Doll Stylist; Hair and Makeup

   

 Recently I was asked if I could show how I do a bun on a doll. I may have been asked for a tutorial, but what I managed was a few series of photos to show how I do a few different doll related things. First I will start with painting doll faces. 
     There are a lot of different doll faces but my favorites to paint are the Yvonne/Gracie/Quinn heads that come without paint. It is nice to start fresh after all, and it is not always easy to remove all of the factory paint. 
      I actually find it very quick and easy to paint these heads. They are small, the features are small, and you don't need a ton of details to make them realistic. I start with the eye whites. I just fill in the eye space with a tiny brush (usually a 20/0 spotter). Next I add some tiny dark brown dots in the center for the irises. If I don't forget I also add the eyebrows in. My goal is for them to at least be sisters and for them to look reasonable. Sometimes it works and sometimes I have to wipe them off a few times. Next I will add a dot of raw sienna in the center of the dark brown dot. I paint on the lips and add a slim line of black above the eyes and a tiny dot in the center of the eyes for the pupil. After everything is dry I add a coat of matte finish and the face is painted. It's usually very quick, other than fighting with the eyebrows.  

      Another thing I thought I would share is how I do the braided pigtails on youth dolls. I don't love doing them, even though they are cute. There are no bald youth doll heads for me to buy so I first have to remove the factory hair. First I cut it all off, close to the scalp. Next I take tweezers and pull the rest of the hair out from the inside and outside of the head. It is time consuming and I definitely prefer an already bald head. 

double pointed needle/rooting tool

     Part of the reason I don't love pigtail braids is because it is like having to hair the same head twice. The first step for me is to root the hair straight down the middle of the head. Then I root the hair all the way around one side of the head. Once that is done I will brush it out (I have an ancient My Little Pony brush I use for that). After that I separate it into 3 sections, braid it, and tie it with a bit of thread. The next step is to do it all again on the other side, including rooting the hair up the middle of the head, roughly where the other hair is. This ends up looking very natural when it is finished. I have also found that doing one side at a time is less frustrating than trying to do the entire head at once. 

       The original question was on how to do a bun on a doll. As I mentioned, my favorite heads to work with are the blank/bald ones. They don't require any prep work, I can just jump right in. I always start in the back and I like to hair lower than where the factory hairline would be. For a doll that will be wearing a hat or helmet that is glued on, I just hair a circle all the way around the head. 

       I brush out the hair with my My Little Pony brush, which smooths it and takes out the loose pieces of hair. Next I wet my fingers and run them over the hair, gather it all together at the base of the head and start to twist. Once it is tight the hair will start to twist on itself, that's fine, just wind it around itself, pull the end up to the top of the head and glue it down. Trim the end if it is too long. That's it, buns are not complex to do. Though I have no idea how to do them without a rooting tool. I would probably glue tufts of hair all the way around the head in the same way that I root the hair, when it's dry you should be able to (carefully) brush it back and style it in the same way. 

      I know the post title said hair and makeup but I meant face painting. I do very little makeup on dolls these days. Which is funny considering how much I love makeup. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed a little bit of how I do a couple of different hair styles on dolls and paint faces.