Arthur's tpe doll repair thread inc. Rachel's resurrection

[Arthur1960]

Ok, not looking too bad, I've used The Doll Laboratory eye backs and eye lids which have very nice fitted lashes making this part of the job much easier. So the next step is to see if we can find a bod to use and I'm tempted to try one of my WM155DD's. Irina has just grabbed one so I will have to bench Valeris for a while to use the other. The red hair is too close to Sarah's look so I'm going to try blonde and go for the classic WM155DD/46 look

[Wheezer]

Well done on the head.
... W ...

[Arthur1960]

Well done on the head.
... W ...

Cheers Wheezer, I've just married her up with one of my WM155DD bods which is a good fit for head 46. Think I'm going to call her Sara seeing as she's basically come from Sarah's old head! Here's a phone pic, I will have to rattle off a few shots with the Nikon later

[seagull]

Dang, she's really gorgeous, I need a cold shower now

[Arthur1960]

Dang, she's really gorgeous, I need a cold shower now

Cheers seagull, yeah I'm pleased with the way she turned out

[Wheezer]

Well done on the final result. Her head goes well with the body.

I like that you put some effort into the nose and nose shadows. For some reason those areas seem to be missed by the OEM face folks.
The teeth and lips also turned out well. Details like those help bring her to life.

Excellent.
... W ...

[Arthur1960]

Well done on the final result. Her head goes well with the body.

I like that you put some effort into the nose and nose shadows. For some reason those areas seem to be missed by the OEM face folks.
The teeth and lips also turned out well. Details like those help bring her to life.

Excellent.
... W ...

Cheers for that Wheezer, while I'm reasonably happy with the results on this head the 'weathered' patches are still visible when you zoom in, although they are much better than before. They are probably worse on the nose which I was very cautious about but maybe I should have been a bit more persistent with the heat. On the cheek area the skin now looks more textured, much like that of a silicone head which actually translates quite well in pictures. As to the cause of this 'weathering' effect on some heads, to be honest I'm still scratching my head! My list of suspects has been: too much direct sunlight, too frequent use of oil to remove makeup, too little oil, prolonged exposure to powdered makeup or just the natural ageing of the material. The thing is I can't find anything that's consistent, for example I struggle to see any sign of this on my next oldest head (Sophia, early 2017) but it's also visible to a lesser extent on both Monique and Keiko (mid 2017). If I had to put money on it I'd say that maybe it's a result of frequent makeup removal and reapplication as certainly Sarah and Keiko were subject to that in their early days. I'm not convinced it's down to the natural ageing of the material as some of my oldest bods have the majority of their tpe looking fresh and smooth with the exception of their hands, bits of forearms and of course in the groin which inevitably develops those stretch marks. I guess time will tell, I think I must be doing something right now with my gals and coupled with the fact that tpe blends seem to have improved many of my later dolls are not showing anything like the wear and tear seen on those I got between 2016 and 2017.

[seagull]

I can't find anything that's consistent

At a guess, there have been hundreds (probably) of different blends used by manufacturers over the years, each with its particular characteristics.
Finding consistency is pretty much impossible, but that's how it is and we just do the best we can with our doll's maintenance and upkeep

[Wheezer]

Head tuning is interesting … as you well know.

From what I have seen although they are TPE like the body, heads react a bit differently for several reasons.
First it seems that they are made from a slightly different blend of TPE that the body, usually softer. The blends HAVE gotten much better, so this is less of an observed issue with decent, new production heads. But most important seems to be the actual structure of the head itself.

Generally most TPE heads are a relatively thin skin over a harder non porous skull.
Thus anything that gets on the face (oil, heat, etc.) does not have a mass of TPE behind it to dissipate it.
Likewise there is not a mass of TPE behind the face to supply oils. So things that might only “bother” a body part of the doll may show up more pronounced on a face, which can lead to head scratching as to why the body is OK but the face shows abnormalities. I think you were close when you considered the effects to be due to multiple makeup applications and removal.

Also from what I have seen most hot air rework techniques for TPE dolls came from body repair. Areas which have bulk TPE that can absorb and dissipate heat. But a face changes drastically in a short space … a nose is thinner (can absorb less heat prior to flow) than a relatively thicker cheek next to it. So the standard techniques need a bit of tweaking when doing head work.

The cheek and other face texture turned out well and look good in the images, subtle pores. I can see more of the TPE OEMs trying to emulate that on their heads to get closer to silicone ones.

A curious thing is that the image appears to show a consistent texture feature on all the face and body TPE, in spite of you saying it was limited. This is probably due to the digital camera sensor and the internal white balance algorithm, especially impacting flesh tone areas. I have noted similar cases where light faces look one way on the bench and different in images.

If it helps I usually over texture and stipple an area I plan to knock down and smooth. Sort of subtly mix up the TPE then let the heat or tools blend it down. For face area detail I have found simple “spluge tools” work great. They get into detail areas and the handles stay cool for working. I either preheat them with the air gun or a pre heater tool I am working on. More on that one later.

