cian's dolls

Gahhh. So today I finally decided that I would remove Elly's default faceup from Volks and redo it myself. And I (quite excitedly) did so, with the usual 70% isopropyl alcohol I use to remove faceups (though in hindsight I don't think I've removed ANY default faceups with it, mostly my own and some other faceups done by other owners - not really professionals? or at least people who probably don't use airbrush and stuff...anyway...).

Turns out isopropyl alcohol isn't really strong enough for me to remove the faceup without creating smudges from the paints used. I tried my usual dip a clean toothbrush into the alcohol and gently scrub on her right eye (left in photo). Didn't really work properly, her cheek has a bit of red (see the first photo :/).

Tried again on her lips, same method. Huge ass smudge, probably because of the gloss on it too, making the faceup harder to remove.

So by this time, I'm getting annoyed, and I got some clean tissues to dip in the alcohol to wipe the left eye off (what I did with my first few faceup removals until I realised toothbrushes are faster and leaves less soggy tissues)...a bad idea, still. Tried to wipe it such that I pick the paints off the face, rather than smudge it around (as the toothbrush inadvertably did), but roughly the same results, if not worse, since I couldn't get into the inner eye corner with the tissue as I could with the toothbrush.

So yes, this is what she looked like at this point:

You can probably see the smudges. The lip one annoyed me the most, since it made her look like she has a moustache going on, which is NOT her. And would be a pain to cover up (eyes are easy since she's going to have dark eyeshadow anyway, but I did want to remove it as well as I could).

Then after posting that, my friend (non doll friend) offered to lend me some 100% acetone tomorrow. Gonna have to try that on her headcap or something to see if anything funny happens first. Hopefully all goes well and it'll remove whatever is left on her face...the inner eye bits, if nothing else. And because I really couldn't stand the smudge/stain, I got to work with a magic eraser. I think there's still the smudge going on around her mouth, and I probably would give it another round with the magic eraser, but for now, I'm taking a break until I get the acetone tomorrow.

And the thing is, I'm annoyed right now with this, but I can just imagine how horrified I would be if this happened to me when I was newer in the hobby and with the faceup thing. I mean, I'm still like, damn shit why did this have to happen, and to a Volks Tae head, whyyyyyyyy, but at least I'm not going insane with worry. Maturity, maturity. Haha.