My Face-up Tools: Pastels

My Face-up Tools blog post series.

I have had a lot of questions about what tools I use when I do a face-up.
So I thought it would be interesting for all of you do show you just exactly what I use.
What Pastels I use, what brushed I use, which sealants and all the other stuff I use.
Thus, I decided I'd do a little series of blog posts to tell you all about the all the lovely items that help me do my magic.

Pastels

It is almost impossible to do a face-up without pastels. Well maybe if you have an airbrush it is possible. But seeing I and many people with me do not have one, Pastels are a must. Pastels are your best friend for blushing your dolls. From the yes, to lips, cheeks and even option parts and fantasy parts. I use my pastels for everything I do.
You can not use just any pastel for your face-ups.
When doing face-ups you can only use Soft Pastels. These pastels do not have Oil in them. Oil containing pastels will stain your doll, and you don't want that to happen, right?
I use a three different brands of pastels.

1: Rembrand
My all time favorite Pastels are Rembrands. They are expensive as hell here in the netherlands but they are heavenly to work with. They have are high pigment pastels so you don;t have to use a lot to get the color to stick on your doll. When buying these pastels I decided to only buy the colors I would use most. So I got only 12 Rembrand pastels. All in different kinds shades of brown, red and one black one. Luckily for me the shop I bought them from gave me these handy black storing thingies so I can keep these expensive babies safe.

2: Jaxel
Jaxel is a good, cheaper alternative for Rembrand. They also have a high pigment in them, but not as much as the rembrands do. And they are a little bit more fragile. But they work very well for face-ups if you do not want to spend that much on for example Rembrand.
Currently I own onlt 4 rembrand pastels. All in natural colors. And I use two of them on ALL! my face-ups. I picked these 4 pastels because I could not find a good match in the Rembrand collection.


3: Mungyo pastelsI have box of 64 Mungyo Pastels. This box contains small pastels, which are about 1/3 of my other pastels in size.

The box is filled with all sorts of colors. from natural colors, to bright and even neon colors. I use this box when people commission me for very colorful face-ups. The pastels are very nice to use. Some colors contain more pigment than other, so sometimes you need more of a certain color that other colors, but they are good to work with. And because of all the different colors you will always have that perfect color or those colorful face-ups.

So now you know which pastels I use to create all my face-ups. Hope this info will help you find your favorite pastels.

Next in the "my face-up tools" series are Paint.
Keep an eye out for my next post if you want to know more about what paint I use

Face-up Commission #66

Picture info:

Face-up commission for rasilverstorm
Mold: Luts SDF winter event head 2015
Face-up by me

The story behind the picture:

This face-up was one I was looking forward to. Not often do I get the request to go nuts with color.
Most of my customers ask for a face-up with natural shades, and smokey eyes. The kind of face-ups I am know for. And I love doing those don't get me wrong. But I also love to work with color, unfortunately those request are not as frequent.
So you can understand how happy I was that I got this commission. Finally after a long time I could go all out with color. My mission was to capture a Male Fairy Princess vibe.
I choose these three colors because I thought they would look amazing with the wig and the outfit this doll would be wearing. And I was allowed to give him freckles! Yay. Hope you can see them. I made them very light so they would not be overpowering.
I 100% adore this sculpt so it was really fun doing his face-up. One day I am going to own one of these heads. I just have to!!!!!

Skateboards & Camera's

Picture info:

Bentley is an Asleep Eidolon Alex on a mirodoll body
Face-up: By me
Miloh is a Switch Huisa on a Leekeworld body
Face-up: by me

The story behind the picture:
I took these pictures for a challenge on a dutch local forum.
I had won the previous challenge with one of my pictures, so I had the chance to choose the next subject. I choose "Doll and their Hobbies" as the new subject. I had been wanting to make some pictures of these two doing just what they are doing in this picture for a long time, and now with this challenge I had the chance to make that idea a reality,
It's where two hobbies come together.
Both Miloh and Bentley are born with skateboards underneath their feet. And Miloh also has a huge passion for photography. So what could be more fun for these two best friends to combine the two things and make some super awesome action shots?
No, I know this is not an action shot. I did want to see if I could make an action shot, but its really hard levitating a doll in mid air, so this shows them planning the next shot.

