Playing with skin texture on Fairyland F60 Mirwen (boy)

Hi everyone!

I've been extremely busy so I haven't been posting much. I'm actually on a sleep deficit and my eyes are fuzzy as I write this but I really wanted to talk a little about my latest faceup so forgive me if I ramble incoherently.

F60 Mirwen is a huge favorite of favorites from Fairyland and really needs no introduction. The only thing I can say is that I bought her on the normal bust body completely expecting to be smitten but in person the Jury 2012 that came with her stole the body and named herself Anemone. Not too long after Mirwen arrived, my order from the first F60 body event arrived. I had ordered two bodies. A NS Muscular one for a hybrid with my Granado Boyd and a BW Normal body for my only BW Jury 2012 head. (I had fully intended to keep the BW Jury but I can't really justify so many large dolls and Anemone pretty much latched onto my Iplehouse YID Mars so there was no need for another 60cm male doll.) However as doll plans go, the tight stringing in FL bodies deterred me from the hybrid since I would have had to take the neckpiece off and instead I put Mirwen on the muscular body and painted him up.

Here he is:

If you take a closer look at the images you will be able to see the detailing in the skin texture. There are small blue veins painted in but the color doesn't show up very well. I think the texturing works very well on slightly more realistic sculpts. Even on less realistic sculpts I think that the dept it creates is very attractive. I would like to try it on more idealized or anime looking sculpts to see how it works out.

Here is his time chart. I have no idea why it took so much longer to edit the photos than usual but that's how the timing came out. I would also like to point out that my timing isn't perfect and there are moments I forget to turn the timer on so this isn't the most accurate measurement but it gives you an idea of the median time range.

A few more shots so you can drool lol....I love the sculpt in photos but in person I don't feel attached at all.

Oh, and the new owner requested an eye opening and a similar faceup on the sleep head so stay tuned!

Commission Review - Dollstown Alina & Dollstown Bandi & Estella

Dollstown is one of those companies that grabbed my attention when I first started looking at BJDs. They are a smaller company with two sculptors. The sculpting is incredibly detailed and it is obvious that the sculptors are familiar with the human body and bone structure. Their style is stylized but because of their familiarity with anatomy there is a distinct realism in the musculature and bones of the faces. Since their craft is so detailed and they only produce a small number of dolls cast by Dollshe, their prices are on the higher end though in my mind justifiably so. As a result I was always tempted by their dolls but do not feel like I could spend the money. Luckily, I have been commissioned several times to paint Dollstown sculpts :)

The sculpts I've been commissioned to paint are two SD sculpts (Estella and Bandi) and one MSD sculpt. (Alina) The quality of the sculpting and casting is very smooth as to be expected from Dollshe. You can see on the Dollstown website that they spend a lot of time smoothing out the sculpt before casting. There are no unexpected rough spots where paint, brushes or pastels can catch so painting these are a wonderful experience. The first thing to notice about the sculpts is that the two SD sculpts show a bit more bone structure and detail than the MSD sculpt. I think that might be due to the difference in sculpting styles of the two sculptors than the size because I've seen MSD sculpts from Dollstown that look very similar to Estella and Bandi. I would be interested to see other Dollstown sculpts to do more comparisons.

First up I have Alina. She's cast in what I think is pale skin since it is quite a bit paler than the fresh skin I've seen. The color is a beautiful warm white, not a paper white but not ivory. The sculpt is clearly hand sculpted since overall it is asymmetrical. It doesn't bother me since ppl are assymmetrical (myself included) but I know this is something that does bother some collectors. The style falls between anime and realistic since the eyes are large but the nose and facial structure is quite realistic. Experience wise, this commission was challenging because the buyer paid for the commission but disappeared for six months ignoring multiple attempts to contact her via etsy and private e-mails. Thus far I have still not confirmed that I should send her back and she has not paid for the lashes I attached. Still, I think the doll is beautiful and it's nice to look at her until the owner contacts me.

The next Dollstown sculpt is SD sized Bandi. She is cast in Oriental skin and at first glance she is very similar to the Dollstown Estella I painted a month before. The immediate difference is that Estella is an open mouthed doll with teeth parts. On closer inspection there are clear differences in the sculpts with a little more definition in Bandi's chin, a wider nose bridge and heavier eyelids. Overall the subtle differences has me preferring Bandi more although I think Estella's teeth parts are incredible. Here are photos of both so you can compare.

Estella in yellowed Oriental Skin

Bandi in Oriental Skin

The request for Estella was for a Victorian boy. I wasn't sure about the age since this is an SD doll but the description seemed to be for a fairly young adolescent boy. I kept the look very natural but with a bit of sickly blue shadowing under the eye to give him a touch of fragility. The colors are quite warm for this head since the base was already a warm tone. I really love how he turned out and the teeth parts were exceptionally easy to paint since the warm ivory resin was already very realistic.

