makeover

The Ultimate Makeover Demo

It may be a help to print these pages out

THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL NEED. DON’T WORRY IF THE LIST LOOKS DAUNTING - NOTHING IS VERY DIFFICULT TO OBTAIN

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A ‘Trent’ doll

A resin head by ‘1959’

Liquid acrylic paints

The large soft brush provided free with the head

Fine brushes, ooooo to ooo sizes

Sharp pencil

Very good 2 part epoxy glue

Milliput modelling material - supplied with the head

Toothpicks

Fine and rough grade sandpapers, provided with the head

A few colouring pencils (optional)

1. Firstly, take your ‘Trent’ doll and immerse his head and neck in very hot water to soften it.

2. Then you have to be very brave and pull his head off. He will give you some resistance, but just put him between your knees, imagining he’s a wine bottle, and PULL! His head will come off with a noisy POP!

3. Once his head is off, this is what you will see. A short plastic shaft with a cup shape on the end. You need to take pliers and twist this cup shape right off.

4. When you have broken the shaft off, take off the round loose plastic washer as well.

5. Now you have a torso without a head and a new resin head without a torso. Let’s join these chaps up!

Firstly, you to have a think about where you would like the head positioned. Well, yes - on the body of course, but do you want him facing directly at you, or slightly turned away? Do you want him looking up or down a little? My advice is be SUBTLE. You are going to have to live with it once it’s stuck.

6. I have decided on a gaze which is looking towards the centre and slightly down.

I now need to stick it in place. With the rougher sandpaper, roughen the inner surface of the torso, so the glue has something to key on to.

7. I use the very strongest glue I can find. Some glues are useless on plastics. I like these ones.

8. You have sanded inside the neck space of the body, and you have decided on a head position.

Now mix your glue, and with the toothpick, apply it to the roughed up surface where you are about to place your head.

9. Position the head, and hold it firmly for a good few minutes until it doesn’t wobble on its own. Be really patient now, leave it somewhere to dry and set completely according to the glue instructions. It may be a 5 minute glue, or it may be an 8 hour glue! Whatever you got, resist the temptation to fiddle with it!

10. Once it is dry, you can decide whether you paint it as it is, or fill in the tiny join between his neck and torso.   Here's what it will look like after one coat of paint if you DON'T fill the gap in.

11.   I would strongly recommend filling it in, but, it means using another product, and if you haven’t used modelling material before, you may not want the hassle.   All I can say is, you don’t have to fill it in, but if you decide to, it really isn’t difficult and it will improve the look, and add to the strength of the adhesion, but, it is extra work. If you want to fill the gap in, this is what you do.   I use ‘MILLIPUT’. A small amount is supplied with the head. If you need more it isn't expensive at all, and it’s useful for a whole host of little jobs around the house. It comes in white and grey, but white is supposed to be finer. I can’t tell any difference, but white may be easier to paint over.

It is a two part material. Mix equal quantities together and you have a very good adhesive modelling clay which dries in air. You will only need a tiny amount, but, in the next CD we will do a project to put a beard onto Brick, and to turn one of his brothers into a character he plays in a movie. You will need Milliput or something similar for those projects too, so it won’t be wasted.

Roll out a tiny long thin sausage in Milliput, and use it to fill in the gap. Poke it down well into that gap, and repeat if necessary. Moisten your fingers - that will help. It will look messy, but all that can be wiped off. Imagine you are grouting tiles, or filling in cracks in a wall. It’s a LOT easier than that!

12. Smooth it down as best you can with fingertips. Leave it to dry. I’d leave it a day.   Then you need to sand it with the very fine sandpaper. Before you do this, cut some bits of sticky tape and tape around the neck join to protect the plastic torso from scratches while you are sanding. If you didn’t get a nice smooth join the first time round, you can go over it now with an even thinner roll of milliput. You will almost certainly make a tiny bit of the doll torso rougher with your sanding, but don’t worry. I just paint over it, and it doesn’t notice.

You will soon have a nice curve which joins the neck to the torso.

13. So, you now have a rigid head on a ‘Trent’ torso. We need to bring him alive with paint.

These are the basic skin colours you will need. The make of paint should not matter too much, as long as you are using liquid acrylic. You will need WHITE, and BURNT SIENNA.

14. A brush is provided with each head. This is a large soft brush. Mix the paint colour to match ‘Trent’s’ torso colour as closely as you can, then add a dob more white. I do this because in my experience, it always seems to dry a little darker.

If you want a fairer skin on the face than the body, just add more white.

This is not a problem, as long as you remember to extend the face colour down the torso a little. This is so that he can still wear open neck shirts without looking odd.

This is what a few coats will look like on a doll that you want to have a lighter skin tone than Trent.

15. Mix the paint to the consistency of milk. You are going to be applying several quick, light coats, not one thick one. Imagine you are applying makeup all over someone’s face.

Work with a light touch, and in even strokes. Do a little at a time and leave to dry. Don’t rush this stage PLEASE. It will probably take 4 coats before it starts to look even, and the first 1 or 2 coats will look terrible, but just persevere.