My Crew anno April 2016

Picture info:

F.l.t.r.
top:
Joshua, Cameron, Brice, Elian, Kamdhin & Terran
Second row:
Paisley, Ilya & Miloh
Bottom:
Brandon, Sebastian, Daniel with Keiji, Alex, Bentley & Trez with Blaze

The story behind the picture:

So, it has been some time since I last made a group shot like this one. My last one was in September of 2015. But so much has changed since then.
I have sold some dolls and have given others a huge make over and gotten some new dolls as well.
You can really say a lot has changed. But they are all changes for the good.
This picture only shows you my complete dolls. I do have 5 floating heads still waiting for a body in my closet for whom I hope I can get bodies asap.
My floating heads are:
Maddox, Cade, Gabriel, Ryden & Ion

You might also notice Blaze is my only Yo-sd left in my crew. I kinda fell into an old trap. The trap that is called "woman-you-can-not-bond-with-yo-sd-trap". I have had the same problems before, with my first three yo-sd's and now I have run into the same problem again. They are so adorable and utterly cute, but to me they are nothing more than that. So I decided to re-home them all besides Blaze. Blaze for me is different from the normal yo-sd due to his head size and body size. And I actually do love this blue haired boy very much. And I am now 100% sure there will never be any new yo-sd's in my crew. After having owned 6 and re-homing them all, I am officially done with them. Ofcourse that doesn't mean I hate them. Some of my close friends have yo-sd and I adore them and always will adore them. They just are not right for me as an owner.

Confession time:
I do hope things are going to settle down a little in resin land for me now. I am getting a bit sick of constantly having to chance things around because I am just not happy with how my dolls look and all.
But slowly I am starting to feel I am getting there. I finally am feeling that satisfaction that my dolls are complete and done. And I can say I am proud of how they look. Now the time has come to really enjoy them and bond with them. I am soooo looking forward to this you have no idea.
I am also going to make some new profile pictures soon. As so many of my have have new wigs, eyes, clothes. they deserve a new up to date profile pic. So keep an eye out for those.

Face-up Commission #65

Picture info:

Mold: Luts model delf Abadon
Owner: toxic_nightmist
Face-up: By me

Sollitude

Picture info:
Paisley

Mold: Souldoll Jang Hwa
Face-up: default
Owner: me

The story behind the picture:
This is another picture from the shoot I did with Paisley at the Loonse en Drunese duinen last week.
Compared to the other picture, this one is a lot more gloomy than the first one. But I do love the feel it gives off.

Charlotte & Ion

Picture info:

Ion (L) is a Luts Karis and belongs to me
Charlotte (R) is a Volks Lieselotte and belongs to AmariexCiryatan

The story behind the picture:

Yesterday I met up with some doll friends and we went to visit Castle de Haar in Haarzuilens, the Netherlands. It has these beautiful gardens and we had a lovely picknick. It was such a lovely sunny day and I truly enjoyed myself that day.
And ofcourse we hand to make some pictures of the dolls we took along. I got to make some awesome pictures of this utterly cute couple. More is sure to come so keep an eye out if you want to see more.

Day in the forest

Picture info:

Paisley is a Souldoll Jang Hwa, he belongs to me and has his default face-up.

The story behind the picture:

A few days my best friend and I were on the road to go and take some awesome pictures at a site we had been before a couple of years back. It was site surrounded by many trees and shrubs. There also was a leftover church tower. The whole place had this abandoned forgotten place vibe to it and it was awesome to shoot dolls there. But when we arrived there we found out they had cut down most of the trees and all the shrubs were gone as well. The whole abandoned forgotten place vibe had gone. It now was a soulless empty cold place. And not a good place to take pictures at. We had driven all the way there to ding out,  there was nothing left of the magical place.
So we decided to make a detour to a huge nature reserve called "de Loonse en Drunese duinen." This is a huge forest and dune site and it's amazing.
We only were able to see the first 100 meters of the place as I had not counted on walking far and forgot my crutches, which I  currently need for walking longer distances.
But within those 100 meters I was able to make so many awesome pictures of Paisley.
So be prepared to see more of him in the coming weeks