Faceups Making a doll look older with faceup

(Caveat: I'm a faceup newbie and still learning a lot about painting faces.)

I went in the opposite direction - turning a doll from older to younger.

This is Justinian (Dollstown Mui) in his first faceup, it was done by another faceup artist. I thought it made him look too old for his character.




This is his new faceup done by me, I was deliberately making him younger. He's wearing the same eyes, wig and shirt as above.



What I think are the differences. "Older" Justinian has...
- More brown, natural blushing that is closer to the resin colour. A pinker/brighter blushing suggests youthfulness.
- Less/thinner/more subtle eyeliner overall, so that makes his eyes look smaller and more mature. The older faceup had dark lower eye rim which narrows the eyes. In the younger faceup, I painted the lower eye rim in a white colour - this opens up his eyes to make them appear bigger. Maybe also paint fewer eyelashes - anything that decreases emphasis to eyes.
- Less emphasis on lips and more natural lip colours -- whatever makes them look thinner and less full.

Besides faceup... Give the doll smaller eyes than what they typically wear. Smaller irises looks mature. Justinian wears 16mm eyes in the above photos. Below is him in 14mm eyes with the old faceup.




I'm still a faceup newbie, but I think I succeeded in making Justinian look younger. I hope this gives ideas of how to make your doll older.

 

I'll link some more references later from other artists too, but generally you want to enhance age by blushing shapes and setting subtle lines. You basically try to fake the wrinkles and saggy muscle folds.

A good way to do that is to focus on the area around the eyes, the nasial fold (that line going from nostril to mouth corner), and forehead. You first block in the shapes via the pastel blushing, and then in the next shape you enhance the look by putting a "harder" painted on line on top. It's done in human makeup the same way, you just need to be careful not to overdo it.

I give that treatment to most of my dolls at least in a subtle way, because they're usually people in their mid 30s and older...and most dolls barely push the 25 mark
Here are my Iplehouse Lawrences:




Or my Granado Andrew:


You can also really really push this.
For example, here the original Dollits Miso: Miso Head - DOLLITS

And a painted one:
Age is but a number

It really helps to look at references while working too. Have some photos up from aged people and try to emulate what you see.

 

You could check out how others have done the faceups for this sculpt, I found this one in Google Images and it looks like something you could try to emulate for an older look: img_6029.jpg (768×768) (wordpress.com)

Things like elongating the eyes and darkening the sockets, thick eyebrows and emphasising the cheekbones and jawline.

 

I added texture, light wrinkle and hint of beard on my Oswald. I wanted him to look around 40.
/threads/first-male-faceup.863475/#post-13078232

Please pardon me for my skill, this was my first male faceup.

 

Great information in this thread. I wonder if the same applies to age the younger looking female sculpts. I sense a search wormhole in my future.