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Through an Artist's Eyes - Pookie |
I'm pookie of Dark-Cradle (my original BJD site is Dark-Nebula). The
very first time I encountered a photo of Super Dollfie was about four years
ago, when a friend of mine discovered the whole world of artist-made ball-jointed
dolls and showed me some of the photos from Japanese sites. Among them were
the early beginning of Super Dollfies girls (Kira, Sara, Nana and Megu). I slowly
began to be interested in them and started searching about them on the web a
year later. At that time the only company producing ball-jointed-dolls was Volks
in Japan and Hypermaniac in Korea.
I thought the SD girls were very pretty but I had no great attraction to them.
The only male dolls at that time in Volks were Lihit, Lucas, Chris, Shou, Cecile
(Sharing similar face mold with F-9, F-28, F-27, F-29 of FCS accordingly) and
they were all beautiful. Yet I was still far from becoming an owner. Then it
happened - I saw an old School head on a personal site and I totally fell in
love. I probably liked him the most because he's in Kyon's line (i.e. F-28s,
Anais, Madoka, etc) which I think has the most humanistic features compared
to the other types that Volks produces. Before I could realize that I was going
insane, I was with Rouji, my first doll. (I almost lost 10 years of
my life expectancy and 2~3 years worth of my none-to-low income when I was getting
him off of the YJ auction dangling between heaven and hell). The three months
of waiting dried almost half of my blood. He arrived on April 14th of 2003.
My life changed from then on.
With absolutely no direct help for anything, from fixing the eyes to doing face-ups,
I dared to customize his face mold using very amateur tools. I still think that
I was more or less out of my mind (and I always feel sorry for Rouji). At the
time, I didn't know of the existence of the most critical materials, such as
Mr. Super Clear coating spray. 
I thought I was incapable of doing face-ups because the pastels would never
spread smoothly because on the first-job of customizing I coated with the normal
art store spray. Looking at other talented owner's face-up works with such smooth
shadings, I always wondered, how did they do that!?
Every time I redo Rouji's face-up, I try to come up with a better style of face-up
for him, and I guess that's how I have improved. Though I continually seek a
better style, there is the unique essence of Rouji which I must preserve. It
is the hardest thing to do: coming up with a new face-up while maintaining the
original essence. It would be wonderful if I could do a face-up and like it
enough to stay with it for a long time but I usually get sick of it after awhile
and reach a point when I can't stand it anymore unless I give him a new face-up.
The most frustrating time is when I look at him after the new face-up and he
doesn't look like "him", meaning I failed to maintain his essence.
So I end up working on it for days and days. Photos are usually the better way
to observe the face-up then just directly looking at the doll. It is pretty
much the same time consuming process for everyone I live with.
It has been less than a year whenI finally confident enough in my ability to
start taking commissions. It was of course even more challenging to interpret
each owner's idea of their doll's personality and come up with the face they
are imagining compared to working on 
the ones I live with. However I enjoy the work and learn a lot from it.
I thank everyone so much for having faith in me to work on their precious doll's
face-up, which is the most prominent way of expressing their unique personalities.
Art has been my favorite subject ever since I could remember. There are so many talented people out there in the world and I don't think I am worthy of being called an artist but I do feel happiest when I see the outcome of my hard work. When I see Rouji smiling at me with the finished face-up (in fact probably sneering at me saying "why did you have to take so long?") or when I see him with the new coat that I stressed so much to make, and of course, when I see owners happy to see their dolls back with the new face-up. I dare say that everyone is an artist if one could feel the same emotion in their own ways.
First of all, here are some of the materials and tools I use for doing face-ups (Fig. 1). Mr. Color paints, Volks pastels, MSC coating spray, Mr. Color thinner, Tamiya enamel, Tamiya enamel thinner, white glue for eyelash attachment, eyelashes, magic blocks, and of course brushes and a palette.
Except the brushes, the palette and the white glue, everything else was purchased at Tenshi-no-Sumika in Seoul. And here is our model for this tutorial, Volks School head A.
When using Mr. Color paints and thinner, make sure that the windows of your working area are wide open that you don't suffocate from the smell of thinner which is not recommended to breathe but you will get used to the smell after a while ;)
Also do not use any thin plastic containers to mix Mr. Color because the thinner will melt them. Ceramic ones like the one I use in the photo or the Volks paper palettes are good to use.
Here are the brushes involved: (Fig. 2)
The thin brush for detail drawing wears out from the use of Mr. Color after about 3-5 face-ups. So it is recommended that you have several of them available all the time if you are doing many face-ups and/or screwing up many times that you end up using the brush a lot. I'm in both categories most of the time ;)
Try to keep your fine brush clean all the time so that it lasts longer.
