Maya's lips

I just could not get the hang of lip painting. I don't have a clear understanding of how to apply the lip color without it looking like lipstick which is what I didn't want. I will have to do extensive research to locate a tutorial on lip painting that can give me a better understanding. Think that they are simply awful.

What I learn from my first doll painting is that I don't like doll kits under 20 inches everything is just to small and very hard for me to do detail work. I do realized that I have three more preemie kits that I need to practice on and that they will probably frustrate the "H" out of me but I refuse to give up. I know that the more I paint the better that I will be no matter how small the features are.

Over all this was a great experience and I am looking forward to my next preemie doll kit LOL.

I will be starting on her tomorrow.

Maya's Arm and legs

Maya's arms and legs where finished with a very thin wash of Yellow Ocher and thinning medium. I think that this wash gave her over all skin color some depth and it took that dirty look away. If you look very closely at the soles of her feet the light and dark skin tone line is to harsh and should have been blended better. I do like her overall skin tone but I think that it is way to dark for a preemie.

What I learned is that I love the thinning medium it gives you great control with the paint and it did give the skin a little texture.

After painting Maya's hair I knew that I was going to have problems with trying to paint her eyebrow. So I practice the brush strokes with my Loew-cornell comfort liner 18/0 and no matter how many times

I tried it just looked awful. So I began to practice with a pencil and paper and began to see that I had much better control and they looked soft and very real. I went to my local craft store and purchase a Prismacolor pencil. They didn't have soft black or any black pencils and since I didn't know how this was going to turn out I was only welling to buy one pencil so brought the color espresso. As you can see the Espresso color didn't match her hair color but I think that they are pretty good for my first try.

What I learn is that I am much better a drawing them on then painting and that all hair colors should match and that they should be soft colors not hard or harsh. If you click on the pictures you can see them much better.

Maya's painting is done

I used my Princeton Ex. Long Liner 20/0. I did have some problems with paint control. What I learned is that the brush needs to have a lot less paint on it and I need to get better control of my brush. I use the color Carbon Black. I think it was a little bit to strong it should have been a much more softer color. Overall my first hair painting experience was not that bad and I feel with practice I could nail this process with no problem and have a much better out come.

New Pictures

Well this was my first try at the painting process. Over all I am not happy with it. I was doing great with very thin washes of flesh 08. She was looking great no chalky look.

She has 4 coats of flesh 08. I stop for the day this was on Monday.

On Tuesday I began to apply my tan with a mixture Carbon Black and Burt umber. I really didn't measure the orderless thinner the way I did with the flesh 08. As the thinner began to evaporate in the tan mixture I still continued to use it not thinking that I should add more thinner. There are 5 layers of this mixture on her.

I can say that I had 2 distractions which cause be to get in a creative funk which I still have not yet recovered from. So I didn't touch Maya again until Thursday.

.

Thursday came and all I could say is that this baby looks like she needs a whole bottle of lotion very chalky, and dirty looking like she's been outside playing all day and need a bath.

Her fingernails and toenails where just to small for me to paint so I just moved on from that.

The veining was put on after the 4 coats of flesh 08 so they are still very visible.

I open her nose the in correct way and got some scratches on the bottom of her nose which filled with the tan mixture causing her nose look even more dirty.

At this point I just want to get started on the next step. So I began to make my mottling mixture of a little burnt umber and pyrrole red 02 for a burgundy color and began my mottling.

This process was starting to look better and give her skin some depth but because of the base coat looking dirty and chalky it didn't compliment Maya's parts that well.

On Monday I will paint her eyebrows and paint her hair and take better pictures (new camera pictures taken in the wrong mode).

Over all the experience was great. What I learned is that no matter what always KEEP THAT PAINT THIN WITH THINNER. Stay focus, concentrate on what your doing, and you have to find the paint application technique that gives you the results that your looking for.

The best thing about this was working with the paints to see what they can and cannot do, the flawless application of the flesh 08 and the oven worked perfect :).

Here she is

Please say hello to Maya. She is a 18 inch sculpt with full arms and legs by Jessica Schenk. This will be my first doll kit to reborn. I will keep you posted on her progress with pictures of all her ups and downs.

Signing out for now. Please take care of one another because thats all we really have :).

Oven thermometer

This is the thermometer that I will be using. I threw out the packaging before I thought about blogging about it. I only know that it is a Taylor. I did have some drama with it. Because I have old eyes I hung it on the upper rack close to the door so that I could see it with the door closed. The temp went over the 260-265 F. that I needed. So I moved it back and it took about 20 to 30 minutes before I got there. I will retest a few more times before I actually cure the paint on my first doll kit. I am still a little nervous about this step. Oh well MAY THE FORCE BE WITH ME. The oven that I will be using is a regular cooking oven that will be used for doll making only.

Color Mixing Recipes For Portraits

Note: When using this book you will need to translate the paint names that are in the book to the Genesis Paints names (example- Viridian Green is Phthalo Green 02). I do have a list of all the names or you can get them here. Try-it Yourself - On-Line - One Week Free Trial! www.gotcs.net

The journey begins

Hello,

My name is Martinique. My love for dolls have been forever and on going. I have never created a reborn doll before so here you will get to see the good the bad and the ugly.

I am not just jumping into this hobby because it is a very expensive art form and not to be taken lightly. I have done many months of research, purchased books, downloaded and reviewed many free on line tutorials ( a special thanks to all of you for being so giving of your art).

All of my paints, doll kits and any supplies that had to be purchased on line where all on sale and the rest of my supplies where all purchased at my local stores. I tried to keep the start up cost as minimal as possible.

Because I am a great seamstress I will making all my doll bodies or slips. Not sure what they are called. ( another $20.00 to $30.00 saved)

I wanted to create all ethnic skin tones so after I did a extensive online search for painting skin tones I came across this book (if it's in the world u can find it online :) ) Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits. This book is unbelieveable it has everything that you need for mixing skin tones and much more. I purchased this book from Amazon used for $5.00 s/h $3.33 great deal.