How do you choose your face ups?

I'm going to be sending my first doll out for a commissioned face up. My very first was free and an artists choice but gorgeous none the less. This has been a process for me. I started looking at dolls I thought were nice looking for palettes that I like ( because it's super rude to ask an artist to imitate someone else's face up ). Then I look for a face up artist whose style I like and the current one I want ( Eludys ) her style is amazing so I'm just going to give her the colors and I'm going to trust her to create something that I'll love.

 

***How do you decide what to paint?
The only thing that I'm sure of when I start is whether the doll is going to to be a blond, a red-head, or have black hair.
***Do your dolls come out different after completion or did you manage to stick to your original vision?
I never know what they're going to look like, but I DO KNOW what they're not going to be. So I try to stay away from what I don't want. But during the faceup, I'll suddenly remember, "oh, he likes to sleep late", or "he's a smoker so lets give him a bad complexion"..something like that.
I generally try to go for more natural looks. The only exception is if it's a company faceup that I'm trying to add to.
The color of the resin will also effect how the faceup ends up.
***Are their any tips you have to help with planning a face up?
Have pictures of other people's faceup for reference.....especially for eyebrows.
It's good to have what you LIKE and what you DON'T LIKE so you don't actually make that same mistake.

 

I do my own faceups. All of my dolls represent my OCs, so I already have an image in my head of how they should look. Sometimes, they are inspired by real people, celebriies, tv characters, etc, so I use reference pix as I work on them. Others just have a basic outline of how they should look, like "red hair, freckles", and I just go with the shape of the sculpt to guide me. I have have heads I had no clue what to do with (like event heads, heads I got in trades, etc) and I'll just start painting and experimenting on them.

My advice, if you have no inspiration or OC, is to pick a wig you like for them. That can at least give you an idea of what colors to use, or what style to go with (goth? preppy? sweet and innocent? anime?) Maybe pick out clothing and choose style based on that. Or eyes, even.

Some people do let an artist decide. I've had a friend send me a head, with no further instructions than "make her a pretty brunette".

 

And for those who paint their own dolls... (I actually only alter default face-ups, so I'm not sure if this will help, but it might!)

How do you decide what to paint?
I have an idea of what my character looks like, and so I look at the face-up already there and decide what needs to be changed. Often it's things like 'different eyeshadow' or 'brighter lip colour' or 'freckles'. If I were painting the face-up from scratch I imagine it would be a similar process, but starting from just the character idea. So things like 'sad eyebrows' or 'very pale lips' or 'simple eyelashes'.

Do your dolls come out different after completion or did you manage to stick to your original vision?
I'm very good at sticking to my original vision. I have very specific ideas for my characters, so I find it easy to either keep working if my attempt isn't close enough, or stop working once I've reached my goal.

Are their any tips you have to help with planning a face up?
Think hard about yourcharacter, if you have one. What sort of personality do they have, and what sort of features would 'fit' with that personality? What sort of emotion do you feel suits them best? What colour hair do you picture them with, and will their eyebrows and/or eyelashes match it? Are they very florid (red), which suggests someone very energetic, or very pale, which suggests someone more passive (or sickly)? Are they of a certain race, and are there any features that will 'signify' that race, like dark hair and eyes or light hair and eyes or fantasy colours for fantasy races. For example, I have two characters that share a certain fantasy race, and so they both have dark skin, light eyes (blue or green) and red hair (one true red, and one rusty red). Choose your blushing colours (cheeks, eyeshadow, lip colour, etc) to complement your character's overall colour scheme.

 

And for those who paint their own dolls...

***How do you decide what to paint?
It just sorta develops. I usually go for natural faceups, nothing fantasy or fancy, but I do know which of my girls wears more makeup than the others. My incoming IH Bibiane will probably get the most fancy faceup yet, since she's the most "classy" of the bunch. But usually I start with a general idea and see how it pans out. Usually I have inspiration / reference pics, too. (Shaping / placement of eyebrows, closeups of lashes, that kind of stuff.) I usually have a colour scheme planned out for each doll, including eye and hair colour and regarding both their clothes and faceup, trying to underline their personality.


