Rooting Is Done

48 hours later and little Tanner has hair, has had his first haircut, rooted eyelashes and eyes.

I am going to show you how I seal the hair inside the head; I am also going to put my magnet behind the mouth on the inside so he can take a pacifier.

I rooted the eyelashes...Not sure how I feel about that process. This is my first time doing it and I am still leaning towards rooting sleeping babies. I am sure in time with tons of practice I will get it fully. :0)

On to sealing the hair: After all that hard work with rooting you don't want to comb your baby's hair and have it falling out. 

Hair is rooted, eyes are inserted and eyelashes have been rooted.

Side view of the eyelashes.

To seal the hair on the inside of the head, I use Aleene's Tacky Glue.

Magnetic Pacifier and magnet. Super simple to make your own magnetic pacifiers:

I buy a regular pacifier. Cut the nipple part all the way down. Make sure you have a clean cut. I use a hot glue gun and glue the magnet to the pacifier. That is all there is to it.

I use a long handled fan brush to spread the glue inside the head.

Pour a good amount inside the head. Now take the fan brush and gently spread the glue all around the head. Make sure to cover all the hairs that you see inside the head. At this time you can also seal up the eye openings from where you have inserted the eyes. I did not get a picture of doing this since seeing that area of the head is not easy. You will see two eye sockets inside. Take your a sharp knife and cut just along the top to make a flap. Pull the flap down and insert the eyes. Use your finger to straighten the eye. Do this for both eyes. After I insert the eyes I make sure they are straight. How to do this is put your head under some lights and look into the pupil of the eyes. Are the dots of light even? If so they are straight.

Now take the other magnet and put some glue on. Line up the magnet with the mouth and your pacifier and let the head sit with opening opened for air flow. Allow to completely dry. This can take anywhere from 24-48 hours or longer depending on how thick you applied your glue. I usually wait 72 hours before assembling the kit. If I am in a hurry, I will use a hair dryer to help the drying process. 

Next we will add weight and assemble the kit.

Happy Reborning!

Rooting Has Begun

Little Tanner is finally getting some hair. Hand rooting has begun. I have to say this is my favorite part of the whole process. Painting is fun and brings life to your kit but when you add the hair, your little sculpt really comes to life. 
I am not going to do a full tutorial on rooting. I will provide a link to a wonderful rooting tutorial that I follow. I am going to add some extras that I have found helpful through my rooting experiences.

Link to Rooting

One thing I would like to stress with the rooting process. Mohair. You need high quality, high premium mohair. You may pay more but in the end it is well worth it and makes the whole process of rooting a positive experience along with a beautiful head of hair on your Reborn Doll. 

Here is a link to some wonderful mohair. My Paisley and Precious Gift sculpts were rooted with this mohair. 

Lock You Out Doll Hair Etsy Shop

I decided to try my hand at processing my own mohair. I bought some 'raw mohair' and found numerous tutorials on the internet on how to sort, wash, dye and condition mohair to be used for rooting reborn dolls.

I am very happy with the results and rooting this hair is a dream. 

Here is the dyed mohair ready for rooting. I have cut a small piece from the bundle to work with. This particular mohair is curly. I thought little Tanner would look sweet with curly natural brown hair. 

We shall see.

I use an uncut 43g Single Barb Rooting Needle. 

I don't put the needle in any type of rooting tool. I use as is.

Before beginning any rooting, clean the tips of your needles with a little bit of rubbing alcohol. This will remove any dirt, grease or grime. If you don't clean your needle tip you will have a black holes for a while. So clean before using.

I hold the needle in my right hand, since I am right handed, I hold the needle like a pencil. I also make sure the little tail is pointing towards my right shoulder. If that tail is turned at all, you will not pick up any hair. 

The tutorial link I provided will show you how to actually root with the needle. So make sure you check the tutorial out.

To draw the rooting map on the head, I use a regular piece of white dust free chalk. I wet the tip of the chalk with water and proceed to draw the map on the head. You will have to redraw your lines from time to time. I find when I spritz my mohair with watered down conditioner the chalk lines do disappear. 

Just keep applying the lines. 

Here is what is called a rice sock. This comes in handy if you have a head that is super hard vinyl and needles are breaking or hair is just not rooting. I have taken an old clean sock and filled it with rice. You will need to heat it. Put the sock filled with rice into a microwave with a mug of water. The mug of water will keep the rice from burning and when you have burnt the rice the smell is horrible. I then heat the sock and mug of water for about 2 minutes. This heated sock is then inserted into the head to heat up the head and to soften the vinyl to make rooting easier.

I use a small batch of mohair to root at a time. Make sure you root from the cut end and as close to the cut end you can get. This will make for nicer rooting. Also will eliminate any tails that occur from not getting close to the cut end. You will see in the next pics a few tails that are sticking out of the rooted hair. Tweezers come in handy for that part. I pull the little tails out with tweezers.

