Questions about Lovelyhouse Dolls and basic customization

Don't have a Lovelyhouse - but thought I could address some of your questions from another total newbie who was also deathly afraid

Unless sanding is vastly different from mfg to mfg - I found disassembling, cleaning with soap and water and then sanding, cleaning agin with soap and water and then sanding, cleaning again and then sanding and then soaking was pretty good! Did I mention sanding?Cleaning? I chose to use a medium sand paper(backed with sponge - sells at Homedepot and at Michaels as well as Joannes) followed by a soaking, then sanding with fine, followed by cleaning and soaking, followed by extra fine - you get the picture - to yeild wonderful results on the 3 types of dolls I have tried it on.(Lust/Volks/Unoa) The final phase I used a paper towel with baking soda toothpaste. Then of course washing!

Stringing, I thought was gonna be just horrible - very sure I was gonna "break" my doll. It was a pain in the a@@, but not horrible. I occasionally let go of the elastic(means restring parts you thought you had ) and managed to get the wrong parts on the wrong side of the body. But after about the 5th time - got the hang of it. Helps to have( I would say MUST have!) a thin piece of wire(24 gauge or so) to pull the ealstic through with. Also helps if someone can assit you at holding something while you are trying to pull the elastic through. My kids were more of a hindrance than a help(think let go elastic and crack up laughing as the pieces fall to the floor - cover by a towel!) SO I did them all by myself.

As for [painting - I have NEVER painted with acrylics and have NEVER used chalks. As in NEVER!!!! Yes they work - for me it was much of a experiment. Acetone, soap and water as well as a good brush cleaner are your friends! If you don't like it, wash it off and start again..and again, and again!!!!! I won't tell you how many times or how long it took me to do just lips Did I mention I have NEVER painted period!

The trick I found was go 10x lighter than you think and then lighten it again. Especially with the pastels, you can go over it to get the depth, if you go too dark, just wash it off and start again. This assumes you have coated your doll before hand. Im my humble estimation an absolute must. Once you have something you like - coat it a few times and start to work on the next part. The paints really do work. For me, I found that I liked the paints for the eyes and base lips. Everything else I did in chalk. Oh and eyebrows too.

I found you cannot have too small of a paint brush - 10/0 for me was not fine enough, have a couple of 18/0's I bought and just recently purchased 20/0's. Found I used the 18/0's almost exclusively, except I had a real nice 10/0 flat that I used to "paint" off color. I am sure there is some artist term for this

And most of all - enjoy the experience!!!You are creating your work of it. I found it very rewarding sanding (as tedious as that coudl be) when I assmebled my dolls again and could see the beautiful results...Of course you can feel them as well. In my humble opinion - this truly makes the doll your own.

Good Luck and Enjoy!!!
Therese

 

4.) I use both liquitex acrylics and chalk pastels when doing faceups ^^:
5.) The smallest paintbrush I can find XP
7.) Online is your best bet. Domuya stocks it as well as some US shops. If you google it you should be able to find some O_o

 

Um, I'm curious... why sand your dolls?

I've heard lovelyhouse seams sand off very easily. Sanding period is very easy, just start with a semi-fine paper and work up to a really fine grit.
Also, having dis-assembled and re-assembled Kuro, it's REALLy easy - my biggest thing was keepping track of his left and right lower legs. ^^;;

 

Some dolls have just _awful_ shim lines. Neither of my boys did, CP seems to sand theirs and got Ane from the wonderful gothic librarian and she had already sanded him. However, I did get to see my nee-chan's MSD ken before she had sanded him. The shim lines on his hands were really pronounced. DOD seems to sand their dolls too as Deunan was amazingly clean. We'll see shortly about our paris's... parises... pari-sai?

 

Hee hee hee. Therese wrote "lust" instead of "Luts."

 

I know I have said otherwise before, but I stand corrected after having experimented, and my boyfriend told me the following, he does a lot of sanding and repaint work on cars...

When sanding a smooth and hard surface like resin to get rid of imperfections like sealines, you should sand back and forth and NOT in a circular motion. The circular motion will result in a matter/duller surface and the skintone may appear lighter. Start sanding with a 120 or 240 grit paper, then 3-500, then 7-800, then 1000-1200, and maybe finish off with toothpaste or some other mildly abrasive polishing agent. Using wet/dry sandpaper is a good idea - keep the paper and surface being sanded wet while you sand, and keep a clean rag with you so you can wipe the surface clean to check progress. Wet sanding greatly reduces dust, but you will still need to soak and scrub the parts when you are done, as resin-dust seems to crawl and hide into cracks, like between the fingers and toes of the doll.

Another thing, try to keep the left hand side and right hand side parts in separate containers so they dont get mixed up.

- Therese

 

I too like to wet sand. It reduces the dust and somehow I think it goes faster.

 

I think CP must save up their most horrible seam lines just for me. If you have to dry sand - try getting hold of a tacky cloth. You can buy them in hardware stores and they're designed to remove dust. Perfect!

 

I'm wondering, are you going to take off the face-up or something? because you bought the same thing as me (except i got shincho) and he comes with a face-up already. I would leave the face-up they gave you on, because it takes alot of practice/experiance to do a really nice one. And LH does a really nice job on face-ups.

To answer some of your questions:

1. I have a lovely house, and I was dissapointed at the body. When mine came some things were strung loosley/tightly. Some people (me included) have received ours with little bits of glue on it. I have only a little on the hands, and it came off with water. So its not really a problem. (I replied to your other topic about sanding, so read about it there.)

4. As I said before, I suggest you take it with hte face-up they give you. unless you have someting really specific or something your want.. usually they will ask you what kind of face-up you want. or if they didn't, you can mention it to them.

Please post pics when you get him! and ask anything else you didn't get answered yet!

 

Sorry to intrude on someone else's post, but I have a couple of questions too, since I ordered a ShinB girl from them.

1) How long was it since you received an e-mail about your order from them? I first contacted LovelyHouse with my order just over 2 weeks ago, and paid for the order 1 1/2 weeks ago, and I still have not gotten any sort of communication from them about the order. I've heard a lot of good things about the person who runs LovelyHouse ... I believe her name is Mink .... but this lack of communication is driving me crazy!

2) How long did it take for you to receive your doll once you paid for it? (Anyone who's ordered from them can answer.)

The dolls are just so beautiful. I'm anxiously awaiting a response from LovelyHouse at this point.

 

Hmmm. I have a feeling this was the wrong post to ask such questions.