The Face-up is Everything. Or is it?

Does a face-up matter when it comes to buying a doll? For me, NO. I never buy a doll with a face-up. I do my own face-ups on my dolls. I have found that the same doll in one picture can be beautiful and in another I look at it and think its the exact opposite. Even my own dolls in which I love the way they look, I find some face-ups which really turn me off to the sculpt. Before I buy a doll, I look for other photographs that owners have taken. If I find that the photographs on websites can be misleading. User photographs tend to give me a better idea of what the doll looks like. I use them to decide if I like a doll or not.

Personally, I don't understand at all when people buy dolls, HATE the faceup, and get rid of the doll without a second thought. Changing the face-up can change how the doll looks a LOT in my opinion. If I hated a face-up when I got a doll, I would give it another go. If after a few different face-ups I didn't like the doll, then I would sell it.

I do my own face-ups and I really enjoy it. I think its a big part of enjoying the doll and enjoying the hobby. However, I don't think of my doll as something to get one good face-up on, one good outfit, one good wig and then be done. If I were to have someone else do the face-up I think I would be very picky about what I wanted.

 

It doesn't really matter to me either. I've only bought one doll with a company faceup,and it didn't have enough color for my tastes. But,it was still useful for me to get the company faceup because I can't do eyebrows very well,and I added some color so now I'm happy with the faceup. Also I think it was a mistake getting a realpuki without a faceup. My hands are a bit too shaky to paint such a tiny face.

I definitely agree with you about looking at owner's photos before buying a doll. I've changed my mind about a lot of dolls because I got to see how they really look in a normal setting.

 

I think everything is everything. For me the doll has to look great, have a nice body, pose great and even be a certain size/weight. We pay too much for these dolls not to get exactly what we want. They are so customisable that it's totally possible too.

 

Does a face-up matter when it comes to buying a doll? If it does, why? If not, explain!
Nope the face-up doesn't matter. When I started this hobby, I read so much on DOA about how important it is to understand the sculpt. So when I started I pretty much only looked at companies that showed the dolls blank. I can see past a face-up at this point, and in fact usually scroll past the pretty pics to look for the blank head anyway.

Do you let a face-up artist do their thing? More importantly, do you trust them well enough? Or do you lay everything down to a T?
I want the artist do their thing. I'm an artist and I appreciate when someone appreciates my style and wants me to create something based on my style. So I basically choose the face-up artist because I feel their style will bring out the best in a particular sculpt. All the dolls I've picked have very strong characteristics so for an artist to mis-fire my concept would be a major shocker. Basically I provide a character brief but encourage them to just do what they do. I've worked with 4 different artists and they've all been able to bring out my characters to a T pretty much. When I see the finished doll, I immediately think; yes that is X.

Is it fun doing your own face-ups?
I bought a practice head, so I will find out soon enough.

 

At least twice now, I have decided I loved a BJD sculpt even though I disliked the faceup on it. So the faceup doesn't make or break the sale for me. But I have absolutely loved the faceup on some dolls I've purchased, and that did help make the sale in those cases.

I am extremely picky about the faceups I commission, though. Most of the time, I know exactly what I want and specify that to the artist. I've occasionally had an artist redo the faceup.

Linda S.
galatia9

 

Face-ups are super important! It is the face of the doll after all. Humans are coded to be extremely focused on the face, as it often can mean a death or life situation if we read it wrong. A face that rubs us the wrong way will turn us off. It is very difficult to whipe that part of us away long enough to discern the face behind the illustrated face. That is why I always tend to look at box-openings and face-upless pictures of dolls as well, and lots of owner photos to see in what way the mold can actually be used.

Does a face-up matter when it comes to buying a doll?
It can make me go "*gasp* I want that doll!"* but then it is important to do more research, as mentioned above. I have yet to buy a doll with factory face up for to me, they're usually quite bland and boring.

If it does, why? If not, explain!
I guess I explained a bit of that in the beginning of the post. A face is a face is a face, more or less.

