excess off. The area I targeted was barely affected. I expected to achieve smoky eyes with a dark brown pastel and the doll looked like she was dirty instead. Too much pressure, too little? I used varous brushes sizes with a similar result. No idea how to achieve mixed and clean shades around eyes or lips.

You'll eventually build up an arsenal of different brushes/tools for different jobs. I have multiple brushes I use for eyeshadow but only two I favour when I want to really pack on colour (small, squared-off shape with dense bristles). I know I can rely on these brushes to hold the pigment well but I've only found that out through experimenting with lots of different brushes and learning each one's personality. The dirty look comes from wiping instead of tapping. We say we paint heads but it's really like a buffing or tapping that applies the colour. Just isn't as self-explanatory in the lingo. You usually don't need a lot of pressure, just enough to lightly press the pigments into the sealant layer. I personally like to blow away excess dust (because using a brush might just wipe the dust into the sealant accidentally - which makes it look dirty) and if there's some stubborn excess I prefer to use a cotton bud (THE BEST TOOL) and "lift" off the dust bit by bit. I also recommend a kneaded eraser because it doesn't affect the sealant at all and is really good at taking away pastel dust. Side note: Are you wearing gloves when handling the head? The oils from our fingers can interfere with the pastels and cause them to smear and look dirty. Everything will stick to sealant just like everything will stick to your fingers. Combine the two surfaces and they like to exchange surprises which usually aren't "happy little accidents"

4. How do you erase watercolour pencils? When I applied magic eraser it made a white patch. It looked as if I removed whatever pastel build up was there along with sealant, but the pencil lines stayed. It came off only when I removed whole face-up with isopropyl alcohol.

A regular eraser or kneaded eraser is better because, and you made this experience, magic eraser will erase all the layers if used too long or too thoroughly. You want something that will only correct mistakes made on the surface of the last layer you sealed, and not break through your carefully built up layers. Since it's watercolour pencils, try using a cotton bud lightly tipped in water (should not be drenched) and gently wipe the pencil lines away. Water does not disturb sealant but watercolour pencils get reactivated when exposed to water so you should get them off this way. Be careful not to apply too much pressure though, because then you will break the sealant barrier and we never want that to happen.

5. Don't even start me on the acrylic paints. Is it possible to do a face-up without paint?

Absolutely. You can do a faceup completely with acrylics and you can do a faceup using no acrylics. It's all up to you and your style!

My earliest faceups were done without any paint:
Shine Like Fire
Darling Heather
Waves of Pink

A friend of mine did commissions for years using only pastels and pencils and her work is amazing:
Face-ups

OOF. That was a long one! 0.0
Hope any of this helped! Let me know if you have any more questions. Will be following out of interest.
Cheers!

 

When I used MSC, I used to let it dry 30 minutes between layers. MSC will come off with magic eraser, that is no surprise. I don't recommend using magic erasers for making a faceup unless it is 100% dry and you're using it very gently! Like a single pass over the resin, no scrubbing back and forth.

Yes, pastels build up slowly. My first few layers of pastel are very subtle and from a distance the head would look blank. Sealant is textured enough to hold some pastel pigment, but not textured enough to get the rich colors you would get using pastels on paper. Pastel quality does matter, but it's not a complete deal breaker (in other words, you CAN use cheap pastels to do a good faceup). A soft pastel is made of two components: the pigment (which is the color), and a binder (which holds the pastel in its shape; otherwise the pigment would simply be a pile of dust). In cheaper pastels, there is more binder and less pigment, because pigment is more expensive so by using less of it, that's how they can sell a cheaper pastel. More expensive pastels will have richer colors because they contain more pigment. And as you get into more and more pigmented pastels, the pastel sticks themselves will be more fragile. The most pigmented pastel that I know of is called PanPastel- they are not sticks, but in little pans like eyeshadow. They have so much pigment that they couldn't even hold themselves together in stick form, thus the pans.

TL;DR - if you'd like more color payoff, you need higher quality pastels. BUT you can use cheaper pastels and keep layering them, too.