I start at the back of the head, at the bottom and work my way up to the crown. If you look closely you can see a few tails that will be pulled out with tweezers. I will also make sure that I have no more than 2 hairs per hole. Any more will be pulled out with tweezers. More than 2 hairs will cause a 'Pluggy Look' and that is what you don't want.  The hair in this picture was dampened water that has a little bit of conditioner added. Any human conditioner can be used. Some people use Baby Conditioner. As you can see by wetting the hair I have lost some of my chalk lines. I will go over them with the wet piece of chalk.

Once I get all the hair done. We will then have our first haircut. 

Up close of the hairs. Again a few tails can be seen. 

I will take my tweezers and pull the tails out. 

Also if I have more than 2 hairs, those will be removed as well.

My next entry to the blog should be Tanner with a full head of hair.

Happy Reborning and Rooting! :0)

Reborn Painting Tutorial - Sealing Your Kit

Well here we are to the final step in painting a reborn kit - Sealing The Kit. 

This sealing does a couple of things: Protects your painting and gives a nice final texture to the "skin".

You will notice in the pictures little Tanner here has eyebrows already. I didn't do a tutorial for eyebrows since I am very weak in doing eyebrows. Here is a wonderful tutorial that I follow when I am painting the eyebrows. All I can say is practice, practice and more practice. 
I started out drawing the eyebrows onto paper. Then went to a test piece to get the feel of painting the eyebrows on something that wasn't completely flat. I still need to work on this. So here is a wonderful tutorial:
http://tiptoeworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/01/eyebrows-easy.html

Now on to sealing our kit.

Supplies needed for this tutorial

For this tutorial I am using the Heat Set Satin Varnish. Instead of a Matte finish this one will put a nice sheen to the kit.

This medium is very thick. I use an old butter knife to pull some out of the jar.

I add my odorless thinner to the medium and mix until all lumps are gone.

Here it is completely mixed with odorless thinners and has a 

consistency of milk.

Here are the limbs completely sealed. I used my brush and painted the medium on to the limbs. I then took my cosmetic wedge and pounced until basically my arm felt like it was going to fall off. LOL!!! I then take my pouncing brush and pounce into all the creases really good. You don't want this thick anywhere. As you can see in the picture there is a white film this will disappear when you bake it. Very important to pounce with your cosmetic wedge and brush. You don't want this to be left pooling in the creases. You will have a white mess even after baking.

The Satin Varnish has been applied to the face only. I do the ears and the front of the face. I do not do the whole head since I will be hand rooting the hair. I have found in the past when you varnish the whole head and you begin rooting the hair, the needle will produce white marks from the varnish. So I do the forehead just to the top of the stork bite and down. Again pounce, pounce and pounce.

Here is the head after it has been baked. With this varnish, baking is a little different than when you were painting. I bake twice for 8 minutes at 265 degrees F. Allow the pieces to completely cool before baking again. Sometimes, depending on how thick you got the varnish a third baking may be needed. If you see any white on the pieces or in the creases you will need to bake again. That is an indication the varnish is not fully baked.  I find this final sealing layer really adds to the colors of the paint. They seem to pop with the varnish.

Here are the limbs after being baked twice. The pieces are not shiny but have a little sheen to them when light hits them a certain way.

I used to add an air dry gloss to the fingernails and toenails for added shine. After doing extensive research and seeing babies nails. I decided against using the gloss. If you look at a babies nails, they are not super shiny like they had just visited a nail salon. They have a sheen to them. I find the Satin Varnish adds that sheen to the nail. So this sculpt will not have the high gloss to the nails. I will add the gloss to the face when I am done rooting. I will provide a small tutorial for that when finished rooting.

I will not be doing a rooting tutorial since I am using a tutorial that belongs to someone else. I am going to post that tutorial link and I will provide pictures of my rooting with some tips instead.

Tutorial for Rooting

I hope you have enjoyed my tutorials on How To Paint A Reborn Kit. I will be providing other tutorials as I finish with the little Tanner Sculpt. I will do tutorials for final glossing of the face. Putting in the eyes for open eyed babies, sealing the inside of the head after rooting, and assembling and weighting your kit.

Happy Reborning and as always -- Questions and Comments are welcome! 

:0)

Reborn Painting Tutorial - Part IX - Final Warm Up Wash and Nails

Yay! This little guy is coming to life more and more. Not much further to go and then we begin rooting his hair.
This tutorial covers a final warm up wash and the little nails.

I sometimes don't do a final warm up wash. I decided to do one with this little guy to bring out more depth to his skin tones. This wash seems to pull everything together - Blushing, mottling, etc. 

Here we go:

I am using Burnt Umber paint.

Filled the paint brush with paint.

I added odorless thinner to make a very thin wash.

