10 April 2016

Meet 真珠 - Shinju

One painting by (c) Juri Ueda
"dia de los muertos in red"
When I search for inspiration I usually take the highway to art - galleries, internet and social media. I have my favorites in Rudy Fig, Kelly Vivanco, Juri Ueda and Jasmine Becket-Griffith, just to mention some. Do you have some artists (painters, musicians, actors and so on) as inspiration?

This time I turned to Juri Ueda, a watercolor painter from Osaka, in Japan, who has been creating these wonderful paintings with a tiny bit of fantasy worlds since 2007. On paper.
First thin lines, just to see if it works.
When it comes to repaints and OOAK-dolls, I am no master at it, but I think it is fun to try new things, new techniques and I see the face of a doll as a tabula rasa, a blank slate. More accurate though, as an erased slate. I looked at my Madeline Hatter, an Ever After High doll and felt that she was rather dull and I wanted to do something about that. 
A little bit closer
So I cleaned her for the second time and stared at her, all naked. I got my inspiration from the painting above. In the beginning I felt that her face was a little bit small for this kind of art project, but the roundness she has made it work. I first tested to have the eyes with white acrylic dots, but that looked rather crazy, so I used my Derwent coloursoft white for that. Do you do repaints? What materials do you use?
Some steps more...
Shinju, in Apple White's sweater
Her white dots in the eyes look like pearls, so I gave her the name Shinju, 真珠, pronounced sheen-joo. It means "Pearl". I need to make her some clothes and in a later entry tell you her story. How do you name your dolls, figures and so on?

10 comments:

  1. You did great!!! I love to see the work that inspired you. I already said it but it is a very original face up~

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    1. Thanks! :) It is always nice to use the artists and their work as an inspiration, not just to look at and admire the work. And yes, it is very original. :D

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  2. What a wonderful post Niina, I admire anyone who can do a face-up, it's not something that comes easy to most of us. I enjoyed reading about where your inspiration came from for this doll, very interesting. :)
    Hugs,
    X

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    1. Thanks, Xanadu! I am still new when it comes to face-ups and one day I would like to repaint my BJD's. Until that, I will test on these Monster high and Ever after high dolls. I have even tested on some other vinyl dolls and you learn a thing or two on the way. :)
      Hugs!

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  3. She's very pretty, I love all her details ~ I'd love to try some smaller vinyl repaints some day but I am worried that painting such tiny details is quite hard, especially the eyes! :O

    I also love her name, I get names from the most random places! Such as songs, or other languages.

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    1. Thank you, Irene! :) I got a tip from professional repainter - buy a magnifying glass with a lamp! I have not come to that point yet - need to start looking. Until then I am almost nose to nose with the doll when I am painting the smaller details. They who see see may wonder what I am doing. Haha :D
      Yes, other languages and songs are good places to get inspiration!

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  4. Cool to see a bit of your creative process :D
    I like that you draw inspiration from art. She sure looks cool with the faceup you made her *^^*

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    1. I wanted to test something new. I have before used other repainted dolls as inspiration. Small steps forward!
      And thanks! :)

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  5. That's really cool, and she looks lovely! I love the design! It's fun to get inspired. :D

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    1. Thank you so much, Crystal! It is really fun to get inspired and even find a way to express that inspiration. :D

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