BLOOMIN BABY TONES AIR DRY PAINT TUTORIAL

Series of Tips and Techniques for Bloomin’ Baby Tones Air-Dry Reborn Painting…

By Elena Goodson BloomersnBows.com

Part One: Bloomin’Baby Tones Air-Dry vs. Genesis Heat-Set Reborn Paints

Since the introduction of our new line of air-dry Baby Tones reborning paints, I have had the opportunity to gather and share numerous reborning experiences with our customers. We offer both the Genesis heat-set and the Baby Tones air-dry reborning paints. I find that I am frequently asked which paint, in my opinion, is truly the best to use and produces the most lifelike results. I have witnessed beautiful and truly lifelike babies produced with both paint genres. Reborns made with either medium using effective techniques can offer stunning results.

Techniques specific to each paint style definitively play a very essential role in producing beautiful results. If you are new to reborning and do not have much experience with painting, I suggest a pre-mixed set of either Genesis or Baby Tones to give you the targeted life-like color tones for your reborning. Another factor is the specific technique you use to create your foundation skin tone layer washes. Paint application to the doll should be controllable to allow the right dilution of pigment to be applied exactly where you want it.

If you think about it, vinyl is moisture-resistant and certainly not absorbent like canvas. So success with either paint depends a lot on learning and using techniques that address the issues of effectively applying liquid mediums on moisture resistant vinyl.

Variables in your painting technique can range from the dryness or dampness of your paintbrushes, the style of brushes you use to the amount you dilute your particular colors for the purpose each will be used. Successful results will depend greatly on: how you apply the paints; how you ‘blot’ the paints in place

The use of pouncers, texture sponges, cosmetic wedges, berry makers, style stix; and the list goes on… Some quick comparisons to mention here…

Genesis paints allow you to re-apply paint and correct the color until you are happy and then you heat-seal your results for each layer. If you have zero painting skills, and have never tried this before and want to start from scratch then Genesis is really nice because it is so forgiving. The fact that you can completely seal a good layer with heat is very important if you are a new painter because it allows you to focus on detail work separately from foundation/skin tone work and not worry about lower layers being affected by an upper-layer mistake… for example you are done with baby and then go to put eyebrows on and oops! You don’t like the way they turned out… that is easy to fix with genesis, clean it off and it won’t affect your already dried beautiful lower layers.

The drawbacks for heat-setting paints are obvious though, as I have had many customers tragically disfigure their expensive reborn kits due to the common interruptions and distractions of daily life, needy little ones, the telephone, oven thermostats can be inaccurate, or their family’s oven is heated using expensive propane. We have also had to discontinue the heat gun appliance from our product line due to the unreliable operation of a significant number of units.

In contrast, the Baby Tones Air-Dry paints do not require any heat application or energy-powered appliances and thus cost much less to purchase and use in the long run. Our ‘My First Reborn Baby Tones Paint Set’ retails for as low as 21.95 including paints, brushes, instructions, palette, and tools.

With Baby Tones Air-Dry Paint Sets, we have included instructions and mediums that allow the paints to be applied in a very effective manner to the reborn doll kits.

Place a dab of the desired color of paint on your palette. Add the Air-Dry Thinner directly to your paint

Dab and blend with a clean damp brush so you get a slightly diluted mixture

To control slight peachy tones and also to give a beautiful life-like undertone, I reserve a small portion of my flesh tone base and mix with a little of the Blue Belly Veil and a small amount of either the Flesh Hi-Lite tone or the Fingernail Tip Tone... this makes a nice periwinkle tone that you can use to first sponge your baby with near the temples, wrists, ankles, tummy, anywhere thin skin and veining will be prominent... At this step I will apply veining using a thin liner brush and dab with a sponge to give the veining a subtle tone. (Note: I will add more pictures of the veining process to this tutorial shortly)

Apply your flesh tone base mix with a sponge, brush tip, or cosmetic wedge to baby... be careful not to use too damp or saturated of a brush or sponge...

I will dab my brush on a paper towel first sometimes and then apply to baby so you don't get drips running down baby's chin, cheeks, and around her ears...