Heh, I have this issue too! It's just the nature of pastels, the little specks get everywhere. With more practice you'll make less of a mess, but it still happens. I recommend a kneaded eraser, which you can sculpt into a point and use it to pick up any stray pastel smudges or specks. As for dark brown looking dirty, I suspect that you used the dark brown directly without any color underneath? Dark pastel colors will usually look grainy if you use them straight away. This is where layering comes in again. I always start off my faceups with the lightest colors, even in areas where I plan to use dark colors. I slowly build the colors up, which makes dark colors look soft and smoky rather than grainy and dirty. So to make dark red lips, I would do two layers of light pink, two layers of medium red, two layers of dark red, and maybe top it off with some black or brown in the mouth crease to create depth. This does involve spraying sealant over each layer. That sounds like a ton of work, and it is, LOL. But it's also worth it because after all those sealant layers, the faceup is more durable!

As for using brushes, the general technique is to dab the brush into the pastel dust (or rub on the pastel directly), wipe gently on a dry paper towel to remove the excess, then apply with a gentle dabbing motion. As the brush runs out of pastel, you can then softly swipe it around for some blending. Wiping excess pastel off the brush is important and will help reduce the amount of stray pastel dust.

It's been a long time since I used watercolor pencils, but I believe the preferred technique is to use a damp q-tip to clean up your lines. I had a lot of trouble using pencils, to be honest, which is why I made the difficult switch to acrylic paint (which was definitely worth the enormous learning curve).

Yes, it's possible. From my experience, using watercolor pencils is easier to get the hang of, but more effort to make it look perfect and more annoying to deal with mistakes. On the flip side, using acrylic paint has a big learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it's way easier to get excellent results.

I think there's two main reasons why people struggle with acrylic paint. One, they're not used to painting, so it's hard to make nice lines because their hand is shaking. This simply comes down to practice! If this is the case for you, I definitely recommend taking the time to paint one billion tiny lines on a headcap. Doing this will help you learn what position your hand is most comfortable in, and the repetition will make you more confident in the motions so you should hopefully get less wobbly lines. You will also have more stability with your hands if you have both hands resting on a surface. What I mean is, don't hold the doll's head up to your face with one hand and paint with your other hand just out there in the air. What I do is hold the head in my left hand, which is resting on the table. Preferably the head itself is also resting on the table. This way the head will NOT move. When I paint with my other hand, I will either have my forearm resting against the table edge, OR have my pinky out resting on the doll's face and I move the brush with my other fingers. If you're familiar with using cameras, you can compare this to taking a picture freehand or using a tripod. Photos taken freehand will often be blurry, because even when you hold as still as you can, the camera will still capture some motion. Whereas a tripod is more perfectly still than you can ever be. With faceups, resting your arms against a solid surface will make your hands more steady and your lines less wobbly.

The other big hurdle is using the right materials and getting the paint to be usable in the first place. First of all, you CAN NOT use acrylic paint straight out of the bottle/tube. You just can't. It'll be globby and thick and dry too fast and clump up your brush. You must thin it down with something, and although acrylic paint does thin with water, I don't recommend it. The paint will still dry very fast, and if you use too much water, it will bead on the surface of the resin. It's much better to use a paint medium that is designed to both thin the paint and slow its drying time (which is called retarder). Some commonly used mediums are Flow Aid or Slow Dri, but I prefer the Acrylic Color Thinner from Volks. I could literally be a salesman for this stuff, I love it so much. Here's a great video on how to dilute the paint to the best consistency. Like with the pastels, you should wipe some excess paint off before you use it (I think she demonstrates that in the video). And secondly, you'll have a much easier time with acrylic paint if you use the right brush. Don't use a round, not even a tiny one. What you need is a brush that's long, not necessarily tiny, because it will hold more paint which allows you to make lines without running out of paint. Brush sizes are not consistent between companies, but generally you want a "liner" type brush in size 0 or smaller (I use a 20/0). In Xhanthi's video that I linked earlier you can see what that kind of brush looks like. This is for painting eyebrow hairs, eyelashes, eyeliner, and also painting in creases like the eyelids or between lips. If you're filling in an area or painting freckles one by one, a very small round brush will work for that.

