Reborn, Sweet – dolls by Shaylen

So I know I’ve got at least five blog entries I’m overdue in posting, but I decided I just had to get this out. I’m into painted hair. I’m deep in the muck of painting hair. And I’ve just about chewed through EVERY online tutorial, youtube video there is on honing my technique and I still have questions. I thought, the moment I got into this whole thing, that painted hair was something I was going to dig. And oh yes, I dig it. In that way that I’m entirely obsessed with the idea of mastering a perfect head of painted baby hair and also completely unable to do it yet, but growing evermore determined and obsessed despite my shortcomings.

Thing is, I love the look of an amazing head of painted hair. I mean, I LOOOOVE it. I have now amassed — likely — the largest library of painted hair babies ever. I mean, it’s enormous. I just save and pin and save and reference and pin some more. And most of it, I have no idea how to do yet. I mean, it looks simple in theory, and I do paint hair for a living. I mean, portrait art isn’t so difference. Except on a three dimensional skull, it sort of is. And the physical mediums. They have a learning curve. Finding the right colours to add dimension without ending up with salt & pepper on a newborn head. :p

Yes, I ended up with a salt & pepper head (for about 10 mins. I corrected). What did I expect really? I mean, I’m practically brand new to this whole reborning thing, right? And apparently painted hair has the same learning curve as rooted hair. Or worse. I’ve read it’s harder in some instances, to get it looking truly real. Which is why a lot of reborn artists only root. But that only makes me want it that much more.

I love that sparse look, don’t get me wrong either. I LOOOOOVE IT! But the stuff I’ve been ogling is exquisite and thick painted hair. And I wanted that. At least, I want that for Sam. I’m going to focus on him here, as I gave “Meg” painted sparse hair, which I do love (more on that momentarily) and “Cozy” is also a sparse newborn hair kit (& I really feel like my vision and reality have matched well on her) but Sam.

This is him. Right after I started painting him.

Yes, he’s lying on a serving plate. :p

I wanted to give him hair just like my nephew’s at birth. Reference pic #1.

Yeah, I was nailing his milia. And not so much his hair. And okay, nephew’s hair wasn’t  thick. But thick for me (cuz I gave birth to two baldies! Any hair is a lot of hair to me! LOL!) I wanted those thick lines, without having any idea really, how to achieve this.

Evolution of his head of hair. . .

I also deemed since I already did a Sam and this was a whoops shipment, where I thought I was getting a Sera, I was entitled to really try and have a go at something a bit ambitious and learn on his head. Worst that happened was a scrapped kit. Best case scenario, I’d learn how to do some dream hair. (Hah!) 

And then I went about adding highlight prematurely. And with the wrong shade entirely and he had salt & peppah hair for few minutes. Blargh.

Too bright, I know. That whole learning curve thing. When you use a combo of Mars Black (heavy on the black) and only the smallest amount of burnt umber, what the heck colour do you use to highlight? Without risking salt & peppered locks? Hmm.

Post fix. Thought I might stop here, but then. . . I started googling again.

I have done an insane amount of googling! And learning all about painting y’s. (Which is obv what I was trying to do, without actually doing or knowing what to do). And combi. Oh, combi.

I found this listing. OMG Babies By Isabelle.

Dream hair, yo!

I instantly had an epiphany that “Cozy” was going to have combi hair. For sure. But it was too late for Sam. Probably. I have likely overpainted the front hair line. I won’t know for sure, because tonight I brought in the Y’s. And last I checked, he now looks like this:

And yes, I really really shudder to count up how long I’ve spent painting this head. An embarassingly long time, I’d say. I regularly go into the studio and come out two hours later with him. And if you counted brush strokes. Well, I think it’s well into the bazillions. It’s not for naught. I like the new direction. I know what not to do next time. And man oh man have I perfected the perfect paint consistency and brush stroke angles. He really has been a learning head. But I still want to salvage this guy. Maybe get his locks looking like this?

And if I do… ever master a painted head. And by master, I mean, ever get marginally close to these awesomely painted heads I’m so lusty over, I swear I’m divulging ALL my techniques to the interwebs so that no other reborn artist has to navigate this course blind.

Now for some more painted hair porn!

More combi hair I’m aspiring to!

Yeah, that last one was a birth story set of pictures of perfect newborn hair (and legit thick newborn hair). So perhaps Sam, if he is ever finished finished, will have a head of hair more like this baby. Gosh knows. But I AM moving in that general direction now. I think. Oh goodness, I don’t know.

Now to start stalking Babies By Isabelle’s FB page! LOL!

Oh gosh, and here’s Cozy currently.

I loooove her hair so far. PERFECT. I’ll be combi rooting pale blond (almost white) locks on her crown. It’ll go perfect with what I’ve got so far. Just trying to figure out whether I should bother doing any y’s with her. Faint ones, of course. Now, if there was a tutorial out there tackling this. . . ; )

So shoot. Lemme hear how you paint hair? Do you? How do you? What colour goes with Mars black without looking Salt & Pepper! What of the Y’s? And are you all lusty for combi too? 😀