Happy new year everyone! I made it back to the USA roughly a week ago and jumped straight back to work at my day job. I just got done with a 6 day work week. That was exhausting! Anyway, I put live my new prices, a $5 increase for each size, and I decided to charge extra for fantasy face ups again as they do take me a lot longer than a basic/natural one. I also changed that I'll ask for half up front for payment, and the rest when I'm done and have the work approved. I also offer layaway for jobs totaling a minimum of $100. Now for the WIP. I did find some time to finally get working on the Doll in Mind Rain USPS lost for a while and arrived late to me. I'm not done yet, I'm about 2/3 there though! Things I still need to add with him are red to the eyebrows, eye details, and robins egg blue coloring to the outer corner of the lips. I'll be able to work on him more tomorrow, today I'm too tired after working again.
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Since I didn't have to go to either of my day jobs yesterday, I decided to work on face ups instead from the morning into the afternoon. I worked for about 5 hours non-stop on two heads, a Soom MD Beyla romantic and Soom MD Bygg human head. Due to the freezing temperatures (16ºF and lower), I had to go to my old college campus to work. I sadly didn't take into account that there was an event going on (a pretty big on, the art sale), so I had to hide myself away in a different area to work. Either way, I'm just about done with the two heads, I just ran out of steam after 5 hours and had to go home. I also got pretty hungry as I couldn't eat in the space I was working in, and didn't want to even try and pack up everything so I could go somewhere where I could eat and come back. Here are the WIP pictures so far. I need to punch up the pinks along the eyes and lips more, but otherwise they are just about done. I also need to check if the owner would like them to have applied eyelashes, and if so, what color. I'm hopeful I can work on them today to get them done. Someone asked me on one of the Facebook groups if I had used a stencil for the rose on the Bygg's face because it looks so perfect. That made me super happy because I didn't, it's free-hand.
Also I'm not accepting any new commissions until I get back from Austria in January, 2016. I'd rather not have to rush through them all, or have them sit for several weeks while I'm out of the country. Anyway, that's all from me for now! If I don't update before Thursday, happy Thanksgiving to all the USA peeps! I hope everyone had a grand Halloween yesterday that celebrates it, and a wonderful Samhain to those that celebrate that. I face upped yesterday morning and got a few things done. I finished up the Plantedoll Mini Tara, repainted the horns from the Soom MD Thera, and started on the Doll Chateau Beatrice. I feel accomplished! Otherwise I watched Hocus Pocus like I do every year on Halloween. Here we have the detail shots of the Planetdoll Mini Tara. Her head is really really tiny, like a 3/4 or 4/5 size. It's always hard getting my brush strokes fine enough for that size, but I think I did well. Then I also have a WIP shot of the Doll Chateau Beatrice who is getting painted like an Orchid Mantis. I got her body too, but I haven't had the chance to start on it yet as I want the face up done first.
Either way, it was a fun and productive Halloween for me! Have a good one! I managed to finish up the Tumblr free face up raffle winner's head yesterday already, but my camera was all out of power and I couldn't find the charger until today (it was so obvious that I felt stupid when I found it). He turned out rather lovely if you ask me! He's a dragon, so I was asked to paint gold and silver scales on him, along with a goatee. I had a lot of fun even if it took forever to build up the colors on the grey/silver scales. I also have 4 more heads to work on that I am starting today. They've been cleaned and sealed so all that's left now is the painting. They are in order a Doll Love WenWen, Fairyland MNF Mirwen, Pukifee Mio, and Pukifee NF. The WenWen and Mirwen will be natural while the two Pukifees will be ore fantasy. The tan one is an Impldoll Aldrich.
I worked more on that Dollzone Hazel head yesterday and today, and I'm almost done with her. I'm going to finish her up tomorrow. I'm also going to teach a friend of mine how to face up in a private workshop. For that I'm going to assemble my little spray booth. Here she is so far. I balanced out the bright red lips with darker and dramatic eyes. I'm actually happy with how it looks so far.
I'm also going to document the Hujoo Nano Freya either today or tomorrow. Well, I am getting things done, although slowly. I sent off approval pics of the Hujoo Nano Freya to his owner this afternoon after some finishing touches. He doesn't have eyes at this point yet, but I'm sure the owner will amend that soon enough. I also picked up another local commission from a friend on her Dollzone Hazel. She asked for bright red lips on her and gave me free range on the eyes. The head is still very much a work in progress. It's been a challenge to work on this head, mostly because the lips are so large on this sculpt that they are kind of overpowering bright red. The eyes are far from done, I'm hoping that they'll help pull the face up together and balance it.
I tried out my spray booth this morning when I couldn't sleep, and I must say it does make the MSC much more tolerable. It doesn't completely eliminate it, but it does a good enough job of it. Anyway, I wanted to show a picture of what I'm working on right now. She is about half way done at this point. She is in the rosy brown color that Withdoll offers. Very lovely for a drow/dark elf. I'm hoping to finish her soon.
Now that I'm finally no longer sick I'll be able to knock out several commissions that I have on me right now. I have 4 face ups and 3 body jobs to do as it stands now, and I'm expecting another head to arrive soon. From left to right on the picture: Withdoll Angela elf, Garden of Dolls tiny body, Obitsu Ai-Chan, Hujoo Rabi, and a Dollmore Gem Doll Dona lounging along the bottom. My weekend is going to be very full, but I like it that way.
