Your first sanding?

The only facial sanding I've ever done was just to blunt Mitchell's pointy nose a little, but if you go slow, it should be difficult to do anything too drastically wrong. ^_^;;
That said, you are far braver than I to be planning such a dramatic sanding job, and on an expensive head, too. Good luck with it!

 

Hehe, I feel your pain.. I've been very tempted to take some sandpaper to a Heath, after seeing Chandra's Vince for auction -- all the things about Heath I didn't like had been sanded away on him. XD But I look at it this way; like Shan said, if you go slow, you should be okay, and also.. if you make a major mistake, you (or someone you commission) could probably take some apoxie and fix it. X3 It might be hard to recreate the original Heath, but that's not what you want anyway, so... ops:

 

I was TERRIFIED. I sanded Alyssa (Unoa Sist)'s face to get the shininess off and to remove her under-eye bags. I was so scared that I was going to mess something up somehow.
Just take it slow, stop often to look at your work from different distances and angles and be careful.

 

Heh, I'm in nearly the same position. I want to modify my Heath too. He looks so close to the way I want but his upper lip is just all wrong for Jeremie...

But I don't know if I can take it slow... Looking at him right now, I can't see any way to do the lip work well with a piece of sandpaper. How do you use paper on such a tiny area as the dimple on the upper lip? I went to one of the Volks general stores last month (well in advance of his arrival ops: ) to check their rotary sanders and in fact they do carry a couple of models which have very tiny bits meant specifically for detail and polishing work on soft plastic. It's the perfect tool but it goes so quickly that it seems really easy to make a mistake.

And I absolutely don't want to replace Jeremie's head. It's not the money, although I certainly wouldn't like to spend that much for a new Heath head. It's that the way he arrived, it feels like he and no other Heath was meant to be my Jeremie.

 

I did a little bit at a time and would stop. Ane's gone under the knife about six times. Each time I took JUUUST a little off until I found how I liked him. :3

 

When I do heavy sanding, I do a little at a time, over several days, trying to keep the left-to-right balance even. I stop if I get bored or frustrated and come back the next day.

For heavy customisation, I recommend the Cera Canna to speed things up, but you will still need to sand lots afterwards.

 

My first attempt left my old f-07 without an upper lip. Years later, I took a dremmel-like tool meant for manicures and gently redefined my doll's upper lip.

My advice for your first time doing advanced customizing on a doll's face is - take it slow, and use very light pressure. If you use a device, make sure you use it on a low torque setting. Don't be too ambitious in your first try and when you start to feel anxious or frustrated, put the head down or put it away until you are calm again.

n_n Best of luck! I'm sure we would all like to see the results of your experiments!