The Problem with Marcus

Just after SilverStar-Burst got sick with the cold that wouldn't end, we took some of our dolls outside for a couple photo stories: Field Trip to Jurassic World and Intrepid Explorers to be exact. Both of which caused my sister to complain about Marcus, "his face gets lost because it has no color!" which is very true. I bought Marcus last year when it was cold outside, he arrived in November and he had no face-up. And still he sits with a blank head.

In about a week we're taking a trip to visit my grandparents and Silver and I wanted to bring some of our dolls along so late Monday night I started thinking that Marcus might be able to get a nice face-up before we left...

Silver and I have several dolls that need face-ups, so some time ago we bought a face-up book.

The first thing the lady in the book tells you to do is wash the doll's head in warm soapy water.

Tuesday morning I stole Marcus' head and washed it. Since Marcus didn't have a face-up to be scrubbed off it only took a few minutes to clean him.




Mr. Wall says; "Keep rolling your eyes back there, you might find a brain."

While that was drying for the day, Silver and I went shopping for Liquitex Flow-Aid and Liquitex Gloss Varnish, the only things we didn't have. Having planned on doing face-ups for a long time we had already bought the paint and pastels the face-up lady suggested. We also had MSC or Mr. Super Clear, the sealant used most for BJDs. We found the Gloss at our local Hobby Lobby and the Flow-Aid at our local Michaels.

A few years ago I took two art classes; one for drawing animals (Silver took that one with me) and one for drawing faces. I'm not great at art, I'll admit that, but I also don't practice very much either. Sometime last year I used the pastels we bought to draw a picture of Edmund Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspain. It wasn't horrible plus it helped me learn how to use pastels a little bit.

While I waited for Marcus to dry I pulled out a picture of an outline of a man's face,

all our art supplies,

and got to work. Silver had pulled Blaine out also and so she came over to practice as well.

This is her first attempt;

ignore the scary blank eyes we didn't paint them in for the first ones because they were to practice face-ups not to practice painting in general. She used pastels for the blush and thinned acrylic paint for the eyebrows, outlining the eyes, lower eyelashes, and lips.

This is my first one;

Marcus is supposed to have freckles and a couple of moles so I practiced them. I used pastels for blushing his face and blushing in the area where his eyebrows are. I used thinned acrylic paint for this mouth, outlining the eyes, lower eyelashes, freckles, and the lines in his eyebrows.

Then Silver got board and decided to go crazy on the second attempt;

He's supposed to be some sort of winter or frost dude. She used the pastels to change the color of his face to blue and all the details were done with thinned acrylic paint, in various shades of blue...

I, being easily influenced by her, decided to do a dryad;

ignore his creepy lips... they were supposed to look like tree bark... I too used the pastels to change my dudes face to a light green color, and all the other details were done with thinned down acrylic paint in different shades of greens and browns.

Today was going to be the day I sprayed Marcus and started my first face-up ever... this morning I woke up to the loud sound of wind whipping through my window...

I guess I'll have to wait till tomorrow, sorry Marcus.

Note: This post has been a draft since before vacation and therefore isn't really accurate anymore. I ended up getting the chance to paint him the next day. Marcus now has, what I think is, a nice face-up and after vacation I even found the time to paint Jack... We took pictures of Marcus while at my grandparents house so you'll get to see him soon in those. Another small thing about Marcus' face up, I decided not to give him freckles for now.

Until next time,

~Barrel Ryder.