The Ai-Chan will be interesting to work on because it'll be only my second anime face up. I might even sneak off and do one today because I don't have to go into work until 10:00am today. Decisions decisions... I finally finished glossing the heads from the last picture, and got a good chunk painted of the modded DZ April head. I had a lot of fun with these guys, though my eyes were ready to pop out working on the Apple Biki head. It's just so tiny... I also have some WIP shots of the DZ April head. I was originally trying to match her to her default face up, but that quickly proved to be too difficult with just pastels. I valiantly tried for over an hour, before I gave up and just went to town on the head. She is a fantasy character anyway. Basically what I did was mod her eyes to dreaming (first mod I've done like that), I just now need to learn how to use my airbrush so I can colormatch the apoxie sculpt parts to the skin tone better. Oh well, I'll do that next time... The head is no where near done with the paint job.
In other news, the pipe burst in our wall again flooding half the living room this time. We also have a new hole in the wall from that. Hopefully this time when they fix it they won't need to punch another hole in. I was certainly busy yesterday. I painted 3 heads and cleaned up a dreaming eye mod I was working on. From left to right:
Apple Biki Head, Fairyland LTF Baby Ruru, Hujoo Nano Freya, Dollzone April. Not much is left on the painted heads, only gloss and they can all go home. The DZ April head is getting painted hopefully today along with another head I received in the mail yesterday from a commissioner. It's a good thing I bought more MSC recently because I would have been down to just 1 bottle, and that's never enough. I'm safely at 4 bottles now, so I won't need to worry about stocking up again anytime soon... hopefully that is. Just figured I'd show that I'm not dead and still working on things. Things have been super busy with preparing for the holidays (Thanksgiving) so I haven't been able to go and work on dolls. Also my parents moved so many times on my days off I have to go and clear out my stuff from their old house so they can put it on the market. Man did I throw out a lot of old sketchbooks, some dating back to 6th grade. Oh well, it's not like I need them still in my life, I'm just a sentimental sucker. Anyway, onto the face up! Here we have a Soom FCE Shale in normal skin. He's been an interesting challenge to work on so far since I've never blinged out a doll like this. I actually went ahead and bought gold shimmer powder from PearlEX in regular since I only have the interference series currently. His face up isn't done yet since he still needs some small gems under his eyes but I've had a terrible time trying to find some. I need to check through Michaels and see if I can find anything there. The commissioner has told me that it's okay if I can't find them, but I still want to try. I did redo his face up from the ground up once because the owner did not like the eyebrows, but that's okay, at least it didn't take me terribly long to redo the face up.
Currently I'm still missing his tattoo on his chest and hoof blushing. I'm hoping to get to that this week. I'm very close to being done with this commission set. I'm just waiting on approval again before I either tweak more or finish up by adding eyelashes. I personally like the work at this point. Only problem I foresee are the ears. They were supposed to be lighter on the inside, but as I worked on them they kept getting darker and darker, so I may have to wipe them and start over. I also have another commission that just arrived, but before I can start working on him, I need to repaint Zephyra. She was my very first face up about 2.5 years ago, and now that I've completed (almost) 99 face ups, she's going to be redone as my 100th! It's simply to show myself how much I've improved in 100 face ups. The face up will be the same theme, just updated skill wise. This is her current face up. I still had help on this one with the eyebrows and eyelashes, but her next face up is going to be all me. I even have white eyelashes now which will look gorgeous on her. Oh, she's a Resinsoul Ai in fleshtone. Just thought I'd mention that as well.
Got a few things to work on this week still, but I'm making good progress. I'm currently working on a Fantasy Doll Ono and a Dearmine Dune. Both face ups are nearly done and I still need to finish blushing the Dune's fantasy parts such as tail and ears. Still need to work a bit on both of them. I'm finally figuring out what setting to put my camera on when it's dark out still.
I'm currently working on two heads and a pair of my wings that I recently sold. The heads are both YoSD heads from Doll Love, one is an M K and the other is a YouYou. Let's see the WIP shot of them! The YouYou will still be getting freckles all over the face, the M K head is almost done at this point, just need to add more details to her. And the wings sill need to be darkened up with a few more layers of purple.
I'm currently working on a Volks Syo, this is the first Volks I've worked on. I was asked to do really thin and dainty eyebrows, so it's a slight challenge since I love prominent eyebrows, but I did succeed. I showed the owner this in progress shot and she loves the face up so far. There isn't much left on it, I got the hard part out of the way, the blushing that is. Now I just need to refine the lips, eyebrows, and eye details like eyeliner and lashes.
Stupidly we have heavy fog up here right now, so I can't work on anything face up wise. Also it's really hot and I'd rather not cause the face up to flake off from the humidity. It's hard sometimes to find the time to face up with working from 9-6 every day, so I've been face upping in the morning when the air is cooler. |
Iza's Face UpsWelcome to the blog area of my site. Here you get to see my progress shots and the such of what I work on. Also I post news here. Enjoy! To Do List:
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