I don't protect inside the doll's head, heh! Eye sockets are prone getting pastel dust caught in them because they're just not finished to the same quality as the outside of the head. It's never bothered me, but if you're determined to get it out you can use a needle or something to try and remove it. But I recommend just accepting that the inside of the head won't be pristine. Even a big company like Volks gets airbrush overspray inside their doll heads, and they just leave it there. If you're really determined to keep it clean, you could wad up a paper towel and stick it in there.

 

As an artist who had a couple experiences with others being very ugly to me over minor pastel dust inside a head I had faceupped I will say that not all heads collect that extra color the same way. It really has to do with the shapes of the eyes and eyewells etc, and the type of makeup you are doing around the eyes and your techniques, just wanted to second that you can definitely stuff a little paper towel or tissue inside the eye well while you are working with pastels and that will definitely help to prevent most or all of that color overspill.
But if you don't feel like doing it just know that probably a lot of us secretly have a couple heads in our collections that look pretty sad and gross on the inside! This is true for me for heads I have had for many years and done many faceups on, because when you wipe a Faceup sometimes the inside gets very gross in that process too, and you have to then clean the entire inside of the head too and you think to yourself, do I actually care right now? (Sometimes no)

 

I've been trying to improve for years and used a lot of different things. Some things that are working for me right now:

1) Definitely a fan of the cotton ear buds, I don't face up without them. A little water on them and they erase very well.

2) Watercolors and watercolor pencils. A lot of times I'll wet the watercolor pencil and brush the color up off of it.

3) Golden High Flow Acrylics. They're pretty good straight out of the bottle or with a little bit of water.

4) Makeup brushes for pastels. They make it a lot easier to avoid saturated spots.

5) Makeup liner brushes for eyebrows and eyelashes. Or other liner brushes. I thought I needed short bristles for control, but I've come closest to the look I want with long bristles. I have to choke up on the ferrule for control, ymmv. Since the bristles are long, they usually hold enough paint to do one eye's eyelashes.

6) I don't have an airbrush, but when I had to do a pretty serious blush to match I had reasonably good luck with high flow acrylic and those triangular cosmetic sponges.

7) I have pan pastels and love them, but there is a learning curve. The first face up I did ended up looking sunburned!

 

I'm also not a professional, but I've done probably over 60 faceups and learned a few things the hard way

Like others, I would suggest investing in Panpastels. I bought a standard pastel pack at the start of the hobby and I haven't touched it since, Panpastels last an extremely long time and imo are much easier to use than stick pastels you have to shave. They're extremely fine and extremely pigmented, so in my experience they stick to the surface better and I only need to use the dust from the top of the container to get a good color payoff. And I just use cheap makeup (I think eyeshadow/eyeliner?) brushes for pastels, they seem to work the best.

As for using watercolor pencils, I agree with others to use water and a q-tip instead of any other sort of eraser. Also (you might already know this but I don't want to assume anything) I find it much easier if you're unfamiliar with the process to seal any pastels you've already put down with MSC so that you can retry your watercolor pencil lines as many times as you want without fear of messing up your pastel work beneath.

I also only use watercolor paints for faceups, and it's very possible to only use pastels and watercolor pencils! It will likely have a fuzzy "pencily" look, but in my experience that isn't always a bad thing.

As for keeping the inside of the head neat, I usually shove a piece of clean tissue in there while I'm working. Not a perfect solution, but for me it definitely keeps the inside of the head neater.

 

Its definitely hard to get the pastels to build up, but if you do it slowly in thinner layers then it seems to start making a difference. I mainly stuck with using acyclic paint with pastels for blush when i did my first face up and it seemed so heavy handed. Wipe it off a few weeks later and tried again and it looks so much better. Practice and time really helps, how much a difference it makes from even first to second try. Good luck for future faceups!

 

Acrylic painting is the hardest part for me so I lay down that first before any pastels. Although I do map out the brows in light pastel to get a shape I like before painting brow hairs. Yes, use flow aid/ acrylic thinner.

 

Speaking of flow aid/thinner which ones are good to get? I was planning on buying Arteza watercolor gouache paint and I heard that flow aid helps with keeping its opacity and having to do less strokes in the same spot.