For Bandi the request was simply for freckles. Considering that this is an SD sized doll, I usually associate this size with adult dolls. Since the request was for freckles I kept her looking natural as well but added a bit of brown/grey eyeshadow with a touch of pink pearl. I left the lips looking bare but naturally flushed. Overall I really like the effect of freckles and in the future will consider adding a slight skin texture as an option for realistic faceups.

Here are the time charts for Alina and Bandi. I painted Estella before I started timing my faceups so I don't have a chart for him.

Here are a few more shots so you can see Estella's teeth parts a little more clearly as well as some close ups of Bandi.

I hope everyone still enjoys these reviews. I find that my interest in BJDs tends toward the more technical and analytical side which isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea. If anyone has suggestions for a way to make my posts more interesting to them please let me know! I will work on more basic how to posts so that I can help those who are just starting out.

Commission Review - Kim Lasher Lottie & Dollshe Bernard

This is the fourth Bernard I've painted and all within two months! I'm a bit Bernarded out lol. I'm looking forward to other Dollshe commissions but maybe an Orijean, Pabo or Rosen next time. Yes. Curiously although I am an admirer of Cheryl Dink's work and her Saints are beautiful, the more I look at the sculpt the more I feel the mouth is too small which is why he's turned out to be my least favorite Dollshe boy.

More under cut.

Commission Review - D.I.M. Minimee Adriana Lima - NS

I love D.I.M. dolls. I love the aesthetic of their sculpts, the body sculpt, the body engineering and the resin quality. In fact, my first doll was a D.I.M. happy body with a free anime styled head because she was the prettiest of the dolls I could afford at the time. However, word on the net is that the Minimee heads are terribly finished and some artists refuse to paint them. When Robyn approached me to paint her Minimee Adrian Lima, I accepted because she told me she had completely sanded the surface and resculpted one ear to the best of her ablities. I also think Adriana Lima is beautiful and wanted to paint a sculpt of her. Well, I'm glad I accepted the commission because here she is!

More info under the cut!

Commission Review - Iplehouse - Doria NS

Iplehouse is one of the best known companies for realistic sculpts. Although they have a slight range in their style, it is more realistic than most companies out there. They also have one of the widest ranges of resin colors to choose from although they still stick fairly close to realism with different shades of skin tones instead of fantasy colors like Soom or ResinSoul. I think this is a fairly smart move on their part because they offer all the realistic skintones on a normal basis and the market is heavily geared toward real skin tones with a fairly strong but much smaller market for fantasy colors. When Iplehouse does produce a grey doll once in a while, the skintone is still quite popular but never as popular as one of the realistic skintones.

This July, I was commissioned to paint a Doria in NS. This was an interesting commission to me because it's not one of the run of the mill natural faceups. While I enjoy working hard to bring realism to a sculpt, I like to try new things and problem solve as well.

The owner sent me a photo of the makeup look and pretty much wanted it reproduced closely. It's a design that cannot be accomplished without an aibrush since it calls for a blue-white blended eyeshadow. No amount of layering pastels is going to produce a satisfactory result so this commission shows why I decided to invest in an airbrush.

Here's a look at the photo my client D.H. sent next to the final result.

More below the cut....

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.

Juri 2012 body trials

Juri 2012 was released as an event head during a Feeple65 special release. As a result some ppl think she was made for the F65 body. I actually found the head to be quite small compared to the F65 heads so I thought I would try it on my F60 Mirwen's body.

When she is bald the head appears a bit pin-headed on the Feeple65 body and a bit bobble-headed on the Feeple60 body. The look works for either well enough tho and it is really due to personal preference.

Here's a look at her with some wigs on. The pin-headed/bobble-headedness is resoved quite nicely once she has a wig on.

At first I didn't know if I was going to like this head but once I had her painted and dressed up she let me know her name was Anemone.....Not so sure I can let her go when she's told me her name.

I prefer the spunkier version on the F60 body. The F65 body is also a bit difficult to handle. I know she is supposed to sit well once her legs are locked but mine must be too loosely strung since she keeps falling over eve with her legs locked in place.

Introducing Anemone ~ Juri 2012 on Feeple60 and Feeple65 body

During the week that I was left stranded in South Brooklyn by Sandy I spent my time painting some heads and doing a little cleaning. Here is Anemone, my slightly modded Juri 2012. I sanded down her brow bone a little to give her a more feminine appearance. Her default look is a pink Leeke bob wig and her body is a Feeple60 Medium bust. Can you tell what her favorite colors are?

I also tried her out on a Feeple65 body with the large bust (the only size so far) and a different wig. There's a huge difference in her character. It's nice but I prefer the smaller spunkier look.