Marrie Gets a New Face

Marrie Christmas :

Hujoo Yumi, 43cm ABS ball joint doll : Purchased blank at the Junky Spot
Dress : Sewn by Susan McNutt (me)
Face Paint : By Susan McNutt
Eyes : Purchased at the Junky Spot, blue/black 16LF06/16LF08
Wig : Dollzone Chestnut Brown, 7/8 (I really think it's more of a coppery red than chestnut brown!)
Eyelashes : Human hair, bought at our local Dollar Store

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Preparing a doll for her make up :

Clean the head (if it's blank) with a bit of 91% isopropyl alcohol and a Mr. Clean Eraser. Then use a bit of dish soap and paper towel to remove the chemicals, run the head (or in this case, the face plate) under water, pat dry with a WHITE paper towel. Don't use a paper towel with pretty print on it. The dye will rub off and that's not any fun removing. (More isopropyl alcohol and Mr. Clean Eraser!)

Take the head or face plate outside, and holding it carefully with either the face plate sitting flat on a paper plate or if it's a full head, by the back of the head (behind the ears) and give him or her a nice coat of Mr. Super Clear (MSC). I use MSC with a UV cut, so it doesn't yellow as much over time. You CAN use Testor's matte, but I find there's not as much tooth to hold the paints and pastel chalk.

With Marrie, since I wanted her to have a more childlike appearance, I wiped her face with the above mentioned cleaning procedure. It took a bit of scrubbing because of the sealant, but I did manage to get her face plate clean.

Supplies? Tiny brushes! Anything 20/0 or smaller...and some insanely small detail brushes that only have a few hairs (sable). Pastel chalk (remember, no oils!), water color paint (some of them had metallic sparkles!), acrylic paint, watercolor pencil (again, no oils!). I keep saying no oils. That's because the oils will permanently stain your doll. Actually, if you don't coat the vinyl heads properly, even watercolor/acrylic/pastel chalk will stain the doll, too. Black, pink, red...especially the darker colors. I've had that nightmare happen before.

The only large brush that I used was for her general facial shading. I used only one color, which was a pastel chalk pink, and a light pink at that. Her lips are a mixture of the metallic water color paint (fuscia and silver), acrylic white for detail and a bit of blushing with a darker pastel pink chalk on top of all of that. In between all those layers is yet another coat of MSC.

If you look up bjds and how to do face ups (there are TONS of videos on YouTube, really informational), everyone exclaims over tweezers for installing eyelashes. I'm a bit more barbaric. I just use a pair of regular scissors to cut them to size and then after I use glue on the eye socket (plain old Elmer's white glue - but don't use the water based kind), I just finagle the eyelashes in place with toothpicks, the wooden flat sort. Every now and then a certain four letter word can be heard muttered.

Next up, I'll give her a manicure (spray the hands with MSC first!). I ended her spa day a bit early. My hands were starting to shake too much and I honestly felt like I was going blind.