Charie spent all day yesterday working on my Peach. She first tried adding freckles to hide the light areas, but she said she hated how that looked. So she took a chance and stripped the head down. Then going by some of the tips, suggestions, and questions posed by members of Zone of Zen doll forum, she held a light inside the head, and sure enough the marks in the resin were clearly visible, and they spread evenly across the bridge of Peach's nose. Then taking someone else's advice, she took a new, sharp razor knife, and scraped the surface of the areas which showed up with the light. She then sanded the face with her diamond sanders to even out the colour over the rest of the head to match the scraped areas. When she finally applied the sealer to start the new faceup, the light areas were gone! She gave Peach a new faceup, and then decided to strip her body and redo it so it matched . Here's one of the photos she sent me....
Peach looks beautiful now. It's almost like those flaws were never even there. Charie certainly did an amazing job! If I didn't know where the light areas had been before I certainly would not notice them now. Especially since our photos really made the spots stand out more than they did in real life before, so now with them being gone in the photos, Peach will look perfect in real life.
This whole experience has taught us both a lot. First of all it shows that the BJD community is a friendly and supportive group ready to help when one encounters a problem - even when the doll company is not. It's also a very important discovery that flaws in the resin will show up when a light is inserted into the doll. If everyone ordering a blank doll takes a few minutes to check their dolls upon arrival - and take photos to document any problems - it will save a lot of heartache when they try talk to the doll company and they try turn it around and blame the customer. Several people told me they had light spots develop on their darker dolls during the faceup process, but they thought it was just their inexperience, or a problem with the sealer. A simple "candling" before starting would have shown any flaws if there were any, and if there were none, then yes, light spots appearing during the faceup, would most likely be from the sealer.
Another thing I learned in my research into what could be wrong with Peach, was that the most commonly used mold release for pouring resin, contains teflon. I have no way of knowing what's in the mold release the various companies use, but they definitely have strong "anti-stick" properties. So it's always very important to throughly clean a blank doll with Magic Eraser, soap and water, to remove any mold release residue. My IH Asa JID was the only doll I purchased with a factory faceup, and part of her lip paint just flaked off within the first year. My EID Carina was the first IH doll I ordered blank, and at the time we weren't aware of how paint could flake off a doll which was not thoroughly cleaned. So Carina's fingernails and some of her body blush started flaking off within days. After being stripped and thoroughly cleaned with Magic Eraser, her new faceup and body blush had no issues at all. Working with BJDs is an on-going learning process, but I wish sometimes it would be a little easier. Hopefully my next doll will be perfect!
This whole experience has taught us both a lot. First of all it shows that the BJD community is a friendly and supportive group ready to help when one encounters a problem - even when the doll company is not. It's also a very important discovery that flaws in the resin will show up when a light is inserted into the doll. If everyone ordering a blank doll takes a few minutes to check their dolls upon arrival - and take photos to document any problems - it will save a lot of heartache when they try talk to the doll company and they try turn it around and blame the customer. Several people told me they had light spots develop on their darker dolls during the faceup process, but they thought it was just their inexperience, or a problem with the sealer. A simple "candling" before starting would have shown any flaws if there were any, and if there were none, then yes, light spots appearing during the faceup, would most likely be from the sealer.
Another thing I learned in my research into what could be wrong with Peach, was that the most commonly used mold release for pouring resin, contains teflon. I have no way of knowing what's in the mold release the various companies use, but they definitely have strong "anti-stick" properties. So it's always very important to throughly clean a blank doll with Magic Eraser, soap and water, to remove any mold release residue. My IH Asa JID was the only doll I purchased with a factory faceup, and part of her lip paint just flaked off within the first year. My EID Carina was the first IH doll I ordered blank, and at the time we weren't aware of how paint could flake off a doll which was not thoroughly cleaned. So Carina's fingernails and some of her body blush started flaking off within days. After being stripped and thoroughly cleaned with Magic Eraser, her new faceup and body blush had no issues at all. Working with BJDs is an on-going learning process, but I wish sometimes it would be a little easier. Hopefully my next doll will be perfect!
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