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!

Commission Review - Spiritdoll - This Alice LE WS for Nancy S.

As you all know I'm very obsessed with faceups and commissions and I've been timing myself lately. I thought it might be interesting to some to hear about my thoughts on some of my commissions. Most likely I'll start out reviewing all of them and slowly taper off to ones I find particularly interesting as I build up my reviews since I'm sure I will paint the same sculpts again over time.

First Commission Review is This Alice from Spiritdoll. I find her particularly compelling because she's one of the huge dolls that have started appearing in the last two or three years. Dollmore and Bimong are the other doll producers that are producing made to order dolls in a 1/2 an up size. Bimong's Doll was 1/1 scale, albeit with very idealized proportions. Dollmore's Lusion Doll at 79cm is a similar size to Spiritdoll's Dolce at 75cm although the aesthetic and proportions are different.

This Alice was a limited 50 edition doll produced only in White Skin for the 2013 - Alice in Wonderland theme. As such she is quite rare and I've not seen any other This Alice since I believe there was also a limited ordering period. Very likely there are not 50 altogether so I was very happy to have been commissioned to paint her.

Her stats are a 11.5in (29cm) head circumference and 20mm eyes.

The request was for a pale freckled 12 year old girl with baby blue eyeshadow. I'm usually pretty leery about painting kids with makeup on unless the sculpt is stylized or the makeup is stylized so I was not certain at all about the blue eyeshadow on a realistically painted and sculpted kid. After a few trials where I felt she looked....slightly too precocious shall we say, I decided with Nancy's blessings to keep the blue eyeshadow to a light dusting instead of anything that looked too heavy.

Here's a look at the blue eyeshadow trial:

Trust me. In real life it looked a bit worse. However in the end I think she looks smashing!

Her preview before lashes:

and her final pics....

I had a great time with her. In terms of casting and resin quality, I did find a very obvious bubble on her bottom lip. I patched it with some epoxy clay, sanded it smooth and buffed it. I painted over it with an airbrush to match the resin and voila! Smooth perfect lips. Otherwise the resin was heavy and smooth and the casting held beautiful detail.

Time wise, this girl took a long time. I've decided to break down the timing to better help everyone understand exactly how long it takes me to do everything involved in the process. Here's a chart I made.

I didn't time myself heading to the post office to mail out this package as well as another head but it takes me about 8-9 minutes to walk to the post office, about 4-10 minutes to mail the packages depending on if I can use the APC or if I have to wait on line and another 8-9 minutes to walk back home. I also don't bother to time myself going to pick up the packages or opening and inspecting them but as usual it all adds up. For Nancy, there was a total of 47 e-mails back and forth between us. That's a fairly high number but not unusual although it's usually lower. A lot of times it depends on how friendly the client and I are and if we talk about things other than just the commission or if there is a tweak I am working on. In the end I'm unsure how to time out the e-mails so I don't think I will bother.

As you can see, it took me more than a normal work day to finish this commission. I'm not sure how long other artists take, but this is how long it takes me. I think there is a misconception out there that if someone is good at something, they're a lot faster at it. Here's the truth, you can't rush art. You can't rush painting. It's a physical thing. It takes a specific amount of time to lay down a stroke and if your work is finely detailed, that means you spend that much more time on it.

Anyway, I hope you guys like these charts. I will be putting up more of them. It would be nice if there are any other faceup artists reading this to communicate and talk about how long it takes you guys to do your faceups. I'm quite curious as I can't figure out if I'm super slow or not.

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.

Custom House Bisou!

This little girl is slated for the block but I thought I'd show her here anyway since I'm super happy with her faceup. Her head size is similar to the 1/6 heads I paint so that might have something to do with it. Less space to mess up I guess hahah. I gotta run but here are some quick shots.

Aili Nudes

I haven't shot any doll nudes yet because I only started painting bodies recently. I also wasn't sure how it would be received but I had an idea I wanted to try out using back-lighting. Here is Aili. She is my 8th head and was painted before Lara, but Lara was finished first since Aili needed her St. Patrick's gown to be considered complete. Here we go!


Let me know what you think of doll nudes. I will likely be doing more in the future. As for my plan of action after Aili is, Moogle and male head at the same time. Since the Moogle clay needs time to cure, I will paint the male head as it is curing. After the male head comes Ace and then I have to start the clothes and heads for Easter! I have the concept and preplanning done already but I should sketch the faces out a bit so I have a visual guide.

Lara comes out!....in a big way.

I've been busy....poking holes in fabric and making a mess but I finally have something to show for it. (I've also been busy doing freelance animation...making it rain blood....really ...I got paid to animate cows and pigs hacking each other up this week...it was fun and I wish there were more jobs like that.)

So without further ado, here is Lara! You guys got a sneak peek a few days ago but here she is in presentable form. I don't know how to hide NSFW photos yet so I won't post those here. When I do you can take a look at her body blushing if you wish to.

Lara is a lingerie model...but her personality is very much the girl next door. Very sweet and genuine even though she is blessed with an amazing body. hahaha.

I'm really happy with her actually. When I first painted her I didn't really like her. I thought she looked too Barbie like. She still does but all my girls are different and she just happens to be the most apple pie one.

So for the next week (or 2 weeks) I need to

1) Finish Aili's dress.
2) Finish the Moogle.
3) Paint a male head.

So much to do.....the bf is also planning a trip to New Orleans...so we'll see if I can fit everything in. Thanks so much for reading guys!