Even more than a redhead girl, i would like an early redhead boy , so quite a few years ago i decided to buy an 80s redhead and repaint his eyes. He was a bit of a disaster from the start, i saw him while scanning ebay in america late one night, there were minutes to go on the auction, he was extremely cheap with no bids, the description was good so i bidded and won, i realised the next day why there were no bids as the sellers feedback was the worst id ever seen, pages of red marks all saying "avoid". I was pleased that he actually did arrive but he was in pieces, i think he must have been placed together for the photos, as he was laid down, i contacted the seller with no response , paypal got no reply either, so i got refunded in full by paypal and ebay gave me a £10 voucher to say sorry for the inconvenience (not sure things like that still happen )...i got to keep the doll so i set about repainting, i thought this would be quite straightforward but soon realised it wasnt and it felt like an impossible task, over the years he has had lots of different eyes but ive never been happy with any of them, his latest look is passable at a glance BUT where i have removed the acrylic so many times it has left a slight dark look to the eye sockets and i cant get it off. This only shows slightly in natural light but i know its there and its gonna bug me, I dont want to remove the eyes again without knowing how to get rid of these marks...so any help would be welcome ! maybe the paint is engrained in the vinyl and will never come off ? i purposly included a photo that makes it look worse than it is, so you can see what im talking about as with a normal sunny camera setting it didnt really show up.....(this photo has also made the eyepaint look slightly darker than it really is)
This next girl is my "mystery girl" mainly because of her lack of eyes....the jury seems to be out on why this is, one opinion was that someone had removed them and not repainted them back on, another is that this is the print from the factory, its the wrong colour for a blonde and the mistake was noted and the hand finishing was never done. Next is her hair, she has a near full centre part but stops just short of the bottom, did the person doing the hair realise that her eyes hadnt been done, stop the rooting and put her in the reject pile ?...shes strung with striped elastic that looks to be original and shes got lots of sand in her joints as if shes not been played with.....i will get round one day to reglueing the hem of her dress !
Your last girl is interesting, I have a blonde with hair rooted in exactly this way at the back as well, although she looks different from the front.
ReplyDeleteI don't think your red head lad's eyes look too bad at all, I think you are probably more critical yourself as you are not happy with them. They are certainly a lot better than I would manage! In fact I dare not even attempt to paint the eyes.
I like the red head with plaits, she is lovely.
I'm no expert, but one of the possibilities is that the irises aren't big enough. If you look at the doll on this site wearing the puff sleeved dress, her eyes are also very dark, but her irises seem bigger than his, as do the other dolls on this page. And I can't tell about his, but many of the Sasha's I've seen and how I was taught to do eyes on dolls, is to shade the irises inward, darker on the outer rim, becoming lighter as they go toward the pupil. And - just a thought, rather than removing the paint again, could you overpaint or wash with an almost opaque slightly different color - green if what's there now is brown, to lighten it with that? Darken the outer rim, then lighten the inside?? Perhaps? Try it on something else first to see what strength it takes to cover just enough. Jacquard paints (sp?) makes some iridescent paints that can be mixed with regular acrylics that I've used to make eyes that look like you can see into them - it might work here. I don't know if any of this will help - he's got a beautiful face - I hope you can become happy with his eyes. They most likely only bother you, but then, you're the one who's most important.
ReplyDeletethanks for the advice, maybe i will try to improve them without taking them off again but the dark shadows in the eye sockes are still going to be there, the internet says to use an acetone free solution which ive been using but other people say to use pure acetone but this can melt the vinyl and has to be thoroughly removed after with bicarb of soda....this sounds a bit drastic as i dont want to risk a melted face but maybe its the only way to get all traces off paint off ?........sarah x
ReplyDeleteMaybe you could remove the paint and then use the "oxy-10" treatment to remove what might be staining? Just a thought as I've never done anything like this (although I have had good luck with oxy-10 on a mystery stain).
ReplyDeletejulie.....thats such a good idea, it never even crossed my mind, ive got some cream similar to oxy 10 that worked wonders in making some mystery stains disappear, ill have to wait though till the new year to try as xmas is fast approaching and ive got SO much to do !....thanks for your help sarah x
ReplyDeleteWHAT A LOVELY RED HAIRED SASHA , SARAH!
ReplyDeleteThere is not an envious bone in my body! and if you beleive that!, I have few hundred acres of prime land for sale at a snip........Lol