Painting Freckles

very nice tutorial....thank you







Katinka

 

ooh what I did was
I took pastel, and shaved them into a fine power and mixed different ones until I got the color I wanted.
Then I mix just a drop of water into them to make something that kinda looked like paint.
After that I took a really fine brush, rolled it into the mixture, and just dotted where I wanted the freckles.

They same out soo smooth and natural looking!

Good luck!~

 

I just got a free MSD head (thanks eBay for nice £5 off codes) and I found these tutorials really, really interesting! I have no plans for a character for this floating head, so I'm going to try and do my first face up and I love freckles. I really liked the idea of the baby toothbrush spatter effect, I tried that once with human make-up for a girlish-look and it looked really good

 

This thread is so useful. : D I want to have a ginger-kid for my next doll, and was interested in doing some freckingly.

Great advice, and inuchick's tutorial on page 2 is great. (:

 

well, I worked up the courage to do the freckles on my puki today. It was a lot easier than I first thought it would be, In fact i think it would be easier than doing it on a big doll!
How I did it was.. Mixed up the paint to the colour I wanted and watered it down, but not so it was translucent, just runny enough that it didn't "glob" on to my brush. I bought the finest brush I could find and put the paint on it but blotted it a bit on paper first so there wasn't too much paint on it. Then tiny dots over the nose and cheeks, but just a few at a time (3-5) and then blot with a tissue. If you want them darker then leave them on a bit longer, but not too long. I got a tissue and slightly wet it and gently blot some of them if they were too dark, but don't do this too much because it smears them and it looks like he has a dirty face instead of cute little freckles!
And this is how it turned out! (they are actually quite dark in the photo, but in real, not as dark and quite subtle. Dont forget how tiny these little pukis are!)

 

Fantastic tutorial. I'm going to give it a try when my Sist, Abby, comes home.

 

These tutorials that involve acrylic paint and pastel are making me nervous especially because I don't know exactly what shades, colors and brands of paint I should be using. My hands are very unsteady and just the smallest mistake will freak me out. Me + super tiny paintbrush = potential disaster. ><
Will a magic eraser really rub them off? I'm also a bit worried about messing up my doll's face-up as well because I don't know just how easily they rub off... advice/info/enlightenment please? :c

 

I love a doll with freckles *is heavily freckled* so i wish you lots of luck.

 

I love freckles! My dream boy (who is as yet still a dream) has freckles. I want a less even, natural look for him that includes the rosy patches true freckly redheads have. Are there face-up artists that specialise in redhead complexions/freckles?

 

Something that may also help(and I didn't see it in here), remember that freckles show up when a pale person goes in the sun too long. Make freckles darker in the areas where a sunburn shows up first... down the nose, across the cheek bones, on the chin.

If you're going for the whole body, darker on the nose, cheek bones, shoulders, and on the tops of the arms, and lighter other places. A little blushing on the areas where the freckles are the darkest for a natural look.

 

I think the tooth brush method works the best, it looks real and they aren't too big, just dont' use dark, thick paint. if they are too big they will look like moles.

 

I just chickened out and gave Hansel freckles with a watercolor pencil. Honestly they look perfectly fine to me and they're easy to remove/replace, just had to make sure the pencil didn't slip and make a little mark rather than a dot when I tapped it on his face. They're really small freckles so they're almost impossible to see in photos, especially with my crappy camera. :[

You can see them if you look really REALLY closely. D:

 

This is really cool! When I get Aaron and his other head (They were bought separately) I'm totally giving him freckles!!! I'll put up pics here when I'm done!

 

heres Maddy... I used pastel and watercolor pencils.

 

I usually just use a brown water color pencil for little freckles and it works really well but I did try using thinned paints and this is the result.



the light ones are paint and the few really dark ones are watercolor.

 

Vitya used to have freckles and a couple moles, but I ended up removing them- they would look nicer on a SD or a MSD girl than they did on him. The freckles were just really watered down acrylic actually dotted onto a paper towel and once onto paper, and *then* onto the resin, and the moles were painted directly on with the same watered down stuff and let dry that way.

