Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Dollshe - Pure Body for Jo with Time Chart

I don't normally get a lot of request for body blushing. Mostly because it's hard to maintain and can chip easily at the joints. However, I do love the look of a freshly completed doll.

Meet Jo's Bernard. I completed three faceplates for her including an OE and SP pair that are the same character and a modded SP Bernard who is his own character. The body I blushed belongs to the freckled OE and SP pair.


The body is freckled to match the faceplates on areas of the body that are most exposed to the sun including the chest, upper back, arms and lower legs as well as the hands and feet.

NWS after cut.





I think body blushing can really complete a doll but since most dolls are usually dressed it only makes sense to blush the chest, arms and lower legs. Of course if you have a manly man who likes to show off his abs, torso blushing looks wonderful with a pair of jeans.
Overall tho, I will have to announce I am no longer offering full body blushing for SD sizes. The reason is shown in the time chart below.

As you all know, I started timing my commissions to see how long they take me. When I first opened shop, I based my prices on what I saw other artists offering their work at. I started very low to introduce myself to the community but as you can see it takes me 22 hours to completely blush a 70cm body. That's almost three full days of normal work hours. I realize I probably take longer than most other artist due to my painting style but I do not want to change my style to a cookie cutter image just so that I can charge lower prices. 

To break down the painting process, it takes 1 hr to clean and about 1hr 20 mins to completely coat the entire body with one layer of base coat or varnish. I use 2 coats of base to protect the resin from staining and 4 coats of varnish to really protect from wear and tear. That by itself is 9 hrs already. The reason it takes so long is that this body was composed of 18 pieces. The parts were too large and heavy for me to put on skewers to prop up so I laid them flat on pieces of towel paper and coated each side of a piece. The process for one side takes about 38 minutes so to cover the other side it takes another 38 minutes.

Painting the linework and details on the hands and feet take about 1hr altogether, sueding and stringing took me 1hr 32 mins together so with the base layers, the total without blushing and enhancing the musculature is already 11.5 hrs. The blushing itself takes longer than just spraying a base coat on a body. I go over the body 3 times to form a base look using multiple colors. After that I look over the entire body to see if it is cohesive and if the arms and legs match each other. So overall I go over the body about 5 times with blushing. It took me about 8 hrs to complete the blushing and contouring.

I know all the number crunching is a littler overwhelming so I made the chart to show the timing in a comprehensive way. From now on I will be doing this for all my commissions so I can price my services fairly for myself and for customers. I finally set up my LLC so I will be paying taxes on my commissions. It doesn't benefit me not to because I am a freelancer so please keep this in mind when looking at my prices.

If anyone really does want their SD sized doll blushed by me, feel free to contact me with a reasonable offer. Of course partial body blushing will cost less.

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