Do you let a face-up artist do their thing?
Yes I do. I only commission face-up artists I admire and I sometimes just want to say "do what you want, suprise me!" but I can understand how exhausting that must be to an artist. It is not their doll after all, it isn't their fantasy or their "characters" so bringing strange dolls to life without any further ado must be a bit... meh.

More importantly, do you trust them well enough?
Yes I do ^^ And as you said, it isn't permanent.

Or do you lay everything down to a T?
No. I don't like the thought of making my book characters into resincopies... my book characters belong in an entierly different world inside my head. I can't make that physical. And so I enjoy the dolls for what they are, and always want to bring the best out of the mold. That means talking to the face-up artist and asking what colours he/she thinks is best and so on.

Is it fun doing your own face-ups?
Yeah :3 But I suck at it xD

 

Faceup doesn't matter at all for me when buying a doll, but as others have said, it can add that 'wow' factor that usually leads to impulse buys in my case

I am cautious about falling in love with a sculpt based on a faceup though, but so far, I've never met a doll I couldn't love one way or another! One of the first LEs I ever bought was quite an unusual sculpt- her features are actually quite weird, and I don't know that I would have bought her if I'd only seen her blank. I fell madly in love with her sculpt when I saw it with the limited face up of all things, and when the version I wanted sold out, I bought the other, wiped it, and tried to recreate what I loved about the first one. It wound up being one of the best face-ups I've ever done to date, because I had such a clear idea of what I wanted. In the end though, I wound up loving the face-up I had done more than the one I'd initially liked! I realised that my vision of it was more intense than the default, and since I hadn't looked at pictures while painting, I wound up just doing what I wanted really.

I've never commissioned a face-up artist before, but I think I'd probably find it hard to just tell them to do whatever... when I was taking commissions, I preferred to get at least relatively detailed instructions on what people asked for, particularly things like the wig colour, and whether the brows should match it, and what sort of feel they wanted for the character. Someone else pointed out that as it isn't your character it's quite hard to just jump in head first and create something. I agree with that- especially because I don't do that with my own dolls! I do my best work when I've got a really good idea of what I want.

Doing my own face-ups is probably the most fun I can have with my dolls besides taking them to a meet or something. It's a crucial part of my hobby for me. I don't feel like a doll is really mine until I've done my own face-up on it. There are however a few exceptions to this- two in fact. One is my Limhwa girl who has an absolutely stunning face-up. It happens to suit my purposes fairly well luckily, because I saw it and just couldn't wipe it. It's so beautiful! I can definitely appreciate lovely work like that, so I'm giving it it's due by leaving it alone! The funny thing is, it's a default, as is the second exeption: the face-up on my Judith Zinna. I really just liked it for her for some reason, it's fairly elaborate as far as defaults go, so that's probably why.

 

Having "finished" dolls is important to me, so naturally, face ups are important. I usually try to buy dolls with the face up option. However, for Parker, I opted for a blank head because I wanted to get his custom done, though I was nervous about the process and sending my baby's head off into the unknown.

For the artist (who is IzabethS here) I knew after going through her examples that she would be a perfect fit for me stylistically. I did lay down the important things (natural looking face up, thick brows, beauty mark and scar mod) by poorly photoshopping the blank head to give her an idea what I wanted, but I didn't try to be TOO stifling, and she wound up doing a perfect job. The ease of the transaction and quick turnaround time, plus the gorgeous custom face up, makes me more inclined to get more blank dolls to have the face ups done on! It's just so worth getting exactly what you want and what fits your character, and winds up costing about the same or less as getting a company face up.

I've never done a face up myself. I want to, but I'm too scared/lazy.

 

Does a face-up matter when it comes to buying a doll?
Yes, especially its a LE doll.

If it does, why?
I have no intend in wiping of the default face up and its not easy to find a face up artist over my place.

Do you let a face-up artist do their thing?
Yes, I would only send the head to face-up artist with preferred style. However I will still mentioned something such as I prefer her to be cute, warm, lively etc.

