Friday, July 21, 2017

Balancing Primary Color Families and Custom Painted Baby Using RebornFX

Back in 2004, when I first started making reborn dolls, the painting methods everyone was using was to lay layers upon layers of white or flesh paint.  I can see why because many were working off of Berenguer dolls and such that had an orange viny tone and they were trying to neutralize it to be able to bring it round to something more neutral.   Once sculptors started making reborn doll kits there was some issues still with orange or very pink/red vinyls so this method of laying down flat coloring was still being used, along with mint washes and blue washes.    I noticed along the way that a lot of the dolls were lacking the glow of a natural skin tone.  As time went on, I begin to experiment with my own painting methods of usings various colors to build depth and life in the skin tone and reserving skin tone paints for minimal use as light washes to blend and tone coloring.   Over time I have perfected this method and this became my way of painting.   I have had customers continuously tell me over the years that my dolls have more color depth and life to them than many dolls they have purchased for hundreds dollars more than mine.   It has always been my pleasure to hear feedback from my customers how they love their babies!

A few years ago the reborn community started hearing a lot of talk about using a primaries method of painting or red/yellow/blue layering.  When I looked into what others were saying about this, I realized this was pretty much what I had already been doing for years!  No one had to teach me this, I already had my own method for doing it.  Mine is not a method of using soley primary red, yellow and blue.  However, I do use a variation of this, balancing these colors along with shades within these color families to produce a very lifelike skin tone that has depth and glow.

After advising people for years on the use of air dry paints and reborn doll coloring, I have decided to do some teaching.  On August 26, 2017, I will be teaching my first local Beginner's Painting class using RebornFX air dry paints.   I will be showing you how you can use my method of balancing color families and minimal colors to produce a very nice skin tone.

I have reborn several of these little Bountiful Baby Natalie kits now and I never get tired of her!  She is the perfect little baby for comfort therapy, kids and all collectors.   I painted her using the colors we will use in my upcoming class.     She is painted solely with RebornFX using my original method of balancing primary color families that I perfected years ago to get a nice glowy skin tone.

Here are some photos I took of her in her nakie state when she was finished.





My customer sent me this photos of her she took in her new home all dressed up.






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