Aesthetics Tan Minifee Risse Faceup (second faceup)

Ahhh she looks so amazing! i adore those freckles and the little white dots!!!!!

 

Great job on this little one! Beautiful choice of eye lashes, really brings out her eyes Freckles on tan skin is so adorable, and you did a good job on the lips, which is a hard one for me too!

Now each faceup artist is different, but since I'm not a pro myself, I'm going to give you tips on how to improve the easy, less-stressful way!

First, your lines are too thick, especially around the eyebrows. Now eyebrows are the spawn of the devil in the faceup world lol, so I know how difficult they are. What I would suggest is getting a light coloured pastel, and map the shape you want on the face lightly. Build it up until you have a good enough overall brow shape. Only then you can start very lightly with your watercolour pencil drawing in the little hairs. I like the ends/tips of your brows, they are on fleek
Just as a tip for drawing hairs, I think its always easier and best to draw individual somewhat evenly spaced hairs at first, instead of drawing them on top of one another from the start. Does that make sense? You can always erase any mistakes that way, instead of fiddling with smudges because of the dark layers you created beforehand. After that, you can always bulk it up, but remember, it's always a good idea to show a little bit skin!

For the eye crease, the same applies, although you do not need to use pastels in this case. Sharpen your pencil to the point where it cannot be sharpened any longer (lol) and then gently draw them in. I think yours look excellent for a second faceup, you captured them perfectly and tapered them out nice, they just need to be a tad bit thinner.

Second, the white streaks/hairs. I see a lot of faceup artists do that, and I feel a lot of people try to incorporate that thinking their faceups will 'lack' something somewhat if it didn't include it. This is just a matter of taste of course, but I feel that the white hairs you drew on the eyebrows and bottom lashes really do not fit well with the overall aesthetic. Especially with tan dolls, white vs. black really creates strong contrast and draws in the eyes which in some cases may not be ideal. I would suggest using a shade lighter than the color of the brows, which may help create the illusion of individual hairs whilst not contrasting it too much, or leaving it out completely and just showing a bit of skin like previously mentioned.

You're really brave for attempting freckles here, I can never do that, too much of a chicken :-P Did you use pencils to draw them in? I have read some people using the watercolors and a toothpick technique, which I'm sure you'll find easily on Google, for their BJDs and Blythes and it looks fantastic because watercolours are diluted and have different transparencies or shades, just like real freckles! I think you have a good idea of that since your freckles incorporate that element as well.

Also, excellent lining on the inside of the lips, doesn't look bulky or as if she ate some chocolate, haha. Clean and thin line, perfect! You may have also added a few more white lines on the lips, or like I suggested before, a shade lighter than the lip color, which is a safer way to go, for a more realistic feel.

One thing that can make tan girl faceups really POP is the use of highlights. Instead of white/normal skin dolls where contouring in a darker shade redefines their face, tan girls need highlights. To do that, pick a soft white pastel and apply it on the brow bone (under the ends of eyebrows), under-eye and cheek area (just a little above where the blush would go) and anywhere else where lights hits the face the most, which can also be the temple, bridge of the nose and chin. Obviously one should always use this technique in moderation, just as some people can overdo contouring and blushing on white skin dolls, this can have its faults. Just takes a little bit of practice :-) Contouring on darker dolls is also a good idea, although that would be in different areas (upper jawline, jawline, sides of the temples etc.) You can always check real makeup techniques to learn from them as well, they are dolls based on human aesthetics after all~ The more countouring/highlighting, the more it would look great in photos and the doll looks realistic.

I'm sorry for the super long post, and I hope you don't take these tips in the wrong way or anything, and hope that they were helpful to you and anyone else reading this. Wishing you the best of luck in your faceup ventures :3

 

I'm glad you found my tips helpful, Inklet ^^

For a good pencil sharpener, I use those big manual rotating ones, and they sharpen my pencils really good! I absolutely love it! I can't seem to get them as sharp using a normal sharpener. With everything though, there is a pro and a con, in this case, the downside is it will eat up your pencil pretty fast if you're not careful haha! xD Just sharpen it a little and stop to examine it as it does the job pretty well and doesn't take too long, and with practice you'll get the hang of it. Also, you may find it tiring to do it manually in which case you can always get the electric automatic sharpener like a pro, lol! ;P

Looking forward to seeing your next faceups! Good luck!