***Do your dolls come out different after completion or did you manage to stick to your original vision?
Stick to it. Sometimes I make little changes when I notice my original plan wouldn't have the effect I was aiming for, but that's the only reason for me to change anything.

***Are their any tips you have to help with planning a face up?
Find reference pics. Hold on to everything you like, even if it's on a doll much different from your own (I love doing that while waiting for a doll) and go back to those pics when you have your (blank) doll home, to check how it would look on them (in their colour scheme, matching their eyes and wig). Even without all the technique stuff behind it, keep an eye out for dolls / faceups that give you the right feeling. I suck at technique, I just go with gut instinct and so far it's worked fine for me.
And keep in mind that faceups can be wiped, re-done and touched up, so they don't absolutely need to be perfect at the first try.

 

Already, this thread is giving me pointers on how to ask for a face-up! I need to get one done soon and would hate to be an annoying person who doesn't give enough instruction to the artist.

 

And for those who paint their own dolls...

***How do you decide what to paint?

It depends on what I'm doing. If I don't have a set character in mind, I tend to wing it and let the faceup set itself out - for example I might decide that I want to do earthy tones or sea tones or funky colours or whatever else as I start to work on a particular element of the face. Usually I'll have an idea of which feature I want to bring out, though. A good example was a recent faceup I did on one of my dolls that has a yellow patch on his cheek. I drew attention away from it and minimised it's effect by giving him bright, vivid eyes which draw the attention away from the unfortunate uneven yellowing.

Other times I've just decided I want to do neuveau swirly patterns all over a cheek just for the fun of it, or turn a faceup into a butterfly mask over a doll's eyes just because as I've been doing it, that's the idea that came to me.

With other faceups I go into it with a very set idea of what I want, and that's what I do. Heavy, gothy eye makeup with lots of shadows around the eyes, light and fresh faced... I find that when a doll comes to me with a set character in mind, the faceup will match the character, other times I let the faceup decide the character.

***Do your dolls come out different after completion or did you manage to stick to your original vision?

Not when I have a set idea in mind, no. But the things that I come up with when I don't have a set idea are pretty cool and out there that sometimes I surprise myself with what I did. (Like today while blushing some of my fantasy parts I made a doll's claws look like they were made of graphite, and this sparked so many ideas in my head for character development and the like) Generally, though, if I have a set idea and the end result isn't what I really wanted, I wipe and start again. I have experimental faces and then faces that need to look a certain way.

***Are their any tips you have to help with planning a face up?

Pick a part of dolly to focus on. What feature do you want to draw out? What is dolly's personality going to be? Are they going to ascribe to a certain 'style' (eg. goth, punk, lolita, chic, fantasy, etc. etc.) and what features are generally associated with that style? Is there anything about dolly's head that you may have to consider? (like my yellowing example, or if a sculpt has wonky lips or uneven eye wells, how do you plan for this?) How much contouring do you want on dolly's face? (My Resinsoul Lian has very prominent cheekbones because I've done a lot of work on her face in terms of shading around her cheeks and nose, she also has a very prominent chin for the same reason) How realistic or stylised do you want the faceup to be? Do you want heavy makeup? No makeup? Any tattoos? Tattoos of what? Are there any reference pictures I have that I like the makeup in?

Even if you don't do your own faceups, these are really good questions to ask yourself anyway because if you then pass the information on to your artist, they'll have a more accurate baseline to start from to bring out exactly what you want from a doll. Generally if I'm doing one of my own heads and there's no set character, I'll let my imagination run wild, but if I have a set character in mind, I ask myself all of these questions and more, even if I think I already know the character.

 

How do you decide what to paint?
A lot of my decisions come from the skin tone and face shape of the doll I'm working on, as well as basic things like requests, hair colors and themes. A doll's personality can always be helpful to know, too, because it helps with expressions, how thick the eyebrows and how the eye shading styleshould be, etc.

Do your dolls come out different after completion or did you manage to stick to your original vision?
I usually am able to stick to my original idea, but sometimes I'll think of things in the middle of working and will change stuff on a dime. xD

Are their any tips you have to help with planning a face up?
The first thing I always think of is what the doll's character is. Does he/she have a theme? Would they wear a lot of makeup or not? Are they shy or outgoing? Natural, splash of color or lots of designs and tattoos? Just thinking about these things can help plan what you want their face to look like.
I also always think of an expression prior to the designs and then follow it up with fitting colors. If they're an angry or stern character then I usually choose sharper colors and lines with more contrast. Neutral or more happy characters usually have less contrast and softer lines.