 

Where is the tutorial??? I'd love to see it!!!

 

I used a water colour pencil in light brown to make freckles on Newt. I just dotted them on. They came out in different sizes and shades.

 

I had the perfect paint color for them I used a toothbrush

 

christy your freckled doll is gorgeous! you did an awesome job!

 

You can pretty much get the same effect from using paint or pencils. Pencils are way more forgiving, so I would definitely recommend them to newbies. Here's a couple of tips if working with paint. If you mess up a freckle, use the end of a toothpick to gently pick the offensive spot away and then redo the freckle in the same spot. Never use a magic eraser on the area, or it'll rub off most of the underlying MSC. I also have a little trick to make them look more natural. Thin your paint and draw up the tiniest amount onto your brush. Lightly dot the tip of the brush on the face, then press it with your fingertip for just a moment. The warmth makes the paint blend in and it looks more natural. I honestly prefer pencil, though. It's just easier and it's much lighter than paint, offering an almost transparent illusion. Here's a pic of a Dollstown Elysia that I just freckled with watercolor pencils by Faber-Castell (#187 and 188)

 

Oh man, this helps immensely. Thank you I had been worrying about freckles for a while now, glad to have finally searched it and found something I can accomplish

 

Try using a raw sienna and a little bit of a goldenrod (very little-just to give it a little bit more warmth) color and use an ITSY-BITSY TEENY brush. That should help a lot.

 

I used the paint flicking method that's been mentioned a few times in this thread for Teagan's faceup:



It worked really well, and resulted in really realistic-looking freckles. I didn't use a toothbrush, since it would have been too large to use on such a tiny face, so I used one of my larger paintbrushes.

Here's how I did it:

--mix the color of paint desired (I didn't want Teag's freckles to be too dark since she's WS)
--water the paint WAY down
--test the color on a piece of white computer paper (I figured it would be a close enough substitute for seeing how the color would work with her white skin)
--dip the dry paintbrush in the watered down paint and flick it at the paper (this is to get the hang of the flicking technique and to test the freckle patterns, as well as to get excess paint off the bristles)
--once comfortable with the technique, gently flick the paint (the brush should feel mostly dry at this point) at the SEALED face at a distance of about 6-8 inches away
--if you get a blotch you don't like, carefully blot it with the tip of a paper towel and it will come right up if you get to it immediately
--continue flicking until you get the density of freckles you want (Teag's freckles took me all of five minutes to finish)

You can concentrate the paint in one area (like the bridge of the nose), but natural freckles tend not to be clustered only in one spot. For smaller freckles, move farther away from the face, for larger ones, move closer. Whatever you do, start with a light spattering and add to it rather than try to get it all in one go.

I did the freckles before the rest of the faceup, because I thought it would look more natural since they're technically supposed to be part of the skin. Also, doing the freckles before the rest of the faceup allows you to remove them if they're just not cooperating and you won't have lost any other faceup work. You can flick paint at your paper to your heart's content until you really get something that you like and not have to worry about ruining your doll.

Since I'm rehoming Teagan into a LittleFee, I'll be doing her freckles again using the paint flicking technique again.

 

Here are my Ryu twins that I am working on right now (one is WS and the other NS). They are both natural red heads so naturally they would have freckles. What I use is pastels. First I start with blushing the area with a bit of orange. Then I take a small small brush and apply little dots randomly. Then when I am finished with the brown in all the spots I wasnt freckles in, then I put orange on my brush and go back over the dots (only one stroke is necissary) with the orange. Then if any of them come out too dark I go over that spot a little with the magic eraser. Works perfectly for me and I think it looks good. Excuse the pictures, they were taken with my phone.






(I see now after taking my pics that Vincent needs a little less blushing on the left cheek)

 

I really want to do freckles on my incoming girl now!

