Do they HAVE to have a faceup?

I would say a doll needs to have a face for me yea.

 

I prefer to have a face on my dolls. However I own that was owned by a friend didn't have a face until I got him and she had him for a year or two!

 

For me, I like the faceup. At least eye liner/brows. But if I saw someone else's doll without one I wouldn't assume it wasn't a finished doll.

 

If the doll is meant to portray a human, then, yeah... In my house, it needs a face-up. Even if you're portraying a human that has some kind of a condition that results in them having no hair on their faces, human faces are still uneven in tone, they have shadows, flushed areas, blue areas (!!), yellow areas. A blank doll face is generally too smooth, too shiny and too opaque to really look like a real human face (and even the sharpest sculpting tends to lose detail - especially in paler skin tones).

If however you're portraying some kind of a robot/cyborg/walking statue (or something), then maybe you can get away with no face-up. (Though if I owned a doll like this, I'd probably still give it a face-up, just not in the traditional sense. I'd probably blush the face and the body all at the same time to make it look cohesive).

I don't really ascribe value to other people's dolls. As a general rule, I find face-up-less dolls to be less visually interesting in photos (though that's not always the case - I can think of a number of examples in the Highlights gallery), but if the owner is happy with the way their doll looks, then my opinion isn't really relevant. ^^

 

I find a faceup makes a doll look "finished", without one they're just a blank slate and I have a hard time trying to pin and character traits on a blank face. That being said, I did have one doll that was "faceupless" (about 8 layers of paint, but no blushing or other details) while I had him cosplaying as a black mage, and there's Twigling's Obsidian Ingenue, who had nothing but a gloss-only faceup which looked stunning on her~ But those are both pitch black/fantasy colours. I have a harder time with normal skin dolls without a faceup.
In the end, it's really up to you! If you enjoy your doll without a faceup, then keep them blank! :3

 

It's hard for me to connect with a blank doll. They seem so emotionless to me. :/ That said, I do have a blank tiny, since the weather has been nasty lately, and I don't love her any less for being blank.

eta: I remembered that this thread exists: http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?548481-Dolls-without-face-ups. Pretty interesting responses there!

 

For me they need faceups -- that's what actually gives them a lot of their expression. A lovely sculpt will still be lovely without, but less personality will tend to come across which makes them less interesting. This of course is purely my opinion, and people should do whatever they like with their dolls. I have one doll that's blank right now, because I just haven't gotten around to dealing with him yet. The rest are all faceuped.

 

I consider a doll without a faceup to be incomplete. Real people have variation in color/ tone of their skin such as lips and the places where blood shows through more or less or where the sun touches which is replicated through blushing, and real people have eyebrows and eyelashes(unless they shave them off or have some kind of disorder). You can have your dolls however you like and I don't care one way or another. My opinion is that it looks bad though.

 

I'm a newb but in my opinion I would never own a doll without a faceup. It's completely up to the owner whether they want a faceup or not. To me a doll looks completely unfinished without one.


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Most of my collection are blank..This is because I lack the actual materials to do face ups myself and I've fallen in love with them all the same..I actually wiped one of my doll's face ups I did (it was amataur with colored pencils..By materials I mean sealants and pastels) and left him blank..I prefer him blank...His boyfriend I got him has a face up given to him by me and it's cute but it's not sealed..It hasn't come off either..Oops.

My MSD girl I haven't given a face up to because I feel she looks very sweet without it and I don't think she needs it..With her wig and clothes she has just as much soul as a doll with a face up.

And without a face up...I can touch her face ALL I want. 8D

 

Some sculpts have a lot of character to them even without a face-up. And there are a few dolls that have their eyebrows sculpted in and a few with skin texture sculpted in, like Souldoll Kulbahora.

I think more realistic or detailed sculpts look nice even without face-up, but the more cartoony/anime ones are kind of dull to me when they're blank.

But I like my dolls with face-up more. It's okay to have like a minimal face-up since not every person has like... crazy blushy cheeks and stuff, but at least a little to break up the flat skin tone.

 

As a doll doctor I prefer to buy mine without face ups then do my own thing I have a few with store bought face ups, but it wasn't a choice. I would say the answer is no you don't have to have a face up. you can leave the doll on the shelf plain if you don't want to do anything to it. It's your doll you can do what you want with it. your choice.

 

After my first face-up attempt (which was a disaster) on my only doll, I left him blank for a good few months. And actually, it was during that time when he was blank that I really bonded with him. I even took a bunch of pictures of him and had a wonderful time simply enjoying his beautiful sculpt which even looks good without hair because of his cute elf ears. When the weather got right for me to finally try a face-up again, I didn't want to! But I did, and I kept it minimal (no eyebrows, no drawn on eyelashes) because I had fallen in love with his blank face so much.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so I guess if the doll's owner sees beauty in the unadulterated blank sculpt of a doll, that's all that matters. (And if they see beauty in their "unprofessional" face-up, it's theirs to keep.) If it were just the right sculpt, I could definitely see keeping a doll blank forever.

 

Well I definitely liked my dolls a lot better when they got their faceups. It's funny that you asked this question coz when I showed my mum a picture of the faceup I did on one of my guys, she said she preferred him blank. So I showed her a picture of him when he was blank and she said "Wow...they really do need faceups, don't they?"

 

They don't have to if you like the way they look without. I have two whole dolls, a floating head, and a faceplate with no face ups: a tan mnf Mirwen boy, an ot girl, and my fl juri 13s. I like my Mirwen boy without a faceup because he looks smirky and mischievously mysterious. I haven't seen a face-upped Mirwen that doesn't look frightened, miserable, or ticked off to me.

 

For me yes! If the doll doesn't have a faceup I might as well not have the doll.

 

For me a BJD does need a face up to be complete as it really finishes the doll making it look beautiful and original.
I wouldn't think less of a doll if it didn't have a face up because it is personal choice, and it depends on the sculpt.
Thats not to say unprofessional face up dolls would be better with no face up; as you could just wipe it off and get a professional to do a face up.
I do believe a doll does need a face up.
I really don't think I can imagine owning a face-up less doll forever, for me it would need a face up.

 

I like a doll with a faceup, and would probably never have a doll without one. But, it doesn't have to be super elaborate. My Bobobie company faceups look perfect for my two bobobies, and then the third has her dollzone default faceup, which I think is okay for her. I have seen dolls with no faceup before, and do I think that they can be just as cute or pretty. There was one doll that I kept liking on tumblr, even though she was blank. And, when she finally got a face-up, I ended up liking her blank better. I also don't think that it really matters if a faceup is professional looking or whatever, because the important part of these dolls is that they can be completely customized according to the owner's will. In fact, I think I'd rather have a so-so faceup on a doll that I did myself than a wondrous one I had to pay for.

 

"Does a doll have to have a faceup to be 'complete'?"
For me personally .. yes because i want to make my doll unique and be my own original character and I think the best way to do so is with a faceup.

"Would you think less of a doll without a faceup than a doll with a faceup?"
No, because I can see through a dolls face-up (and can see what the sculpts potential is with a good face-up.)

"Do you think that 'unprofessional' faced-up dolls would look better with no faceup? Or is it better for a doll to have any faceup rather than remain blank?"
Depends on the face-up I've seen face-ups that aren't professional but I really love. But I would prefer a blank doll if I don't like the face-up. (because I fell in love with the sculpt even if it has no face-up...)

"Do you have/can you imagine owning a doll that will remain faceup-less forever?"
No, not really. I'm a art-student for me it's like a empty canvas... I have to create something with it : )