 

So far I have done all my own faceups. Pete and Billy were easy-- I knew exactly how they would look.

Vince...

sigh.

Vince needs a new faceup, and I have no idea what I'll do with him. I've sketched out a bunch of thumbnails of potential faceups for him but it seems like I just can't make up my mind. But, I am sometimes a very indecisive person-- I think that the thumbnails is still a solid idea. Or if you had photoshop and pictures of the blank doll, you could do a digital mockup, and play around with that until you had something you liked-- something else I have done, in planning out looks. Vince is just being difficult.

 

If you are sending out your doll for a face up, how do you decide their look?

I have a list of requirements - since nearly all my dolls are old-fashioned children or early teens, rather than adults, I want natural faceups with nothing that looks remotely like make-up (no eyeliner, no eye-shaddow, no lipstick).
- I want neutral-shaped eyebrows rather than any particular expression in them.
- No dark lines between the lips or dark dots at the corners of the mouth (I don't like them and think they look strange/unnatural)
- Nothing too heavy or dark in terms of shading (natural flesh shades, for that resin-colour, only)
- Natural coloured blushing on the cheeks, and not too heavy
- Avoid lips that are darker in the middle and shade out to paler-coliour at the sides (I just don't like it)
- The lips need to look as smiley as possible (given the restrictions of whatever sculpt it is, of course)
- I'm happy with freckles but don't want all my dolls to have them so I specify whether freckled or not.
- Clear even skintone, not blotchy (learned that one the hard-way)

Do you let the artist decide? Or do you have a general idea of how you want them to look?

So long as it meet the criteria I've lsited above, I leave the rest to the artist., althoguh I sometimes include links to pictures of the style of ebybrows I prefer (some artists default to eyebrows that look - to me - like they're on back to front - with the hairs going the wrong way)


And for those who paint their own dolls...

How do you decide what to paint?

I'm not good at it so I just aim for the same criteria I ask from artists I commission to do it - Natural lookin and following my list above.
I start with the shading, then lip colour and blush, add detail, and work my way up to the lower eye-lashes and eyebrows (my worst parts) with a good layer or two of MSC before I try them so I can wipe and re-try if I botch it, without having to start all over again.

Do your dolls come out different after completion or did you manage to stick to your original vision?

I just go for it and see what I come up with. As I say, I'm not very good at it. If I want specific details that I can't manage I commision an artist whose work I like the style of.

Teddy

 

I order all my dolls blank, and even though I sometimes have pre-conceived ideas as to what I'd like the doll to end up looking like, I just give my face up artist vague ideas of what I'd like. Sometimes nothing at all. She knows what I like, and does a beautiful job. She says I'm not picky. Maybe that's from all the years of being a professional doll artist with my sister. She sculpted and painted the doll heads and hands, and I did everything else. I couldn't paint a nice doll's face even if I tried. So I was always used to someone else painting my dolls.

If I really don't like, or bond, with a face up, my artist will redo it. The only time I never bonded, even after three tries at a face up, was because of the sculpt itself, and I ended up selling and replacing the doll's head. Nowadays the only real instructions I give are about the colour of wigs I plan on giving the doll, so the eyebrows can be painted to match.

 

***How do you decide what to paint?I usually pick a color I want to use first. Most of my dolls have very colorful faceups, so I don't want them to look alike. The colors also need to look good with their hair and outfit. Then I decide how heavy I want it to be, how much color and how much face I want to cover lol.
And then I usually just start on it, unless I have a very clear image in my head of what it needs to be. I like to let the colors and shapes of the face guide me.
Quite a few of my dolls are actually the result of experiments I wanted to do with materials and techniques and I ended up loving it and keeping it, and sometimes used it for other dolls as well.

***Do your dolls come out different after completion or did you manage to stick to your original vision?
Yes, sometimes they do come out different. I don't mind this at all, unless I had a plan set in stone.

