Painting a 3D head

I apologise for the lack of activity here, have been busy, to the point that haven’t been drawing much NOR sewing much ^^; The closest I get to “draw” is this recent project which was in progress little by little. What is that project? Here’s a clue :P

**Warning: doll head pix under the cut, so if you’re not a fan of dolls or is disturbed by bald doll heads, I would suggest you not look ^^;

I got this extra head without eyeholes as I intended to try to paint the eyes in.

ETA: I forgot to mention that I actually sanded the lips/mouth and a bit around the nose off the actual head (HDD-01). The result is not perfect unfortunately, as despite that I tried to buff the sanded area, buffing seemed to make the fine scratches from sanding more obvious to the naked eye ^^;

First Then, a couple coats of Mr. Super Clear is sprayed on over a few hours (gotta wait for it to dry before applying the 2nd coat).

Then I painted the eyeballs using diluted acrylic in white. As the acrylic paint is diluted I have to do a few coats to make sure the skin colour does not show through.

It took many tries before I came up with something somewhat decent ^^; I had rubbing alcohol and clean cotton buds nearby to remove mistakes ^^; Blush is applied with a clean brush using powdered chalk pastels — it has to be oil free as oils can permanently stain/damage the vinyl – which is what the doll head is made of.

I referred to the figures I have at home of Taiga to paint the pupils. As I use a brush to paint the facial features, we still see the brush strokes ^^;

I tried having a wig on the head but felt that the brows were kinda off, and she looks a bit squished with angry mouth :P

Dug around online for some Taiga smirking images and finally came up with this~

To see more pix you can check the doll entry here :3

My husband is probably also glad I finally finished as I had(still have) a lot of stuff on my desk which I really should pack away soon ^o^;

If you’re interested in the Mini Dollfie Dream body, there’s a discussion about the “floppy knee issue” going on at my post on figure.fm here, you can find out a bit more information if you read Chibichibiusa’s comments :)

32 replies
  1. Meimi132
    Meimi132 says:

    Omg she’s gorgeous!!! Seriously WOW!! I didn’t realise that the eye-hole-less heads could be used like that, never thought about it… but it works so well!! So very cute!!

  2. radiant
    radiant says:

    KAWAII!!! She looks so adorable! I actually like her pouty mouth too. ^_^

    Sugoi! You’re absolutely amazing! I bow to you. I’m not worthy! orz orz orz

  3. Arayden
    Arayden says:

    LOL. Now if taiga can find herself some nice eyes too.

    But excellent job on making a nice custom head :D.

    *Headhunter theme*

  4. coffeebugg
    coffeebugg says:

    m(-_-)m.. You ma’am are very talented and now I must bow in reverence for I am in the presence of a deity of dolls.. It looks so much like that max factory taiga figure…

  5. Pyoro
    Pyoro says:

    woah was this your first foray into doll-making?
    looks cute!
    albeit she’s missing the iconic pointy hair fringe she always has!
    maybe you can use a bit of hair gel or something ^^

  6. chun
    chun says:

    Sometimes I wish they have the eye part flat so I can just paint on a flat surface ^^; it was difficult not to get paint around the nook/crannies of the eyes ^^;

  7. chun
    chun says:

    U talking about the angry mouth rite? It seriously made her face really squished (if it’s not squished enough already ^^;)

  8. chun
    chun says:

    If I ever do it won’t be cheap ^^;;;; it was actually a lot of work, and due to the hand sanding/ hand painted nature of it it probably won’t look exactly the same LOL. I really don’t know how those customizers on YJA do it ^^;

  9. chun
    chun says:

    I hardly made anything lol except modifying/painting the head :3
    I don’t want to use gel for now since it’s gonna touch her face ^^; if her face got stained it would ruin my effort ^^;

  10. Yashiro
    Yashiro says:

    Hi! You did a great job and I can just imagine all the work it took, indeed :) (Plus she is super-cute and looks just like her!)

    …And here goes my noob question (sorry): I take it you used Mr. Super Clear to make the sanding marks less visible – but did you use it as a kind of base coat for the paint job, too? If so, is it any use if one ends up painting and repainting over and over (and over like I did with a smaller head ^^’). What I mean is, doesn’t the nice matte coating come off with the alcohol or whatever one uses to wipe the acrylics (I used nail polish remover)? Or did you also happen to spray it on afterwards, too?

  11. chun
    chun says:

    Oops sorry almost forgot about your question ^^; I had been rather busy so didn’t come back to check on if I replied everything as often ^^;/

    The Mr. Super clear is to act as a base to make it easier to paint on the head and also to prevent the paints from getting directly in contact with the vinyl since the vinyl tends to stain easily. After removing the “mistake”, ideally you can spray a light coat (but gotta wait for it to dry) for reasons I mentioned above :) I find that if the coating is removed completely it’s difficult to paint smoothly on the vinyl surface. Hope this answers your question!

  12. Yashiro
    Yashiro says:

    Oh I understand that you may be very busy so it’s totally ok! And I’m sorry to take your time with my silly question :D (Just kinda felt this was a tutorial-sorta-thing, so I went for it…)
    And thank you for your answer, it’s very helpful! Hafta try to do it like that, too (and maybe search for even more tutorials floating ’round the web ;)).
    All the best for you and Taiga~ ^^

  13. kt
    kt says:

    wow. wow. wow. wow. wow. wow. i am a doll collector and i thought it would be fun to make my own taiga doll, so i wanted to know where you got her wig. i was looking this stuff up online, but i couldn’t find a wig that worked.
    (i guess i could stlye one…)
    sry that i’m a total noob.
    ~kt

  14. kt
    kt says:

    oks. another kind of noob question. did you use a pattern for making taiga’s school uniform? i can’t find one anywhere.

  15. chun
    chun says:

    I got her wig 2nd hand ^^; It was a LUTs wig but I think unfortunately the wig is not in production anymore :(
    I made her outfit from scratch :P so, sorry I cannot help you ^^;

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