Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
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Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
I am big on faces and eyes, so when I see the Doll eyes out there I get very disappointed. I am sure as this develops I will get better at modding these up.
But there is one thing I know to be true from my experience with Film and Movie Prop Building / Replication. Any prop does not have to look great upon close inspection, but the whole can be amazing over all.
I plan to start off small, and work on to a few more ideas I have for my Dolls, their personalities and photography plans.
First up is My Aiko, named "Neasa LaSwift" I really wanted her to be the blonde beauty. And I wanted eyes that would pop or draw you in.
The best example of this on a real person I have seen in a long time, is Mary Jane Johnson....
I ordered in a couple 16mm Half rounds and made a quick go at this. (from an Ebay vendor Named 'hobby.zone')
Blue is not a color I usually work with, so I needed to make a quick stop at the craft store.... I picked up..
A small pack of Brushes, (I only used size 5/0, and a modified cut down brush with 'one' hair on it)
Desert Sky Blue, Blue Cloud, Crisp Blue, Midnight Blue (All in acrylic paint for easy clean up.)
I learned very quickly if you place the lenses in the eye, you have a horrible time getting them out. Which had me do a quick modification to all the 16mm eyes I had ordered...
Drilling a hole in the middle of the base, with a needle, allows for a small hole in the back (Behind the pupil) that you can push the lenses out with)
That made for some quick and painless checks to see if it looked OK with the lenses in. Because the shape actually creates special effects making some areas of paint larger and others smaller.
Layers tend to work well in Prop painting so I started with a thick layer of Desert Sky (the lightest color I had) now I know lots of people would tell you to prime this so the paint held better.
But I chose not to, because....
1) The Paint will be covered and should not come in contact with water or such when done
2) The paint will be easier to remove and redo if needed (Or you make an error)
So this took a couple applications. (I used a Size 2 brush I had laying around)
And used a toothpick to scrape any excess paint off the edges.
The second Layer was applied with the brush with just one hair.
I drew an x in the center of the eye, and then expanded out from there in Blue Cloud (Which is only a couple shades darker)
Remember you do NOT need this to be uniform as two eyes never look identical.
The Third Layer was again applied with the single hair brush.
I drew in from the outer edges towards the center, but I only brushed in to where the edge of the second layer was.
This was in a darker shade called Crisp Blue
The Fourth Layer was done in the same fashion as the (While the Third was still wet, making sure to not completely cover the Crisp Blue layer.
The Final color was much darker than the rest Midnight Blue, and I blended the two layers together.
Any over painting was fixed in the last and final paint layer... by going back to Desert Sky, and brushing outward to open up the center of the eye more, and give depth to all the layers over all.
Edges were again scraped clear by a tooth pick without trouble.
Once this dried I dropped the Lenses in to see how they looked.
When I compared them to the Store bought generics....
It doesn't look too bad, (For a first try)
though it looks like it might be a good version for the Eyes from "The Host"
I tried it in my Aiko Head and got this result....
Over all, pretty happy with them, but I am toying with the idea of pushing that "Midnight Blue" back with some "Blue Cloud" to see how that looks.... Just to open it up a little more for the effect of having the light blue eyes, only bordered in dark blue for that piercing look.
Re: Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
Bored, certified "plastic" surgeon. Serving the masses.
Dolls i have worked on. Real doll ,JM doll,teddybabes,Anime fabric doll,wm doll, d.s dolls, Diao shi, extravaganza air dolls, 1st pc, and candy8teen dolls.
Need work done? Feel free to send me a note.
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Re: Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
The results were a lot closer to what I wanted...
I think Neasa is quite happy with that look to her eyes now. (Nothing like great contacts right?)
After this has gone so well I ordered in some more Eye Blanks, so I can do the Brown Eyes and Fox Eyes I had planned....
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Re: Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
Review of my SUKI doll from Sili Doll viewtopic.php?f=253&t=73439
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Re: Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
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Re: Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
Re: Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
- Sir Agot Dahl
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Re: Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
Well let me just say at the onset if you decide to look into this issue yourself for painting; do not type “Brown Eye Closeup/Large” into your search engine. This will yield an entirely unfortunate search result.
Lila Rosa is supposed to be a Hispanic/Spanish/Latina based doll. As such I wanted her to have brown eyes, but as a Model for Photography the eyes are very important. The problem becomes, brown eyes are never so striking that anyone says. “OMG! They pulled me right in!” Brown eyed actresses are known for other things, but seemingly never their eyes....
Shakira is Well known for her Bellydance Moves and style NOT her eyes
Selena Gomez is known for being a Disney Starlet and Singing her own TV and movie Songs
Salma Hayak and Penelope Cruz are known more being strong Hispanic actresses than anything else.
Lets face it even when you look outside the Hispanic actresses to women like Eliza Dushku
We really don’t know her for her eyes, but for other things.
The question becomes “How does one make brown doll eyes that stand out?”
It is hard to pin down weather a actress has light brown or dark brown eyes, because at different angles this seems to change due to the reflection of light. “How does one duplicate that effect?”
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Re: Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
Metalic Paints so I dropped by the craft store and found...
Craft Smart “Espresso Premium Metalic”
Folk Art “Chocolate Brown Metalic”
(All because the Delta Creamcoat “Metalic Bronze” in my paint kit gave me the idea)
I also picked up some others just in case this goes wrong..
Craft Smart “Cocoa Bean”
Craft Smart “Espresso” (non metallic)
Craft Smart “Ground Cinnamon”
Craft Smart “Cafe au Lait”
(I do have tons of browns in my paint kit if I need them too)
I need a Light base to work from so,
Metalic Bronze with a #2 Brush
Second is a Light brush of Chocolate Brown Metalics. You should see some of the Metalic Bronze underneath.
I used my modified 1 hair brush to do that.
I checked the eye and it seemed to be too light of brown, to darken it I decided to add some Darker browns for my next layer.
Cocoa Bean just a few streaks of it with the one hair brush.
A thin layer of Expresso Metalic applied with a #1 brush just to keep a metalic sheen
More streaking lines in Cocoa Bean applied with my single hair brush and things started to take shape.
But still not dark enough.... How to Darken it?
At this point it really still didn’t have the dark brown look to it I wanted so I resorted to more single hair brushing with the Non Metalic Espresso Paint.
To darken it more I used the #1 brush to circle the outer edge in the same color, for depth.
These eyes should look DIFFERENT in Different Lighting conditions so lets take a look.....
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Re: Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
So how did we make out with doing that????
Once I have a chance I'll get my girl all dressed up and take a couple photos to see how we did with making her look more real.
Re: Personalizing Mini Doll Eyes 16mm (Half rounds)
Bored, certified "plastic" surgeon. Serving the masses.
Dolls i have worked on. Real doll ,JM doll,teddybabes,Anime fabric doll,wm doll, d.s dolls, Diao shi, extravaganza air dolls, 1st pc, and candy8teen dolls.
Need work done? Feel free to send me a note.