***Are their any tips you have to help with planning a face up?
I suggest making an inspiration folder on your computer. Save pictures of faceups or makeup on people that you really like. My folder is filled with crazy facepaints and elaborate makeup for instance.
Some people also make photoshop mockups of the faceups they want to do, which can be really helpful I think, because you will see your wishes on the actual head.

 

How do you decide what to paint?
All my dolls are based on existing characters so I base how I'll paint them based on the characters they represent. I usually do a few mock ups in Photoshop
to get a general idea of what I want (I also plan modifications that way!).

Do your dolls come out different after completion or did you manage to stick to your original vision?
I am a lot better doing mock ups in Photoshop than I am painting a tiny 3D surface so my work is not always as clean/perfect as it is in my mock
but the doll turns out more or less like my original vision. Having a few reference images to work from helps a lot. I think of painting head sculpts as
doing portraiture most of the time.

Are their any tips you have to help with planning a face up?
Mock ups! It is fun to do them and it also helps see just about everything that could and could not work without wiping a face over and over.
I also have a terrible pulse, I never knew this until I tried painting a tiny doll head for the first time; I've been an artist all my live, always painted on
large flat canvases. It was a little upsetting to learn I have the pulse of a drunken old man, but I've found that the more I paint small heads
the more steady my pulse gets. I'm not sure if practice is all I need/ed but my pulse has improved a little, not enough to make me feel comfortable
painting tiny hair-lines but I still try all the time and keep trying. After all, all I have is time to practice since I only paint for myself. (:


- Enzyme

 

Since I've sent my heads out before but also do my own faceups, I guess I'll answer both sets


If you are sending out your doll for a face up, how do you decide their look?
All my dolls are OCs, so I usually have a drawing somewhere of the OC. Most of the time I'll look at the hair colour, personality etc, and if I'm really stuck, like if I want a doll to be for example, blond and with a boyish look, I'll just google all the key words, and narrow down what look I want from the photos I get. I also have a bunch of photos of other people's dolls saved if I think I'll use the faceup for reference (either for myself or artist) but I always crop the photos to just the parts I want (e.g. eyebrows) so the rest of the faceup won't influence the overall look.

Do you let the artist decide? Or do you have a general idea of how you want them to look?
I usually have a general idea for how I want them to look If anything, I'll know whether I want a more natural/makeupy look. If it's natural, what kind of tones (for example, I requested to have my WS doll painted with more brown tones, cos I did his older faceups with pinkish tones which made him a bit too girly). I like to give a general guideline, and a group of images of the features I'm particular about, like eyebrow shape, lip colour etc...


And for those who paint their own dolls...
How do you decide what to paint?
If I'm the one doing the faceup, I either do the same as I would above, or sometimes I just have a rough idea of what wig colour and overall personality of the doll, and just see what the sculpt wants to do, haha. Like I wasn't expecting myself to add freckles to Joe's faceup, but it was what happened as I painted him, so I just went along with it, since it suited his boyish look I like finding 3-4 reference photos, usually of people, to at least give me a rough idea of what palette of colours to use though.

Do your dolls come out different after completion or did you manage to stick to your original vision?
I think it depends, hmm, I've had dolls who are really close to how I drew them (like Kristolf, my Leeke Mihael), and for others (like Jack, my Zaoll Muse), his faceup was more of following the sculpt and what looks nice with the sculpt. Jack ended up with thick eyebrows still, but they're not really the same shape as how I usually draw them on paper, haha.


Are their any tips you have to help with planning a face up?
I like to sketch. Just sketch without too much of an idea first, get the overall shapes of things, how long the lashes are, the eyebrow shape etc first. This works for me cos I like the shape and it comes easier to me than colours, so I do this first to decide the faceup look.

Then for colours, I save a bunch of photos of faceups I like for when I need inspiration, and also overall look or makeup (these are more people photos though). Even if they're not like what you want, at least they provide a ready source of images for you to look at and think/decide what you want/don't want. I like to search the keywords of whatever look I want (e.g. natural, freckled) in makeup tutorials on youtube just to see what people actually use when doing makeup, and the colours they choose (this helps more if you're doing your own faceup), because the choosing of colours, and colour placement/technique are quite similar, I find. If anyone's interested, I compiled a bunch of my favourite youtube tutorials that I found useful for deciding how to do faceups.