Aesthetics My first face-up ~ Dollzone MSD

Your faceup looks really neat! ^^ (Especially considering I haven't attempted one myself yet, just body blushing) I do agree you were probably a little heavy-handed with the red and pink tones for his skin tone, maybe next time temper it with a little more peach? Or even play with some tans or beiges instead That's my two cents.

 

Very nice first face-up! I think that overall it has a good effect. I would agree that yes, your application of colored blushing around the eyes and on the lips is very saturated, but I do not think this is bad. I personally prefer face-ups with more vibrant color to face-ups that are too minimal. There are different styles of painting which successfully use colors and vibrancy of each color differently.

To address your question about watercolor: typically watercolor is not recommended for face-ups. I am one of the few people (as far as I see when I look through threads here) to recommend trying watercolor on face-ups. I personally use it for all the line work (lip lines, lashes and eyebrows) on my face-ups and it works well for me, but yes, it can be very hard to make the watercolor adhere to the face-up surface. This behavior of the paint corresponds to the type of watercolor and sealant that you are using. My advice is to keep experimenting with the watercolor if you are interested in using it, but if you find that it's too frustrating for you it may be better to try something else instead (as you have already done). Almost everybody uses acrylic paint. You want your materials to work with you, not against you, if possible.

My advice if you want to keep trying watercolors is to add only the minimum amount of water needed to your paint (to allow it to flow without creating dry brush effect). Diluted watercolors are almost impossible to use whereas watercolor used with less water will adhere more easily.

 

@kumori13 I don't know what brand of watercolors you are using but here's my suggestion. Look around for the small tubes of academic watercolors like Grumbacher and Cotman, and see if you can find colors really close in value and saturation to the finished color you want on your face-ups and buy those to use. They are the cheapest tube watercolors and something about their formula works better than more expensive watercolors for me. HWC brand is more expensive but it should also work really well, I think that brand still exists. They have a broader selection of colors which may be helpful. You definitely want to try to get colors closest to your desired finished color.
For painting with watercolor on paper it's often pointless to buy these highly specific tints (lighter versions of darker or more saturated colors) because of the transparency when diluted with water, but when painting on the face-up it's a little different. If you want to be able to "erase" if you make a mistake watercolor is the way to go on your face-ups. But it will probably require some practice to figure out how to make it adhere best.
I just want to reassure you that it's possible, and if you can make it work it's great. But it may or may not be something you like. I hope you can have some fun while trying to figure out how it works!

 

I absolutely adore the faceup - you did a wonderful job !! I do like the bold colors! Especially the lower eyelashes look really good - I have done multiple faceups and still cant get them right xD. Though I use watercolor pencils for them which may not be ideal (I suck with brushes). However watercolor pencils are easy to remove > a bit of water on a Q-Tip and you can wipe it off easily. As for Watercolor: I have not tried those - but I will be trying gouache (which is also water based and should thus be removable in the same way as watercolor pencils). I also have a black vial of acrylic, but I am a bit nervous about those, as I am not confident yet in my strokes.

Looking forward to seeing more faceups from you !!

Cheers,
Knopf

 

This is so good for a first faceup! I really love how it turned out The blush is pretty extreme, but that's not necessarily a bad thing and plenty of people do it on purpose as a stylistic choice. I think it looks super cute with the orange hair. I'm not sure there's anything I would criticize on your faceup; you picked really good colors and blended them nicely, and the painted eyebrows and lashes came out well. All I can say is to keep painting faceups, and you'll only get even better!

About regretting your blush, though, I often find that it's easy to go overboard with blush. I think it's due to the order in which we did the steps- like you, I do pastel first and paint the details afterwards. In order to avoid going overboard with the blush, I do most of the blushing first... but I stop before I think it looks "done". So when I get to a point where I think, "Ah, just a little bit more..." that's when I stop, and then I do the painted parts. After I've painted in the eyebrows, eyelashes, etc, I feel like it's easier to see the balance of the face, and sometimes I didn't need that extra blush after all. But, if you do end up wanting more blush, it's easy to add more. I try to think that way when doing faceups in general... it's better to do less, think on it, and add more later, than to keep adding and adding and wishing you could take it back later!

I don't use watercolor on faceups but I imagine it's a little finicky. I use acrylic paint. Once it's dry, it is pretty difficult to remove, so if I'm going to remove it I do it before it's dry. Acrylic paint straight out of the tube is too thick and gloppy for painting thin lines, and it dries quickly, so you have to use some kind of paint thinner or medium with it. There are a lot of acrylic mediums available, and everybody has their own preference. Generally you want something that will make the paint more liquidy, and I recommend one that also slows down the drying time. That is how I can fix mistakes before the paint dries- my paint medium (which is Volks acrylic thinner) slows down the drying time quite a lot. So if I paint a whole eyebrow, look at it, and decide it's horrible I can take a damp q-tip and wipe it away easily! (Xhanthi made a really helpful video about diluting acrylic paint - as you can see, the paint becomes thin like watercolors.)

 

I think this is amazing, especially for a first faceup! As you already said, yes, I think the only problem is with the blush being too heavy- perhaps another thing that could help is not using only reds for the blush, but mix in different colors too, like soft oranges, yellows, and blues? (though it's best to go easy with the yellow/oranges, or you risk it being too bright)

 

Wow I love it !

 

I'm new to the hobby and have only done one face up - I found eyebrows to be the hardest parts and you've done a great job. O, and love the purple fuzzy gloves you used during the face up. Makes my latex gloves seem so boring . . .

 

I really like how even the lashes are - I always ed up redoing them cause my hands shake. The face up is lovely in my opinion, love the different brow colors - I got that tip from an artist long ago and it has proven to be very useful. I know there is a lot of blush there, but I noticed that DollZone really like overdoing that and somehow it seems to work, and I think it works in this case too.
To be honest, my first face up was TERRIBLE, and I mean it. Your work is like too good to be true, haha
Keep it up, would really like to see some of your work in the future

 

He definitely does look very red, which makes him look a bit sick, but personally I love the way that looks? Maybe that's just me ahaha. But overall I think it looks absolutely gorgeous! Especially the lips, lashes, and brows.

 

The reds in the blushing really make the eyes pop. I love the redness in the face and how it goes with the pout. So darling

 

Your first faceup is amazing! I like your style ♥
and yeah....I'm waiting to see some of your work in the future

 

First face up? Wow!
It looks great!

 

Wow he's gorgeous! I might just even up the lip a little bit (there's a little too much color on the right side) but I'm a perfectionist.

 

I was going fo say for a first face up this is amazing. This looks like something dollzone would be selling. They tend tend to go for the over blushed redness look.
For a first effort, I would say bravo. I have never tried to do a face up yet so I can't offer any critiques, but I just wanted to say wow! Well done indeed!