It is official, I'm going on my first vacation today in almost 2 years to see my family in Vienna, Austria. I'm taking my fiancee with me, and she's never flown international or really left the country before. So she's excited as am I. I have a couple of things I need to work on, but they are on hold until I return on August 2nd. I extra bought a new camera for this (just a small Nikon CoolPix point and shoot) so we can take lots of pictures. I may or may not post them to Flickr, and perhaps the best here. One last picture of all of our dolls as we bid them farewell for two weeks. Two dolls aren't in the picture because they are floating heads. One has a body on order and the other does not.
Our two kitties are really confused as to why we've both got suitcases. We have some friends taking care of them in our absence. Bye everyone!
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In a week I'll be flying to Austria to visit my family there. I'm taking my SO with me, which'll be the first time they meet her. We're very excited, and a little bit nervous (for various reasons). I'll be gone from July 19th until August 2nd. What that means is that I'll be trying to get what commissions I have on me done and sent back to their owners. I only have 2 more on my right now, which I'm hoping to knock out within the next few days as long as the weather cooperates. I also need to return a friend's MH girls that I've had forever. Anyway, onto the new work I have to show! This week I worked on a Doll Family-A Aurea in white skin. I'm starting to get better at painting white skin dolls. They are tricky because I want to make them lively, but not so much that they don't match their body anymore... It's a conundrum. I think I finally figured out the magic pastel layering combination. He is meant to be an ice/snow elf and belongs to a friend of mine. Her commission is two part, because she got the DF-A event fox as well, so I need to paint him as a lynx pretty much. Either way, I had to keep him pale to make sure he looks frosty. I also have a picture of him with his default face up next to my face up. The default face up was very pretty and well done, but it simply wasn't my friend's character, so she asked me to repaint him for her. She ordered him blank, but MoC accidentally ended up with a face up-ed version. His face up did come off fairly easily at least, only Mystic Kids face ups. I swear MK uses the sealant of gods. I should ask them what they use...
I decided to offer my services to repainting Monster High Dolls. I know I've only painted 3 so far, but I feel I do a good enough job of them to offer them as a commissionable service. I even added a section in my examples for them. Either way, I finally finished a commission for a MH doll for a friend. She has a lot of them so she didn't mind me taking a long time on them. I still need to work on my eyes more for them, this time I only used pastels and watercolor pencils straight up. Normally I paint the eyes, but I'm still experimenting with repainting them. I do have 2 MH dolls myself, one I already painted, and another who I'm now itching to strip and repaint as well. Here are the detail shots of the repaint above: I personally am not a collector of MH dolls, but I sure appreciate the variation from sculpt to sculpt. They all have slightly different features which is really neat. I'm glad I got a tip from an acquaintance on how to easily remove the factory paint job. W&N brush cleaner really works wonders on them and doesn't melt them!
Oh! I'll also be holding a free face up giveaway on my facebook page, so keep your eyes peeled for that post. I have 2 commissions left to do and I'm determined to finally get them done! Once they are out of the way I'm going to be fishing for more commissions. They've been really slow again.
I might buy ad space on DoA again, that did help me get more commissions. I just need enough money for it. The last time I did it I bought it for 2 months, which cost about $90. I made it back in commissions pretty quickly though, so I can't complain. My two commissions consist of a Hujoo Nano Freya in grey and a Dollmore Dona. Both are ABS plastics and tiny, but the Dona is a mature tiny so she's going to take much more work I think. Either way I look forward to it. I managed to get one commission done, a face up and body blush with a tiny tattoo on a Hujoo Nano Rabi. She is super cute, and my new way of working made the detailing much easier. Sadly my grey didn't want to stick to the ABS very well... See? Teeny tiny shooting star tattoo on the back. I recently got a new micro liner brush and it is amazing for eyelashes and minuscule detail work. The Hujoo Nano's are only about 12cm big, so you can imagine this body his very tiny. Another commission arrived on Monday, a Fairyland MNF Juri 2013. She's very cute and I'm glad I got to see one in person. Either way, today is my birthday so I won't be working on dolls today. I'll be celebrating my quarter of a century milestone. Thanks for understanding! With a beautiful 49 degrees outside and everything melting, spring is finally knocking on our door! Too bad it's going to snow again tomorrow. Fortunately it won't stay with how warm it is supposed to be. Either way, I have some new work to show! I finished up the modded DZ April and finally got around to working on the Only Doll RouDie as well. I took one of my liner brushes and trimmed it until it was a 30/0 rather than a 5/0. I'm really happy with how both turned out. I haven't done much with colorful eyeshadow, but I really like how the OnlyDoll turned out. I also really liked the eyelashes I was sent. I wish I could keep the extras, but I'm not, I'm going to send them back. I'll just ask her where they are from. I'm expecting a few more heads soon, so keep an eye out for new work in the next few weeks!
I've been switched to a new work schedule at my job, so now I have Sunday through Tuesday off, but for that I work 4 ten hour shifts a week. I managed to get through one of those on Saturday, so here's to hoping I can get through 4 in a row! I have discontinued my face up book at this time (Face Up Handbook) because the technique in it is very outdated to how I work now. The basic principle is there, but the skill level is no where near where I'm at now. I am working on a new face up book now and I plan on bringing it out as an ebook and a physical copy as well. I will be publishing it probably though Createspace because I can name my own price without having to worry about production cost. I've been using the Blurb platform for it because it's really nice. I've got a good chunk of it done, but the face ups are still missing from it. That's right, it won't be just one face up, it'll be three. I have one face up documented for it, but I might not use that one and wait to get another commission for a goth face up because I don't like the lighting in the shots. Either way I'm hoping to have it ready by summer. In other news, I managed to pick up a few commissions locally. I have now two dolls to work on, a Doll Chateau Dolores and a Sweet Dolls Fairy Line Alexa. I already got the face up done on the Dolores, but his body blush is going to take forever because he's so big. I'll be working on the fairy first because she'll be simple. She's technically a 1/6 scale, but with MSD proportions. She's also a 3D print, which I've never worked on before. It'll be interesting. Anyway, onto some pictures of the DC Dolores! He's really handsome and fun to work on. I love the contours of his face, they are very pretty. Almost makes me wish I had one in my collection, but only almost. A friend of mine owns him so I can play with him basically at any point really that we meet up at.
