Commission #2 - Tankini & Bloody Rose (onesixthwarrior)

Meet Tankini and Bloody Rose, two lovely (soon to be lovelier) belonging to Gdamron (onesixthwarrior). Tankini appears to be a normal skin side part factory painted Obitsu 27HD-F01 head. Yes, I know which sculpt it is by looking lol. It's pretty easy esp since i've worked with so many Obitsu heads. The request is to keep the basic features but make her look more realistic and get rid of the neon pink lipstick. She can have some light makeup as she is a bikini model!

Bloody Rose is a Takara CG head. I'm not sure which version she is as there are several but neither Gdamron nor I are very fond of the factory faceup. I have nothing against dramatic makeup but there is no nuance to it. Her character is supposed to be a sophisticated assassin with a masters degree in forensic science (very useful degree for an assassin). As you can see, blue eye shadow and gothy lips do not spell sophistication. From what I can tell she does have a very nice sculpt. The sculpt itself looks a bit East Asian to me but I think her character is Caucasian.

Since these are factory faceups, I will need to clean them carefully with acetone before I can take a good look at the sculpts. I'll update again tomorrow...probably with sketches. Tankini needs to be done first to participate in a contest.

7/17/2011- So I have cleaned both heads twice with a little bit of acetone using q-tips and a small brush for hard to reach places. When using acetone, make sure to quickly wash off the acetone thoroughly after you get the paint off. Leaving vinyl in acetone can damage the head.

The Obitsu head is indeed the 27HD-F01 and cleaned off very easily. I like her side parted hair and I wish Parabox would sell those as well. Bloody Rose is an amazing sculpt and as you can see she definitely has an Asian look to her. (she actually looks a lot like me but with a bigger nose lol.) Because of the fine detail in the sculpt it was harder to get all the paint out. There is some residue left after her water and soap wash but I will get it off in a bit. (the streaks of white are not scratches. I don't use anything hard to clean the faces. Only q-tips, brushes and cotton pads.)

One thing I noticed about Bloody Rose other than the red tone of her vinyl is that there are some defects to the sculpt or casting under the paint. I will point these out later but they are small enough that they will not affect the faceup at all. Her skin is really pink which I noticed when I first saw her. I think this may be from age? Looking at the underside of her head I notice that there is a slight un-eveness to her color as if parts have bee faded. I'm not sure why this is or why the head would be pink since red pigments are usually a lot more unstable than yellow pigments so things usually turn yellow with age, not pink.

Anyhow, I will paint Tankini first since her design is more straight forward. BR will need to be rewashed and sketched out before I start on her.

7/19/2011- Heads are now completely cleaned with one last wash using Winsor Newton Brush Cleaner. I have made up some sketches of the direction I want to go in and am awaiting approval.

In a previous conversation, the owner had said it would be nice to keep Tankini's big eyed cute look, so here she is with softer more realistic look. In general the direction is toward a natural minimal makeup look for both. I decided to give Tankini darker lashes to make her eyes look even bigger and to fit her role as a bikini model.

Bloody Rose is a sophisticated and (in my mind) cold assassin. I've toned down her makeup a lot. If the owner wants a softer look from her, I will change the eyes a bit.

7/23/2011- I have finished painting Tankini. I want to send her out as soon as possible because I've taken so long on this commission. I think she ended up fairly close to the sketch. Her eyes are bigger than my usual style but I like trying new things. I prefer slightly smaller eyes though lol. More realistic in my opinion.

I have tweaked the sketches a bit to give BR a softer look since the customer would like ppl to feel empathy for her.

7/24/2011- BR is now finished as well but I have yet to take finished photos. During cleaning, I noticed her neck hole had a tear in it and dicoloration. GDamron has confirmed that she is an older head that is showing signs of age. Her vinyl has stiffened and dried a bit. Because of this there are slight imperfections in her sculpt which I can point out later. They aren't very noticeable unless you're the painter. For now here are a few shots of her after her paint but before glossing.

EDIT: lol..one of my friends saw the picture of the factory face upped BR and said "wow the doll on the right really looks like you! Is that a self-portrait."...

-___-

I did say the sculpt looks a lot like me...but srsly....I remind her of a blue eyeshadowed tranny!!!

EDIT 2: I tried to take some better photos, but I lost the day as I was busy cat sitting and working on take home work. As such I wasn't home all day and I only ended up taking these bad photos of BR before packing her up to be sent out tomorrow. I was too tired to set up lights and such so I just turned up the ISO....baaaaaad idea. Well lesson learned and I won't do it again.