Would you do a faceup that increased the seeming age of your doll?

I think a doll is young forever..... I would not make wrinkles on her face ( mines are enough for the both of us XD )

 

I think I would but only if the character called for that. I have recently been thinking about this very topic and as you cant seem to get elder sculpts then the only way to accomplish this would be through face ups. I have wanted an older male doll for a while as I have a character in mind who would be 70+.

I don't think however that I could increase the appearance of age in my dolls because once they have a character that's it for me. Although this might change as I get older.

But saying that I have seen dolls where the owner has asked for a more mature or younger face up, although not often with wrinkles. Maybe as you say part of the appeal is that they don't age. The media constantly talk about timeless beauty and impress upon us that younger is prettier. I mean would anyone find an older looking doll ugly? And if so why would that be?

 

Well they do age in the back story, in fact I'm in the middle of writing the story down for my main doll, and it begins in her childhood, but essentially, by the time the character has developed enough that I want to own it in a physical form then yes, it is kind of trapped in a time bubble. I think for me a character has one or sometimes many stories to tell and when they finish telling them their interaction changes to a more reactive as opposed to retrospective, if that makes sense.

I think the old doll is a long way off, but because it takes me a long time to build up, and at the moment there is only this simple idea of a blind old man, however he has captured my heart and I think he would fit into my eclectic family, but one of the first things I noticed when browsing sculpts for him, was that no one does an older sculpt.

So i anyone finds one please let me know lol. Until then I'm thinking of how to age him subtly, because I dont want him to look like an young man wih lines on his face. Maybe this is partly why there are so few older dolls

And i don't think you an talk about age without the topic of age without dealing with beauty because our society places so much emphasis on age as an indicator to beauty, but I personally place more emphasis on inner beauty, I think a lot of doll owners would agree, which is why they give their dolls personality and back story, it makes them more beautiful and alive, because life is beautiful and age shows that you have lived.

 

thank you for the suggestion, I think you may be right about that, will have to check out Amazon

 

Do you mean take a currently young doll and gradually add lines/wrinkles/etc. over time to make it seem as if they're aging, or do you mean have a character who's established as older?

I wouldn't do the former (gradually aging a currently younger doll), just because it'd be too much work (I can't do my own faceups, so would have to keep sending the head out to an artist), and my characters are pretty set once I create them, which includes their ages. When I make a character, I say "ok, he's going to be 28," and that's it, the character is 28. Also, it might cause problems later if I get a child doll. Since children really do grow up, having them age would mean a child character would eventually need a new doll to show his growth, but I don't want a different doll for that character, I want the child doll for that character. And so on. .^^ So no, I wouldn't age already set characters, not because I aim for some kind of eternal youth, but just because it wouldn't work with my story. And I'm lazy.

Now, if you mean the later, about having an older character, then I'd say a whole-hearted YES. My DS Husky is an older gentleman, set at 53 years old, and has the lines and feint wrinkles to go with it.

 

I think I like agelessness too much, and almost unrealism. It's hard to find a mould which looks older I think anyway, perhaps the minimees would be best?

 

Do you mean, adding wrinkles and things to a faceup over time to make it look as if the doll is continually ageing? That's an interesting idea but I think it'd be pretty costly if you were commisioning it, and fairly time-consuming if you were doing it yourself! Also the shape of the face and body changes with age, so you'd have to probably mod the doll or change it altogether. It'd be a lot of work.
But if you mean, making a mould look older than it is to fit the character it is shelling, I would have no problem doing a faceup like that at all, if the character called for it. I think some older people look great, so why not emulate that with a doll? Say you had a wise, enigmatic, gypsy kind of character. Wouldn't a few lines and shadows make her look even wiser? Or say, a loving grandmother/ older mother character. Her age is all part of her experience and acceptance of life, so why not give her a certain softness at the jaw with sanding, or maybe even softer features? Beauty doesn't always equal youth! I would love to see an older looking doll to break the mould ^^

 

If it fit a character, then sure I would add wrinkles and what not--I see no reason why dolls have to all be young. Right now, though, I don't have anyone planned that really needs that treatment unless I get bodies for the mother and father of some of my adult dolls.

To a lesser degree, I either pick dolls with faceups or do them myself that are appropriate for the character, which means they typically look grown up -- this has been especially true for minis (though I'm changing the character on one of them and will have to redo her faceup so it's less mature). Faceups greatly change the look of dolls, but that's good. Remember that there is no specific way that these dolls are supposed to look, because they were made to be finished by their owners.

 

I'd definitely do a face up to increase the age of a doll because my preferred size is msd and a lot of them have wide, anime style faces which make them look like weird kids, even though they can have quite developed bodies. I wouldn't hesitate to drastically age any doll if the character I made needed it.

 

I have a 47-year-old Victorian gentleman character that I would love to do up as a doll. I would want to make sure that his faceup reflected that he is, in fact, an older gentleman.

Now I have to find the right mold for him!

 

I don;t see why not. There's not many 'old people' sculpts, so why not take matters into your own hands?

 

I don't think I'd do it just cuz, for me, that's stuff that should really be part of the sculpt. You know that weird tight-skinned look you get when a young person puts on old makeup? I'm really not into that. The whole shape of the face changes with age. I mean, you could do it a TINY bit, (like very minor crows feet and.. probably not even those cheek-lines at ALL on most dolls. maybe some forehead lines though, and definitely freckles and age-spots and stuff) but it would stop working real fast IMO.

However, Harlequin-Elle, your aging-over time idea is kind of cool. XD I don't think it would actually be that hard if the doll aged in real time. A lot of people send out for new faceups every few years anyway. Buuut eventually you would start needing mods, or whole new sculpts. Just a few though. Once the lines/etc are in the sculpt you could probably get a good range of ages out of it with faceups.

 

I really want an old woman sculpt. If I ever get one, she will have wrinkles for sure.

 

Slightly off topic, but I've heard many people express the desire to have an older doll, so I started a thread in the Marketplace custom manufacturing section for a minimee head of Sean Connery in his forties, but didn't get any takers.

If anyones interested, please respond!

And yes, I would give a doll an aged faceup if I had a character that fit it.

 

For certain dolls that already look unquestionably adult, yeah that would be awesome. I'd like to have dolls of some 40-50 year old characters and I think with the right faceup a 20 something looking doll like a dollshe or a super gem could look that age. Certain dolls it would just never work though. Put a bunch of wrinkles and age spots on a 4-sisters head and she'd still look like a young girl, just diseased or something ^_^'

 

Well, one of my dolls is an elf - they age really well or so I'm told. *gg* The other one's a pirate who's basically caught in a time bubble, so he doesn't age anymore, either. The third one, though - he IS human. He also happens to be a powerful black mage, however, and I guess they got their ways of staying young and wrinkle-free ... Quite the coincidence, actually.

If I got a hold of the right mold, I think I wouldn't mind putting wrinkles etc on it. But as Nefla pointed out - with some molds (most of them, actually) it doesn't work. They'd look like a kid/youngster trying to disguise as an old man/woman.