Ever been seriously disappointed by a company faceup?

Yep. Two factory swings and misses for me. Sometimes you don't realize the advertised pictures are so heavily filtered that the actual face up is an entirely different color palette, and the angles they give don't show something like a harsh black line between the lips. never again. Now I'm an annoying customer who asks for specific photos in different lighting of the default before I'm going to pay for it.

 

Yes. I normally don’t order dolls with face ups since I have specific ideas I want for them and it seems like every time I do order one, I hate it.

The first I really hated was a Dragon Doll Cheng, poor guy, I feel like I complain about him in every ‘not what you expected’ thread. In the photos, he had a beautiful soft natural look. In person, he had harsh colors, a lot of pink and eye makeup and brows that made him look angry and his eyes look squinty. I thought about repainting him, but I was new to the hobby and felt I didn’t have the skill to do much better (Plus he had other faults) so I ended up just selling him.

The second was a Ringdoll Shao. In the photos he had full soft pink lips, brown brows/lashes. In person, he had thin orange lips and grey brows/lashes. I’m pretty sure he was the first factory faceup I wiped clean and repainted. I loved his sculpt but that orange-grey bland faceup did not do him justice!

unless a doll is in stock with a free faceup, I don’t pay for faceups anymore. I mostly do them myself, but if I am going to pay for one, I’d prefer my money to go to an artist of my choosing who can do exactly what I want.

 

Yes my first bjd hz tian doll. He didn’t look like the stock photos. They made his makeup too dark. I still liked him but it didn’t look good to me.

 

Yeeeeeeah. My first BJD I bought new was a FairyLand Pongpong. She was the first doll I ever really fell in love with and I was so excited to finally get her. When she arrived her faceup was actually damaged, and had some chipping around the mouth.
In retrospect I should have contacted them, but at the time I just sort of thought it was a thing that could happen when you buy dolls. So I fixed it as best I could and just lived with it. Now I'm thinking of redoing her face completely, but what I really want is an undamaged version of the face she has now :/

 

Looking at you, Doll Chateau Margarita.

$60 for a half assed face up, no frackles, almost no lines, funny looking eyebrowns. And I still can't believe some people got the same terrible face up but didn't ask for a refund!

 

My first Souldoll boy, who looked so lovely on the company pictures. He was a Souldoll Arhanian, they discontinued him ages ago. I felt like you, like I got a completely different doll. I never was able to bond with him, in the end I sold him. He was my absolutely biggest disappointement. Despite of that I later often ordered Souldolls with company face up, and they never disappointed me again. Lucky me.
Second was my MSD SartoriaJ Yvonne head. Her face up looked completely different from the face up on the promo pictures. It didn´t stay on her long ...
I also wasn´t happy with face ups from Iple House and Luts, but I could have known that from the start - they are mostly too unspectacular for my taste.

 

I only had very few dolls I actually bought with their company face-up on purpose. The ones I had usually came with it because that's just how I got the doll second-hand (three of my four Sooms for example).
The one I bought on purpose (a LUTS Honey Delf) was fine and actually nicer in real than on the pictures.

However, I always have to think of this Doll Chateau face-up a dealer had posted back then. I probably would have lost it if I had purchased that:



Sometimes when I see an extremely elaborate company face-up I already often think "I doubt it will look like that for the customers".
Some designs/some styles are just way too difficult and time-consuming for mass production.

 

mine was not the faceup, it was the hands blushing. First 2 pairs were amazing; light vein work, glazed cuticles, gentle pink joints. third pair looked like it was dunked in pepto bismol; no contouring, so pink I thought I ordered the wrong skin.

 

Doll Chateau Isabel ! Just plain terrible company face up. Will have to send her off at some point to get a proper face up. Good thing I like the sculpt.

 

Yikes!
I used to buy all of my dolls with faceups, but thankfully I've learned to do my own faceups now. The only ones I DON'T do are my Vinyl dolls (Dollfie Dreams/Smartdolls). After buying majority of my dolls second hand, I would get them with chips, MSC rubs, scratches, etc. so I honestly kind of got tired of buying a doll, getting it, just to turn around and send them off to an artist.

However, I think my WORST faceup was my Dollzone Wing. He was the original Wing with the red tattoo on his head (I don't even know what that was supposed to be?), and little to no other blushing aside from a burnt orange around his eyes. He had that faceup forever until I repainted him last year. Now I know Dollzone has gotten on a kick of painting all of their dolls in LAYERS of gray and red.

 

Yes I was really disappointed in Luts’s official faceup for my Bory because the feel was completely different with that variation of the eyebrow that they drew. Partly it was also due to my other Bory having a custom faceup that I adored which the official faceup Bory did not match with. I actually got used to the androgynous look after a while, sometimes I still want to find an artist to give him a different faceup but it wasn’t like the disappoint I felt when I first got the doll.

 

God yes, my first doll. Xagadoll elsie. I fell in love with the pictures, with the Faceup. Then when she got here I was like “...oh, that’s wrong... and that.” Like, for instance, in the photos, the lower lashes are seemingly nonexistant. It looks faint, and just a warm eyeshadow under the lower eyelid. My doll has dark eyelashes under her eyes. Not really a deal breaker though, they’re well done... but god, the lips were the worst part. Kinda splotchy? They don’t look anything like the photos. It was really disappointing

 

My second bjd, a Pukifee Ante, came with a faceup that I thought first wasn’t done at all, it was so pale with bluish lips and blushing about nonexistent. Whenever I see her, I think she’s sick. My first Pukifee is lovely, with a healthy complexion, so it was a really unpleasant surprise. Living in Germany I haven’t found a possibility for a professional faceup and since I‘m with no talent my poor girl must live with her poor health.

 

I mostly get my dolls second-hand so there is less concern for me about old faceups (and I usually send them off to be repainted) but the faceup that disappointed me was a company faceup for my MDF Bory. He looked so plain and bland, and in certain angles his pouty full mouth became this narrow mean sneer. I got him repainted ASAP and it's like having a new doll. The other company faceup I have is for my Little Monica Jeremy and while I liked nearly everything about it, they included these horrible pale grey creepy eyes! Totally not the same as company pictures and the eyes alone borked the faceup. I swapped them immediately because they so thoroughly creeped me out.

 

I would cry if I bought that DC doll and she looked like that! I've noticed the faceup quality of DC is much lower in person than in the pictures. Even for simple faces! Owner pictures of the doll's face I bought didn't look finished. Like it's missing linework or something. So glad I bought her blank!

 

There are several German faceup artists (me included, but I'm closed). Maybe try Mikiyochii?
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She's very nice and is good for cute styles

 

Thank you for this tip, I‘ve checked her out immediately. Her faceups are lovely, but I’m not quite sure it’s what I‘m searching. But still, it’s good to know there’s someone out here in Germany.

 

oh no! i've been considering getting her. would you send a picture of the faceup you got?