Our Baby Tones Air-Dry Thinner is ideal for blending with and applying the paint to the babies, it has special non-toxic emollient mediums to help it spread the pigments evenly on your doll.

I primarily use the Thinner and Reborner’s Real Results Gel in many, many of the steps when I paint my reborns with Baby Tones.

Our Reborner’s Real Results Gel has an extending medium in it that retards the drying of the paints and allows them to be a bit more ‘goof proof’ for you. This makes it a very handy item when you are painting!

Use this Gel directly on your clean damp paintbrushes, mixed with a paint color, or used alone as a blending wash. For broad even skin tone coverage I may follow each completed layer with a cosmetic wedge dipped in gel to even out my overall color tones. I find this step especially useful for evening out my ethnic reborn skin tones.

For detail work I begin by applying the gel directly to my paintbrush and working it into the brush on my palette. This measure really helps the paint to be clump free and blend nicely onto the vinyl or silicon. I also mix a little Reborner’s Real Results Gel and Extender with the eyebrow, veining, eyelid capillary, or nail tip detail colors so that correcting as I go is easy to do. I use a small dab on a Q-Tip to correct little areas that have too much paint pigment. Keep in mind that the Gel retards the drying of the paint so it is easier to fix mistakes. Be sure to allow a little extra drying time for the detail color work.

My typical work area for skin tone layers and blushing has several styles of brushes, pouncers, style stix tools, cosmetic wedges, and chunks of texture sponges of varying degrees of dampness all handy for me to grab and use depending on the particular feature I am working on.

For detail work, I rely on three basic short brush shapes: the size #0 and #1 small round brushes for work around eyes, nostrils and ears, a very thin liner brush for veins, capillaries, eyebrows, and fingernail tips, and a small #2 flat or filbert brush for lips and nail beds.

In general, with air dry paints you can focus on different areas of the baby while others dry so that you can create a finished reborn in a reasonably short amount of time. We have developed some products to help with particular reborning issues such as paint not adhering to certain types of reborn vinyl. There are several reasons the paint may not adhere to the vinyl well. One possibility occurs when the doll being re-painted was originally a factory production line painted doll. Mass-produced babies are sprayed at the factory with a sealer that actually seeps deep into the vinyl and can be very stubborn to remove and remnants of this still in the vinyl will resist any new paint. Another culprit for paint not adhering well is too weak a dilution of your color wash. This can actually inhibit the paint’s ability to stick to the vinyl. We do offer a pre-paint sealer that prepares the surface to better receive the new paint.

Also, with any air-dry paint… when you apply a new layer of paint, thinner, and gel, you can actually ‘wake up’ the layer of paint beneath the new one. We offer a Crystal Clear Lite Layer Sealer for new artists who want to put a protective barrier between their foundation and blushing layers before they add detail work like eyebrows, etc. Never use ‘goof off’ or acetone to make a spot or color correction on an painted reborn if you can help it. You can spot correct gently with a little of the Reborner’s Gel.

Lastly, you may wish to seal your baby’s beautiful finish. We have had mixed opinions on the best final sealing coat for a completed reborn. When in doubt, and especially with certain brands of doll kits, you will want to seal the baby… the most effective sealer is a nice Pure Matte Top Coat Sealer… We do offer this product as well for protecting your beautiful creations for years to come.

In summary, both paint lines are easy to use, produce gorgeous babies and are correctable. As for my own personal preference… I am a busy mom with four lively children and a full-time business to run so I find the air-dry paints suit me to a ‘T’. I am able to keep several reborn baby creations drying in different stages of progress until I can sneak a chance to work on them. Like many other reborn artists, I learned to paint dolls using the Genesis paints first. However after several episodes of forgetting and leaving both the oven and the air conditioner on all day last summer, or accidentally staining my expensive reborn head green from an oven mitt, or watching in horror as my last prototype melted before my eyes… I realized the air dry paints suited my busy lifestyle best. The best paint for you then, in my opinion, is the one that fits the way you live.