 

You’ve gotten some very good advice already so I’m not going to add much other than to say that doing faceups is a steep learning curve and a very humbling experience. We’ve all gone through it and are always still going through it, you never stop learning from it and finding new techniques.
I’ve been doing the faceups on my dolls for well over a decade and still struggle with eyebrows, eyelashes and getting fine lines to look anything but wonky! In my case also my age doesn’t help as eyesight goes to hell once you hit middle age lol. It’s frustrating but worth the perseverance when things go according to plan so keep at it.

The only handy hints I have to offer are:

Take your time, it’s not a race, so if you feel you are struggling then stop and leave it for a day or maybe more. Come back to it with fresh eyes. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Don’t be upset if things don’t go to plan, I find they rarely do. If it seems to be going in a different direction don’t fight it, follow it and see where it takes you. Quite often it’s as if the doll is guiding you.

Even if you’re not completely happy try living with it for a while so you have time to figure out what looks right and what looks wrong. For example the first faceup I gave my Littlefee seemed a bit too grown up for her although I liked the way I did her eyes. The second attempt was much softer but didn’t feel right. It took me a while to realise that I missed the sulky expression that the first faceup gave her so the third attempt used some elements from both previous ones and that worked beautifully.

Smokey eyes and dark lips need to be built up plus they also need a base. Putting a really dark shade straight onto pale uniform flesh tones of a doll is going to look uneven, blotchy and scratchy. You need a mid tone under it not just as a base but also to help soften the edges and blend it into the skin tone.
Using black or charcoal grey pastel on top of the eyeliner you draw or paint on adds to that Smokey effect.
With dark lips use a natural lip colour as the base under your deep reds to give it depth and make sure you use a watercolour pencil to define the edges for a clean look.

Don’t be afraid of red for cheeks, lips and skin shading. It looks far more natural than pink (unless that’s the look you are aiming for). The trick is to use it very, very lightly and make sure you’re using the correct red according to skin tone. Pale ‘skin’ suits a red with a slight pink edge to it, yellower or light tan suits a scarlet red better.
After lightly dabbing my brush into the pastel I tap the brush to knock off any excess then dab it incredibly gently, barely touching the doll onto the cheeks and temples. I then use a clean soft human blusher brush to blend it. If I need it darker then I repeat the process. Usually I will then begin work on other areas of the faceup before going back to the cheeks, lips etc as you will only get the correct balance by on any part of the face by seeing it compared to the rest. What may look too bright or dark on its own may end up looking pale once you’ve added darker points such as eyebrows, eyeliner and lashes. Build things up slowly.

The most important tip though is to have fun, enjoy your dolls, embrace their characters and remember that as you change so will how you see them. That’s the beauty of this hobby, they evolve alongside you and you can change their look accordingly!

Good luck

 

I didn't know there was a flow aid for gouache paint but the Liquitex acrylic flow aid makes the paint transparent. You basically have to add a lot of water to the flow aid anyways.

 

Oh I just wanted to use gouache paint I don't think there is flow aid for it. I was just doing research before on Arteza paints in all that. I might just use watercolor acrylics instead and then use the flow aid for it. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

It's true that acrylic mediums like flow aid should only be used with acrylics, not gouache or watercolor. But, there is such a thing as "acrylic gouache", which is basically acrylic paint that looks like gouache. Sooo, if you get acrylic gouache, you can use flow aid with it I use an acrylic thinner with acrylic gouache and the results are fantastic. It definitely stays opaque better than regular acrylics, and it dries matte! If you ever want translucent lines, though, better to switch back to acrylics because you'd have to thin down the acrylic gouache a ton for the same effect.

 

Oh that sounds like what I want! So only use Flow aid with Acrylics and not with watercolor or just regular gouache paint. Seems like I'll get both Acrylic and Acrylic gouache...if I may ask what brand of acrylic gouache do you use? :O

I am quite new to these kinds of paints so that's why I wasn't sure about that XD
All of this is very helpful!

 

I use Holbein's "acryla" gouache. I originally got a set for doing paintings, but ended up using it for faceups too! It's expensive stuff but it's reeeeeally nice If I had bought them with the intention of only doing faceups, I probably would have just grabbed a few colors and mixed them rather than get a set.

 

Thank you! I should look into only getting a few since its mostly for faceups I'm going to try doing myself Xd