 

• Does a face-up matter when it comes to buying a doll?
  No
• If it does, why? If not, explain!
  I have a minor thing where I have an incredibly hard time seeing faces. So with the face-up, my brain looks at it but I'll never be able to tell you what it looked like. However if I'm looking at the sculpt, I still have a hard time seeing the face but it's a bit easier to see the facial structure. Bottom line being, I can never buy a face up with the doll because I would know what the head of the doll looks like until I'm holding the blank. So, when I get around to buying my second and third dolls, They'll be blank until I can study the structure, then I'd send/give them a face up.

And...

• Do you let a face-up artist do their thing?
  I haven't had the opportunity to try. But I think I'm one of those dangerously vague people, so they would definitely end up doing their own thing.
• More importantly, do you trust them well enough?
  No. I don't know them. I would worry and stress the entire time until I got the doll back. Then I'd probably rave about what a good job they did.
• Or do you lay everything down to a T?
  Nope.
• Is it fun doing your own face-ups?
  I can't wait to find out

 

While a face-up can do a LOT for a sculpt, good or bad, it doesn't matter to me at all when it comes to buying. A bad face-up could probably put me off initially, but that's why the sculpt matters so much, and if I absolutely can't see past the face-up, I'll search for pics of the head blank or with better ones. I don't really care about the face-up my doll comes with (if they do; I've ordered all of my dolls new and blank; although my bf's secondhand BBB came with an awful face-up that I quickly wiped ahaha) because one of my favorite parts of the hobby is doing face-ups!

(Of course, if I received a secondhand doll with a beautiful face-up, I'd be hesitant to wipe it until it started getting messed up... And in fact, it might initially dissuade me from buying the doll in question if I didn't want that face-up for them, but I think I'd just get over it and make peace with wiping the nice face-up by keeping it around a little while, at least.)

I've never used a face-up artist, but I think if I did decide to, I'd trust them if they had a lot of positive feedback. But I don't think I'd trust the mail that much!! hahaha

I love doing my own face-ups anyway, because it's fun to see how doing this or that makes the sculpt look, what emphasizing this or that does... It's one of the most fun parts of the hobby, and I've also enjoyed seeing myself get better as I keep doing it! uwu

 

I almost always buy with a faceup, as I can't do faceups myself, so it is important to me. If I absolutely love a sculpt I'll buy it anyway and send it out for faceup, but for the most part I don't buy a doll that I don't like the faceup of. I'm not very comfortable sending my heads out for face up. I can see whether or not a doll is nice beneath the face up, but sometimes with a faceup I can't stand that's hard to do. Were I to be buying based on official photos, I would never have bought my Luts El. It was seeing the faceup the previous owner did that made me realize how gorgeous he is.

So yeah, I think for me at least, faceup is really important. However, I can also see how someone with more experience in doing faceups would be inclined to ignore the default faceups shown because they would plan on doing it themselves.

 

I'm kind of having a reverse problem... I love one of my dolls blank... absolutely adore him... but no faceup seems to sit well on him face... >__>

 

I have to say that a face up will actually sell the doll to me. The sculpt is very important, but how often will you have a blank doll? I have to see how the sculpt will carry the face up, and how the company envisions what the doll should look like.

I have never had another artist do a face up on my doll, so I can't speak to that, but in general if I surrender something to an artist I usually will give them artistic freedom. I will give a very general idea of what I am looking for and let them do the rest.

I very much enjoy doing face ups so I am unsure I will ever have another artist do one of my dolls. That may change as my collection grows, but for now, I am having too much fun!

I have heard others say that they will never pay extra for a face-up since it is something that they are going to wipe off in the future anyway so why waste the money. That made complete sense to me if you are artistic enough to do your own face ups. Overall though, I would tend to agree with that statement so I will try not to get the factory face-up unless it comes with a full set or is free with an event.

 

I think it takes time in this hobby to be able to see "past" the face up. For me after awhile I just starting being able to see the sculpt regardless of the face up. I can't always do it - but I definitely know the kind of sculpts I love and the kind I don't. So when it comes to my own taste I can definitely figure out if the sculpt is for me even if I don't like the face up. I REALLY prefer a very light face up that really let's the sculpt come through.