For the color of the lips I have several other pastels to blend beside the Volks pastels (Fig. 3). The ones in the photo are the colors I often use. The Unison pastels are relatively expensive but they have the deepest color which works best on the surface of MSC coats.
Some people grind the pastels that they want to use and then mix the resulting
powders to make up the color that they want to put on. I usually just directly
brush off the pastels of desired colors with the cosmetic brush (Fig. 4) just
like using the eye shadow palette for human make-up.
Start shading the lips lightly and gently from the center to the end. Blow off
all the excess powder as you apply the color The center of the lips is usually
darker then the ends when I put the powder on but you can shade them whatever
pattern you like to have.
If you have to much pastels and they won't blow away then use a piece of magic block to sweep them off (Fig. 6). If you use the brush to sweep them off then they will end up getting on the places outside the lips. As you use the magic block, try not to rub against the lips too hard or it will take off the base coat of MSC.
There is a limit to the darkness of the pastels as you apply them for a while.
If you want the color to be darker, coat the head with MSC and then put another
layer of pastels on.
When you use MSC coating spray, use if in a well ventilated room or even outdoors if the weather is not too windy/cold/hot. I coated the head with MSC since I wanted a darker color and applied another layer of pastels (Fig. 7). The colors I used were red, black and the 1st 3 browns of Volks pastels. When you think you have got the color you want put another layer of MSC to settle the pastels on the lips. Spray 5-6 times.
After the MSC coat has completely dried you can put the details of the lip surface
with whatever paint you are comfortable with. You can use acrylic paints such
as Liquitex, Tamiya Colors or Mr. Color which is what I used in this case. The
medium you mix the paint varies depending on the type of paint you use. If you
are using acrylic paints, Liquitex or Tamiya Colors you can either use water
of acrylic medium. If you are using Mr. Color paints you must use Mr. Color
thinner because they are not soluble in water.
For the colors of the paint try to come up with the color that is slightly darker
than the pastel color you put on as the base.
You start drawing the texture details with very thin paint (a lot of medium/water added to the paint) for the entire surface of the lips and then slowly increase the amount of paint relative to the thinning medium as you proceed to overlap the strokes (Fig. 9).
Deciding on the ratio of the paint to the medium is most important in getting
the fine lines. Too much paint would make the brush dry out quickly and the
paint won't come off the brush when you draw. Too much medium would make it
too light and there won't be much difference between the detail you have drawn
and the base color of the lips.
Try not to put so too many strokes because is will cover up the pastel base color and the lips will end up looking opaque/stiff. You really can't fix the wring strokes or erase the paint off without erasing the pastel off as well, which would mean staring over again (so try no to screw up! ;)
After the dark colors are done, mix the remaining color with a bit of white to draw the highlights on the lips. Again, try not to put so many stroked because then it will make the lip color murky. Wash your brush and spray another layer of MSC to protect the paint.
Now the easy and fun part. If you want your doll to have glossy lips, which is preferred most of the time, Tamiya enamel is used to make them glossy and shiny (Fig. 10). (You can skip this stage and be finished if you want matt lips)
Moreover, if you want the lips to be shiny and sparkly (metallic), you can use the shine pearl powder mixed with the enamel. (All purchase at Tenshi-no-Sumika) If you can't get the Shine Poweder, the alternative that you can use are sparkly acrylic paints in common art material stores. They are okay to use but they usually have bigger particles then the poweder.
Just a little bit of the powder is needed to mix with the enamel. Make sure the powder is well blended in the enamel since we don't want any chunks of sparkles stuck on the lips.
Starting from the center, slowly apply the enamel on the lips. The enamel defines the border line of the lips so it's important to put them on neatly. It's a fairly easy stage but be careful as you put the enamel on because if you screw up here (ie. you accidentally put the enamel way off the lips or put too much on and it ran down) you either need to start all over or just bear with the mistake because enamel doesn't come off unless you use the thinner and the thinner will take off the all the MSC coats at that spot, creating a color difference with the rest of the surface of the head. But this is usually easy to do without any mistakes. Just make sure you have a good amount of enamel on your brush and you will be fine.
For girls, where somewhat thicker lips are preferred to look more cute or sexy, you can put the enamel wider than the usual border of the lips, which makes the lips fuller looking.
Clean you brush with Tamiya Enamel Thinner. Let the lips dry without any dust getting on the surface. Now you're all finished!
| January 2006 - vol. 1 issue 6 | Back to Table of Contents |