How often do you 're-do' dolls?

I do mostly faceups and wigs (and sometimes mods or sewing). I never pay much attention of how often I redo my dolls customization. For faceups, it may be some months to some years. For mods and wigs it's nearly never.

Here are some dolls with original and redone faceups.
On my ANS Narcissus

Before:


After:

​

On my Maskcat Lisette:

Before:


After:
​

On my minifee Maya:

Before:


After:
​

 

This might be long, so hold on to your hats.
Since I'm still learning to do faceups and I consider myself to be at amateur level, I am forever trying new techniques and because of that my own personal dolls may go through multiple faceups within a week. I'm not confident enough to work on anyone else's dolls yet, so mine are the only victims at the moment. ​

Before Ear Mod (Received her with broken ears):


After Ear Mod (But prior to sanding out imperfections):


Finished: With one of my first faceups


_________________________________________________________________________________

Most recent faceup:
Before (Please ignore ugly wig)


After: (Now the wig he SHOULD have doesn't fit )



​

 

I have started thinking about re-doing a few of mine. Some of them get left a bit as is. I want to put a few of my dolls on new bodies and make them new wigs now that I know how to make proper hardcaps. I often make them new clothes when I get inspired to but I like to set a certain doll as a project and then make it my priority for a certain thing like an outfit, eye or body change.

 

I redid one of my dolls as I wasn't bonding with her, so I had little to lose regarding modifications. I was and still am a rank amateur with faceups, so I concentrated on other aspects of her appearance.


Here she is with her original wig, both legs and unmodified hands


This is her current form, with homemade prosthetic leg and mobility equipment. There's scarring on a hand and her remaining leg that isn't visible in the photo. I'm much more satisfied with her.

 

I repaint my dolls every so often, it could be within a month or maybe a couple of years. I recently repainted Zoey even though I've only had her for just over a month because I felt her first faceup didn't reflect her character well.

Login • Instagram

I've also repainted my first doll more times than I can count, and I'm planning to redo it again. My skills have improved and I don't like his current eye makeup.

 

There's a thread similar to this, on the BJD game section of the forum titled "Then vs. Now." There are also were a few of them on the Photo Reference section, like "Old and new face ups...", that might be centuries old, but some of the images might still work.

I recall posting on the game one, and probably posted a lot on the older photo references ones, so I won't drive-by-spam this one as well. This thread might be moved to that forum, since you can request photos on there, and post many, not just one like on the discussion section. However, I will say that when I was younger and less of a lazy-old-fart, I would repaint and customize my largest BJD and my DIM MNM heads as often as I felt I had improved. Then, that turned into as often as I wasn't feeling like I was hit by a truck. Which meant years between mods, or any other customization (face ups, body blush, etc.). I am now, after more than a decade ready to mod that doll I was talking about, but I'm still dragging my feet, because I absolutely despise hot weather (although, I had "plenty" of time earlier in the year, we barely had any snow or rain this year was a dry one for us, sadly). (:

My fourth doll throughout a lifetime of changes, who has been the most heavily modified doll up to now, and the one I have plans to mod again this year (just a tiny bit).

The top left image is from 2007, when I originally got him, and the last image on the bottom right corner was from 2013.

He looks like this now, from when I modified him back in 2018. There were few mods in between, but those were the more drastic changes, I feel -- or at least, the ones I added at the time to that "chronological-changes" table above.

Edit, I spoke too soon, the above mods are from 2017. *sigh* I am far too old, it doesn't feel like four years to me.

 

I'm repainting my Lucifer this weekend after 6 months. I always feel like I can do better Or it just doesn't quite fit.

 

You've done a really beautiful and expert job!

 

I'm in the process of it currently - that entails mostly redoing faceups, but that probably happens about every 2 years, which is the rhythm in which i usually come to find my other art dissatifying to look at as well. I usually don't like looking at my art once it passes 2 or 3 years of age.

 

I'm redoing all of my old faceups now, since I've definitely improved my eyelash and eyebrow skills. (Better tools and more experience). I love painting them, so it's definitely no hardship on my end. I haven't been doing it so long, but still it's nice to see the changes!