I am going to apply this wash to all the parts. Here I was showing a difference the wash makes. I have done just the foot up to the ankle. See the subtle difference. I will continue doing the whole limb. I brush the wash on with my brush and then take a cosmetic wedge and pounce the paint until well blended. Make sure to get really good in the creases. I use a clean brush to get into the creases. Blend and blend.

Here the leg on the right has been done with the Burnt Umber Wash. Big difference compared to the leg on the left.

Here all the limbs have been done and we are waiting for the flash to dry. The thinners to evaporate.

Here is the head make sure to get inside the nose for more added depth. Again blend and blend with your cosmetic wedge and brush. Waiting for the flash to evaporate and we will bake.

Limbs have been baked - 250 Degrees F for 7 minutes.

Head has been baked. Not sure about the shininess under the nose. Not there when you are looking at the sculpt. hmmmm.

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Now for the tiny fingernails and toenails. I do not do moons on the nails. If you look at real babies and young ones at that, they don't have moons. Some artists add the moons and some don't. No right or wrong way. I choose not to do the moons. :)

I am going to use Flesh 08 and Glazing Gel and a toothpick for this tutorial. I have in my set of paints a paint called Nail Tip White - In my opinion I find the Nail Tip White to be too white for little fingernails and toenails. Gives a very French Manicure look. Flesh 08 seems to give a more subtle transparent whitish look. As you will see in the pictures below.

Here I have taken quite a glob of my Glazing Gel and some of my Flesh 08

Mix the two together. No odorless thinners are used for this step. It is thick, but that is what you want.

I have taken my pointed toothpick and put a dollop of paint on the very end. Some people use a very fine liner brush for this. I am slowly learning to use a brush instead of toothpick.

Take the toothpick or fine liner brush and go along the very edge of the nail bed. Try to keep the paint uniformed and neaten up the edges with another toothpick. As you see here my cuticles need some cleaning up with a toothpick. Looks like the matte varnish didn't fully set. No problem I will take a pointed q-tip dipped into my thinner and carefully clean up the cuticles.

Toe nails

I did this with a brush. Getting better. 

Now for this step I am not going to bake in the oven for just the nails. I am going to use a heat gun. Be careful this gun gets HOT! I hold my part at about three inches from the gun. Turn on the gun and slowly move the gun back and forth for about 2-3 minutes. Do not hold the gun in one area too long or you will melt the little toes or fingers. If you don't feel comfortable using a heat gun you can bake your parts for 7 minutes at 250 degrees F. I also find that when I do use the gun a shine does happen. That is alright, in the final step that shine will be taken care of.

Here are the toes done after being baked with the heat gun.

The other foot - Baked using the heat gun. Can see a little shine to those toes. 

Fingernails - Baked. 

 Next are the little eyebrows and final sealer :)

Happy Reborning :)

Reborn Painting Tutorial - Part VIII - Final Shading

Now we are going to add depth to the deeper creases on this little guy.

I am using the premix paint called Eyelid Purple.

One brush full mixed with odorless thinners to a lotion consistency.

I applied the paint to the corners of the eyes and across the bridge of the nose. I also applied to the crease that is from the corner of his eye down his cheek. I applied two layers. Make sure to blend out those creases with your cosmetic wedge. Don't want any paint pooling in those creases. 

Now I am going to add Mars Black to the Eyelid Purple mix. This mix will be for all the deep creases in the face, inside the ears, hands, feet and so on.

I have a half brush full of the Mars Black. I added a little more odorless thinner to the mix to keep it at a lotion consistency.

Here is the color you are aiming for. Because I used a green dish, it altered the color of my paint mix. Try to use clear or white dishes when you mix your paints. This way you can see the exact colors you are wanting and need.

Here on the foot I shaded the creases between the toes. Blended with cosmetic sponge. very subtle in giving separation to the toes. I did two layers to achieve this subtlety.

More of a close up of between the toes. I also did the back of the toes with the same mix to give depth.

Here is the other foot. Did all the real deep creases between the toes. I did not do the little creases across the toes themselves. Again two layers have been applied and blended with a cosmetic wedge.

Here is the bottom of the foot. 

Creases in the hand. I did the two main deep creases. By the thumb and across the padding of the hand. Finger creases were left alone. 

The creases on this hand. The palm area.  The white you see is where the matte varnish I applied didn't fully set. That is ok, when I do heat set this paint the matte varnish will fully set.

Creases around the nose, in the nose, under the bottom lip and under the chin done. Two layers, blended between each layer.

Inside the mouth and nose. 

Inside the ear.

Here the hand has baked and white from the matte varnish gone.

Same with this hand. 

After you are happy with the creases and all is blended and no paint is pooled in the creases. Bake for 7 minutes at 250 degrees F.

Next will be the final wash, Fingernails and toenails :)

Happy Reborning!