 

When I get my doll, I'll give her freckles. I find it gives them more... character.

 

wow, the tutorial is so helpful!
even though i ordered my doll with freckles already, if i want to add more, i'll be sure to follow this tutorial!

 

I've done a few freckle jobs, just did some beauty marks on my Lupin. I use the same method as for freckles, just darker brown.

1. First use very watery acrylic to make faint brown marks where you want the freckles/moles. Sort of a base freckle. They shouldn't be all the same size and you can use a q-tip to make some fainter then others.

2. Go over with less watery paint to give depth to each freckle, you want to keep the fainter paint showing a little around the edges to soften each freckle. Use the q-tip again for different strength of freckle.

If you work around the freckles randomly, you can take advantage of your brush running out of paint to get a more random natural look.

I would also add: before you start freckling, check over the doll's faceup for any pastel smudges or freak specks. I did not do this once and ended up with some rather avant garde freckling.

 

I first applied a light dot with a water color pencil to show where i wanted them to be, because it is easier to erase the pencil mark then paint.
I used terra cotta + white + a tiny bit of brown accrylic paint and watered in way down.
I dipped a very very fine brush into the paint, you could also use the head of a pin.

then went over most of the dots i made with the pencil. (i didn't go over all of them so it looked more realistic)


She also has faint freckles on her forehead and chin.

 

Sorry the photo was too big... it wont let me resize it... grr

 

I've done my first faceup ever yesterday, and tried the freckles just for the fun of it. Blushed the base with pastels, then applied some light dots with pastels on a very small brush, and some stronger dots with watercolor pencils. Worked nicely, and the freckles look way better than eyebrows and lashes, oh well. Everyone has to start somewhere...

 

I didn't realize I was getting a whiteskin, so now I'm not sure about freckles anymore. How hard is it to add really subtle freckles to an existing faceup? With her fair skin, she'd be like me and get a few freckles in the sun. I also want to put some on her shoulders. My concern is that they'll look way out of place with her pure white skin and her light pink faceup. Thanks!

~Angelkitty

 

Can I add freckles/beauty marks to an already existing faceup and not seal it afterwards?

I'm generally happy with her the faceup, and won't ever try my hand at a full faceup so I don't want to have to buy all the stuff, I'd just like to give her face a little more character. I'd also like to be able to remove it without wiping the whole faceup.

 

I did some freckles on my AS Gus boy I mostly used acrylic paints mixed with water and made sure I only had a little amount of paint on the brush. I tried using watercolor pencil but I just couldn't get the result I wanted with them.

Next time I'm going to try softening the freckles with some pastel.

 

I thought I would put in my new boy Cecil the frecklefaced opossum eater.



I went for a more natural look of as my friend calls it the irish spotting plauge.

I used tan and umber diluted way down and a soft brush. After i had touched it in to the pain I would gently set it against a paper towel letting most of the water absorb in to the paper towel then start making the freckles. I did it in several layers.

 

All these freckles are so cute.
Makes me want to try some out on my new boy. xD

 

I used brown acrylic paint thinned with clear medium; I just dipped a damp toothbrush in it and flicked. They turned out really nice; I dabbed a few odd-shaped ones off with a q-tip.




I'm doing her upper torso tomorrow; I ran out of natural light before I got to her neck. XD

 

I've used this method with a baby sized toothbrush and gotten great results. It took some experimenting to mix the right color and consistency, but I finally got it.
Here is what I ended up with.


In person, there are many more freckles and they are super tiny. I like that they are proportionate to her size.

To get a higher concentration of freckles in certain areas, I masked off some areas with artist's tape and flicked away. After everything dried, I removed the tape and gently erased some of the out freckles with a magic eraser so they didn't look like they were cut off so sharply.

 

I do mine with a light tan/rust and darker brown watercolor pencil. I'll usually do around 3 to 4 layers, tapping with the pencil and wet Q-tipping most of them, tapping and Q-tipping, until you get a really faded look. Generally if I make one too big, I'll fade it so it looks almost like a wider sunspot, rather than just a freckle. Adds realism!