That's right, I have pretty much nothing to work on right now. I just have a pair of ears to paint that I'm sending out as a gift to a penpal.
If you're looking for someone to paint your doll, look no further, I am available. I've managed to keep my turn around time still within under a month. I'm quite proud of that because I work about 40 hours a week at my day job and have other things to do as well when I'm not working. 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.
That's right, a different friend with a light grey Hujoo Nano Freya asked me to give her a real basic face up as well. It took me a few days to get to it, but she is now done and ready to go home. She's really cute, but I can't get her to stop being wall-eyed. It's the way she's strung on the inside. She doesn't have an S-hook, the elastic just loops around the pegs her headback slides into. Now for the FYI. I'm going to be raising my prices by $5 coming October. Anyone that still contacts me and ships a commission to me before October will still get the current prices. Basically anything shipped after Monday will be the new prices. I have also now reached 90 face ups, so it's time for... another collage! I'm only 10 face ups away from my goal of reaching 100 this year. When I started the year I was at about 47. Either way, I'm super excited by the concept of possibly getting to 100 face ups within the next 3 months. I think I can manage that, but I wouldn't be able to do so without you.
So I want to say thank you to everyone that's supported me and commissioned me. I'll probably write up a real sappy post once I get to 100 face ups. Well, looks like my plate is pretty empty again. All I have now to work on is personal projects that I always somehow put off. Two face ups I need to redo on my dolls, but I need the process documented for my new face up book. Anyway, if you have a head laying around in need of a new face, don't hesitate to message me! I'll be raising my prices by $5 in October since it's been a good 6 months since my last price raise. So if you want a head painted at my current prices, now is the time! In other news, my floating DZ Miss Kitty head finally got her new DC kid body. Seeing her put together like this makes it hard to believe she was ever a YoSD. I do have to do some modding on her neck hole so that her head will sit better. DC bodies are interesting to dress because her torso fits into YoSD clothes while her hips are better suited
That's right! I'm open for commissions again. I finished up the last high important one and am ready for more!
Work's been super hectic so getting a breather to work on dolls has been a life saver. It's wonderfully relaxing for me to just sit and paint away at dolls. Anyway, I got one doll incoming already, so I'm waiting for his arrival, but otherwise I'm wide open. My turn around rate has gone up a bit because I can only work on and ship dolls on Mondays and Tuesdays since those are my days off. Sometimes when the weather permits I can work from home in the mornings/evenings. Either way, I'll still do my very best to get things back as soon as possible. Thanks for understanding! Now that I'm down to just one commission head with me that I need to finish, I'm almost ready to reopen commissions again! All I really have left is a Rosenlied Basic Aura to do. Now onto the last two commissions I completed in the past week! Here we have a Hujoo Sara once again. I finally got to use some of my fantasy colored eyelashes on this girl, and they look super pretty. The lower eyelashes turned out a little intense, but the owner wants to give the face up a chance before I redo it. I offered since they are really strong, but I'm fine with not working on the head again immediately. And this one is a Fantasy Doll Pamela that I modded into a boy body. I did the face up and body work on him. He's meant to be a little mushroom boy and is his owner's first doll. He'll be getting shipped home to Germany around next week. I can't wait to see him with his proper (blue) eyes and a wig!
I've been trying to knock out as many commissions as I can in a timely manner and have gotten my to do list down to 3 projects. The MH dolls are more for fun than anything, so those are an extremely low priority. But anyway, in the past few days I've worked on a Soom MD Ace and an Oceanmoon Sa-Yu BoNee. They both look so incredibly different, it's crazy! Both are white skin, but just the looks I was asked to do by the owners are so varied that it's fun to see. First up is the Soom MD Ace. I did blush her feet and ears too, but I didn't get good documentation of those yet, and will need to re-document her face up too. But she's so cute, poses like crud, but she makes up for it by being cute. What was fun too was that I was just sent a picture of the wig color and I still managed to match it pretty well. I'm proud of myself. And here we have my friend's Oceanmoon Sa-Yu BoNee. I actually documented the process of her face up while I was working on her for my new book. Yes, I am making a new face up book, one much more up to date than my last one and it'll have 3 face ups in it. I'll be bringing it out through Createspace so it won't be as expensive for the amount of content as the last one. Either way, I'm almost done with it, just need pictures for one of the chapters and 2 more face ups to document the process of. I'm hoping to bring it out by the end of the year!
A local friend has commissioned me to paint her Volks Syo head, but the weather is absolutely horrible. We've had such thunderstorms the last couple of days that the twin cities look like they got hit by a hurricane, and I'm in Minnesota! Trees are down left and right and everything's flooded. I've been safe in the suburbs luckily, but the power keeps going out.
Either way, I'm expecting an Impldoll Xavier as well sometime next week. Oh! And I bought business cards, they should arrive in 2 weeks about. I might start sending them out with people's commissions. I'm really hoping the weather will be better soon, because with working full time it's hard to get to my college to work in the spray booth. Oh well, I'll figure something out. I don't want my turn around rate to go any longer than it already is. At work I finally finished the training class, so now I get to nest (go on the phones), so that'll be interesting. I'm looking forward to it. |
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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