 

For me I would say that a big part of buying for me is the faceup Q~Q The first think I would see from the company picture is the faceup, so that is what would attract me. Adding to that, ive never ever tried to do my own faceups or whatnot so I do have to have the faceup. So yeah, The faceup has to be beautiful or im not buying it, maybe. Unless I learn how to ship stuff then I could send them for a faceup but at the moment, im stupid and dont know anything so I have to stick with the beauty of the company faceup~

 

Does a face-up matter when it comes to buying a doll?
Not really. If I really like the default faceup, it's all good. If I don't like it, I might order the doll without faceup, or wipe the default faceup and redo it.

Do you let a face-up artist do their thing?
By 'do their thing' do you mean just give the artist carte blanche to do whatever they want? No. I would never just give an artist one of my heads and say 'okay, go for it!' That wouldn't be fair to the artist or to me, because how in the world are they supposed to know what I want? Even if I really love their style, they could still do a faceup on my doll that I completely dislike. It would be unfair of me to then have to tell the artist I don't like the faceup when it was me who just told them they could do whatever they want in the first place. I'm not an artist, but I think most artist would like some guidelines about how to paint their client's doll.

More importantly, do you trust them well enough?
I've sent my dolls to two different artists whose styles I really like. I trust both of these people. I trust them to do a good job and I trust them to do with my doll what I've asked them to do.

Or do you lay everything down to a T?
I like to give a general description of what I want in terms of style, but I will also provide a colour palette and any very specific details of things I want the faceup to include. For instance, one of my dolls has a facial tattoo. I had to describe that for the artist so she knew what to paint, where, how big, what colour, etc.

Is it fun doing your own face-ups?
Yes, but it's sometimes frustrating too. I'm not very good at it, but I still enjoy doing it.

 

Does a face-up matter when it comes to buying a doll? If it does, why? If not, explain!
Yes and no.
I ALWAYS want to know what a doll looks like blank. A face-up can change the effect a mold has totally. And I mean totally.
If I like the mold (blank) + the default FU - even better.
If I buy a doll of the MP and know I'm going to wipe the FU off anyway, cause I have something different in mind for the doll and the owner expects me to pay for the super-expensive face-up by some artist who apparently has a name... Well, then it's most likely not going to become a deal. I want the doll, and not what the owner made out of it.
Of course if I'm looking for a particular doll on the MP and I come across several options within similar price range or one that has just the perfect FU without requiring for me to do anything or anything but some small modifications... I'm likely to go with that offer. Generally the FU matters only little to me, because I often already have something in mind and chances are small that that already exists out there...

• Do you let a face-up artist do their thing?
  
• More importantly, do you trust them well enough?
• Or do you lay everything down to a T?

I have one artist so far other than the companys artist, that I have entrusted my dolls with and I usually give her either a description of what I want or even show her pics of other dolls' FUs that are similar to what I want. I think it's easier that way for the artist as well. Other than that I can usually let her do whatever she wants Never disappointed so far - in fact she impresses me each and every time.

• Is it fun doing your own face-ups?

Sure XD At least if it's going well.
If you got no experience you better don't expect to do something superb right from the start - especially if you haven't worked with the materials so far. I've had times where I did three or four face-ups that I was happy with in one afternoon and doing several face-ups on one head over the time of weeks, because it just wouldn't go the way I wanted it to ^^°
But generally, I'd say 'Yes, it is fun'

 

Does a face-up matter when it comes to buying a doll? If it does, why? If not, explain!
It sort of does. I know a bunch of companies don't provide blank doll pictures so a faceup is part of the reason I do research on sculpts to find out if I really like them enough to buy. There are also some sculpts out there that I think have company faceups that are perfect for them and I would be willing to buy them with it instead of doing the faceup myself.

Is it fun doing your own face-ups?
Yes! It helps me bond with my dolls. I especially love how I can change the faceup whenever I want and it can very much change the image of the sculpt.

 

Because I am a poor artist, faceups do matter to me. I can't personally make a doll look amazing. I'd fail and the poor thing would go around with the most godaweful of faceups and I'm not going to do that to them. I usually get a company face-up. The one time I had an artist do it, it was for a scar mod. I had a very specific vision and I laid it out very clearly. The work done was AMAZING!