 

Adding subtle freckles isn't really hard, you just need to pick the right color and thin it out enough so that it doesn't look too extreme on her. I don't think they'd look out of place if you did it right.

I actually did all of my freckles for Ruari over her default face-up. I sealed it very well before I started so that even if I messed up, her face-up would be fine. I also sprayed between each layer of freckles. She ended up getting sprayed so much that you could barely see her face-up. I ended up having to almost redo it anyway, but at least her old one was there to act as a guide. Even is you seal it after wards, you can still get rid of the freckles and not the face-up if you so choose to. If you clean her slowly and carefully, then it shouldn't be too hard to get just the freckles off.

So, simple answer is: yes

 

I will have to practice with some of these suggestions i've read about here on actually painting freckles. Right now, I use water color pencils, light pressure and lots of time xD

Shaant will gladly represent ;3

 

I've never done any faceup work at all bubt am thinking about getting out the acrylics and havin a go at some freckles... My lati juast has the original faceup she came with (which is a bit boring at the mo) so if I add freckles and more makeup to her, but mess it up is it going to ruin her? Is it easy to get acrylic paint off without damaging her?

 

As long as you seal her very well before adding to her face-up you shouldn't have a problem removing any acrylic or blush you put on her.

 

Okay, I highly suggest using a light brown watercolor pencil instead, freckling the doll, and then running over the freckles with a tiny bit of water to soften them.

you will get freckles like this: http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=301785

It was so easy and without the stress of using paint.

 

I love freckles. I want to try some! What great ideas.

 

Freckles I did for my girl using a small brush, watercolors and Q-tips

 

Wow! Amazing freckles!

 

Great freckles. They look so natural..

 

one more from me ^^

 

I do the toothbrush method and then go over a few with a small paint brush.
I like light freckles the best. I will be doing one in the near future that will be getting very heavy freckling on her face and body.
I will try to remember to post pics here when she is done!






Almost forgot, I did a couple with just a paintbrush and thinned acrylics without the toothbrush. The toothbrush is good for more natural, real looking freckles, but I not so much for stylized, cutesy freckles:



Sorry for such a pic heavy post!

 

Done using the toothbrush-flicking method. I used masking tape to make sure I only got it in areas I wanted, then used a magic eraser to make it look less harsh around the edges.


Edit:
just gave my girl a new face this weekend~
Used the same method as above

 

I cannot figure how to post a pic but believe this will link you to my first face-up and freckles. If anyone knows how to post the pic right here please let me hear from you. I am new to all of this and sure could use help.http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad105/countrygirl_212/001.jpg

 

I used the "toothbrush-flicking method" and q-tips.
For the birthmarks I used a very fine pencil.
(She is going to be a redhead but her red wig hasn´t arrived yet..)



large picture: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3572/3547339920_0fe86abbdc_b.jpg



large picture: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3544/3546534105_4c42563e32_b.jpg

 

Still trying to insert a pic.

 

I've continued using the same paint-dab method that I illustrated a little further back in the thread, and honestly, I still really love the results it produces. This is my most recent freckled face, a re-do of my Limho's previous look. This time, his freckles are much more abundant, and much lighter (though in real life, they are darker than what you see in the picture). I want to try the toothbrush method someday, but I'm afraid I won't get as delicate a look, which is very important to me for a head this small.

 

I know its hard to see on my photos, but the first layer of freckles I do is always very light and delicate. Its almost like a mist really. It really all depends on the consistency of the paint, how much is on the brush and how close you are spraying.

I think the ones you have done this time look very nice and suit the face and sculpt.

 

Cool!! I love having freckles on dolls!

 

My first mod of a bjd, I kind of like it might change it a bit here and there and it has helped me to bond more with this girl since before she just didn't look right! now I feel like we're getting there.

I used watercolours a small brush and a Qtip , they don't look this strong irl though ^^