Good results as always.

Cheers!
… W …
SPUDGE TOOLS

Spudge_tools.jpg (194.81 KiB) Viewed 588 times

[seagull]

This is next level stuff, just awesome

[Arthur1960]

Hi Wheezer and thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed response, it's much appreciated! What you say makes perfect sense and reminded me of the time I stripped a head from its skull and could see that in some places the tpe is indeed very thin and that correlates with similar ageing/weathering that can occur on fingers and wrists etc. I'm sure the tpe blend is a major factor, when I think of my Amy's head, she has the firmest tpe that's more like silicone in order to take her implanted hair and her head looks and feels bullet proof. It's going to be interesting to see how well her head does in the long term, given the choice I would get all my tpe heads in this blend as it has the firmness of silicone without the shine so tends to photograph well. Cheers again for the info, always very helpful!

[Michaelangelo]

Cheers for that Wheezer, while I'm reasonably happy with the results on this head the 'weathered' patches are still visible when you zoom in, although they are much better than before. They are probably worse on the nose which I was very cautious about but maybe I should have been a bit more persistent with the heat. On the cheek area the skin now looks more textured, much like that of a silicone head which actually translates quite well in pictures. As to the cause of this 'weathering' effect on some heads, to be honest I'm still scratching my head! My list of suspects has been: too much direct sunlight, too frequent use of oil to remove makeup, too little oil, prolonged exposure to powdered makeup or just the natural ageing of the material. The thing is I can't find anything that's consistent, for example I struggle to see any sign of this on my next oldest head (Sophia, early 2017) but it's also visible to a lesser extent on both Monique and Keiko (mid 2017). If I had to put money on it I'd say that maybe it's a result of frequent makeup removal and reapplication as certainly Sarah and Keiko were subject to that in their early days. I'm not convinced it's down to the natural ageing of the material as some of my oldest bods have the majority of their tpe looking fresh and smooth with the exception of their hands, bits of forearms and of course in the groin which inevitably develops those stretch marks. I guess time will tell, I think I must be doing something right now with my gals and coupled with the fact that tpe blends seem to have improved many of my later dolls are not showing anything like the wear and tear seen on those I got between 2016 and 2017.

Just glorious to see your makeup work up close, Arthur. I love how you make the lips so luscious and the nose work is, like Wheezer said, really effective. One of the reasons I'd get an extra head for Mira would actually be to practice more make-up work since I like to KISS with Mira (obvs) because she's mostly about goofy stories but it would be nice to really try out some proper makeup some time.

One thing on the skin: Mira also has this kind of weathering on her face, couple of small bits on her cheeks and eyebrow areas and also a patch on her skull. It's a leathery kind of look, as opposed to the normal smooth skin. I guess it probably is oil (or the Pond's I use for makeup removal). She's never exposed to sun but stays with make-up on all the time, I only clean it off to redo it. I actually don't mind it too much, it coves up well with powder (cornstarch + foundatoin) and almost makes her skin look more realistic somehow (i.e. with pores). And I never do close-up pro shots with an actual camera (stricltly iPhone + aftermarket tele here) so it's never visible on photos. I'd struggle to see it in RL with her made up, either.

FWIW Mira is about 2020 maybe, she's a 2014 model (163C) but I got her in 2021.

Oh and your head + body match is lush, nice one .

[Arthur1960]

Hi Michaelangelo and thanks for your kind comments. I did eventually learn that with makeup less is more if you know what I mean. I shudder whenever I see my early pics of Sarah with way too much blusher on and thick eye brow pencil! I try and use a lighter touch these days and I think my gals are much happier now! Yes I'm lucky with this old hrad 46 from 2016 as it's a very close skin tone match to the 2018 body and in fact new gal Sara has given me some nice pics this past week so it was definitely worth the effort!

[Michaelangelo]

Hi Michaelangelo and thanks for your kind comments. I did eventually learn that with makeup less is more if you know what I mean. I shudder whenever I see my early pics of Sarah with way too much blusher on and thick eye brow pencil! I try and use a lighter touch these days and I think my gals are much happier now! Yes I'm lucky with this old hrad 46 from 2016 as it's a very close skin tone match to the 2018 body and in fact new gal Sara has given me some nice pics this past week so it was definitely worth the effort!

Lovely shots. I keep forgetting to buy a spray bottle . Head skin tone matching is a good point, I lucked out with my #159 but I have seen some heads with quite different versions of light tan or whatever. Something to note for a makeup head should I get one.

[Arthur1960]

Thanks, yeah I always have my water spray bottle close to hand, primarily as it's really handy to tame wayward hair during a shoot but also to use on a naked bod for extra an extra yummy look! You can get hairdresser spray bottles on eBay cheap enough