Commission Review - Circus Kane - Nexeven

Circus Kane releases very unique dolls. I know that there are those in the BJD hobby who dislike her aesthetic but I find it very refreshing and charismatic. I am usually attracted to awkward/ugly cute (but I hated troll dolls) so I was excited to have my usual customer Jo send me her Nexeven.

My initial reaction upon receiving her was that she's very tiny and delicate. She is on the small side for MSDs at 38cm but even then she has such thin limbs that she seems even smaller. Her resin appears to be French Resin since it has a translucent quality. The finish is smooth but not shiny. Sculpt wise she has subtle musculature and very detailed ears. Her face is tiny but her eyes are HUGE so she looks like a little fae creature.

The request was for a sweet young faceup with gold on her eyelids and a tattoo of the Chinese character for the word 'love' on her face with part of it extending to become her eyebrows. The main color scheme would be gold with the aqua of Nexeven's shoes. Jo suggested that perhaps there might be gold dots, yin yangs and etc on her hands and feet or perhaps some other Chinese characters for 'strength' or 'peace'. The other specification she made was that the eyelashes on her upper lid be dark and that they be pointing downwards instead of up. I think this last request was because Nexeven's eyes are just so large already that if her lashes pointed out her eyes would look even larger!

Well Here are the results ^___^

More under Cut!
Her huge eyes make her look so cute! Since she reminds me so much of a tiny fairy I wanted to create very thin transparent looking skin for her. This is my first time painting tiny blue veining on a doll. It does not show up well in photos (or at least not in my photos) but they look great in person! The veins cover her entire body. I think if my lights weren't so bright and direct they would show up a bit more. For her faceup I used a pink palette because her skin is thin and pale. Since her tattoo eyebrow is gold I went for a light blonde/brown color to match on the other side.

For the tattoos I decided to overboard! I decided to incorporate the characters 'soul/spirit' on her back above her heart, 'strength' on her shoulders and 'peace' on her shoes. One of the Chinese words for 'peace' is composed of the characters 'together' and 'flat/level' so together we are level. I think placing the characters on her shoes is like leveling the ground. (Oh I'm Chinese-American and I still remember a few Chinese characters from Chinese after-school!)

As you can see here, for the character 'love' on her face, I decide to paint it as if it was quickly drawn with a brush so that the part that forms her eyebrows can blend into the shape more easily. You can also see the characters strength as well as the stylized yin-yangs I incorporated into the design. After finishing her tattoos, I realized that I should have painted all the characters as if they had been painted with a brush quickly. It would have taken longer but the effect would have been nicer. Still the cleaner printed looking characters work well with the rest of the tattoos.

For the tattoos on the rest of Nexeven's body I decided to incorporate the elements from Chinese Astrology. The elements are: Metal (represented by the gold paint), Wood (on the back pelvis), Fire (on her hands), Water (on her feet) and Earth (on her shoes).

You can see the veining best in the photo of her upper back. It's a bit shadowed so the light isn't washing out the blue as much.

Some shots of her full body so you c an get an idea of how her blushing looks as a whole. You'll notice I tend to keep the blushing away from joints so even if the varnish chips there isn't any color chipping. The other thing I should mention is that if there is varnish flaking, you can gently dab the edges of the chip with a cotton swab dampened with alcohol (not soaking just damp) to 'melt' the edges and the white flakiness disappears.

Here's one last shot of her head ornament and her chest tattoo. I really like the shape of the tattoo in the chest/neck area because it looks like a collar.

And here are her time charts.

If you guys are wondering how I log my time, here's a quick shot of my timing notebook. It's an old planner. No point in wasting good paper right?

Pretty messy I know...It gives me a bit of a headache when I try to add up all the time too but I like to show ppl how long it actually takes me to paint because I know a lot of ppl think that artists can work very fast. In fact we don't! But we get very into what we do so time passes quickly when we are working hard.