16. Keep mixing that paint as you go. This is very important. The two colours might want to separate. Keep mixing them up, adding water if the paint thickens, and applying those thin coats.

17. You can see how he is coming to life. The patches are filling in with successive coats. The thin paint stops his skin looking lumpy and clogged. If you used filler at the neck line you can do a few extra coats on it to blend the colour in with the torso and neck. Personally, I don’t bother to paint over the hair at this stage, just make sure all the flesh is coloured properly and evenly. Places to remember are under the chin, inside the ears, behind the ears, and up into those nostrils.

18. Once you have a nice even coat, it will look very shiny. I use the same clean wide soft brush and apply a coat of matte acrylic sealer. You will end up with this.

19. Now, the fun begins….you can start giving him features and hair colour. Presuming you have already done a few repaints on vinyl, you won’t have any trouble. You don’t need the following instructions at all, just go to it!

If you do want to follow my steps, they are listed below, but remember, everyone has their own way of repainting. Mine is not the best way, or the only way, and I have painted more than my share of dogs!

As a general rule, just work patiently, gently, and with a tiny, new brush.

Do a little work on the head, leave it for a day, and go back to it. Don’t try to rush it through all at once.

PAINTING THE FACE DETAILS

ON TO BRICK OUTHOUSE

20. I begin with the eye whites. Never use white straight from the bottle, always mix it to make it a grey/white or a buff/white. I mix the paint to a thicker consistency now, but its still runny.

Paint the whites in.

21. With a very pointed pencil, I will lightly mark where I want the eyebrows to be. This is important, because eyebrows can get out of hand, and before you know where you are, you’ve got Groucho or Spock eyebrows. Men often have unshaped, nondescript eyebrows, but we don’t want that either, so plan where you want them to be as they will add a LOT to the overall expression.

22. Having decided what colour I want on his hair and brows, I mix it up, and begin to apply the paint. The hair will take several coats, so again, paint with patience, and try to paint in the direction the hair would be combed. That way, brush strokes can add to the look of realistic hair.

23. Once the hair and brows are in, I try to paint the eyes.

I begin by adding a small upper lid, in flesh colour, to the very top of the white cornea. You don’t HAVE to do this, but in my opinion, it looks more realistic.

24. Then you need to paint the iris’s. I find it a help to draw them on in pencil first.

25. You need to paint them both round, both looking the same way, both the same size, and within the area from the bottom of the eye to the lid...it ain’t easy folks, and I am as short sighted as a bat, so I find this the HARDEST thing to do.

Look at pictures of eyes. Look at your families eyes. Look at your pets, unless of course you keep snakes, which won’t help.

26. You will see that most eyes have a somewhat darker rim. Then inside is a lighter colour before you reach the central pupil which is always round, and always looks black. Somewhere in the room there is a light source which the cornea of the eye will reflect.

All this has to be placed into a dot on the face about 3mm across. Just do it bit by bit. Allow drying time. If you can possibly leave it alone for a few hours and go back to it you will see it afresh, and be able to correct any faults more easily.

27. If you want to, you can add the lighter ridge where the facial skin forms the bottom of the eye opening. You can darken in the eye sockets a little. You can shade the eyebrows and feather them. When you are happy the eyes, leave them alone, and have a well deserved drink! You have got through the worst part of the painting.

28. For lips, I try to avoid colour altogether. I might darken the top lip a little with a darker flesh tone and define the area between top and bottom lip, but that’s all in terms of lip colour. It’s SO easy to make your man look as if he is wearing lipstick.

One tip though: on the top of the upper lid, I paint a very thin, faint line of white, or pale flesh tone to indicate that the bulge of the lip is picking up the light source. That will ‘outline’ the top lip for a man as well as darker lip liner would for a girl.

29. I might like to add tiny spots of chin stubble, or a very faint line beneath the eye perhaps, but these are not necessary - you can spend hours and hours fiddling around on the last final details.

30. When the whole thing looks reasonably OK to me, I seal the whole face and hair again in matte sealer.

31. This is the sort of thing you can create if you use milliput or a similar modelling clay to add hair or a beard.

32. The clean shaven doll demonstrated above was painted with the face paler than Trent's torso. You can, of course, paint the face in exactly the same colour as the torso. This is the above bearded doll painted to blend in with the body to give a tanned look.

33. And his final painting detailing the textured hair and beard:

Your ‘Brick Outhouse’ is now ready.

You have created a very different doll to Trent. He has a rigid head position now, and will be a little heavier in weight, but I think he can be made to look extremely realistic, despite his resin head.

The best thing about this head is the possibility of creating many different looks. You can sand resin down or pare it down with a craft knife. You can build it up using various self hardening materials, and you can paint it in any skin shade.

I have painted my doll in a paler tone to the existing Trent, but using the 2 colours mentioned, you can get pretty much the exact skin tone of the torso, or, paint even darker tones, as long as you remember to extend it down the chest a bit.

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