My LDC air dry paints & Angelica kit by Reva Schick came in the mail yesterday from DollDreams.net! For the last year I have been using Genesis Heat Set Paints to paint with. With GHSP I will paint a layer on the kit I am working on and bake each layer for 8 mins. @ 265 degrees in my oven. I currently live in Arizona and the weather here is hot! 105 degrees today and rising. Yuck....
I told my husband I would try these paint out and hopefully in the future only work with them. They only require water and the paint is 100% non toxic. By the time I have finished the head, arms and legs I can go right onto painting the head again. No waiting, no baking, no heat, no turing on my air condition higher than normal and hopefully a lower power bill! Well I am testing them out on a Shyann Kit by Aleina Peterson, I have my fingers crossed I will like them. It's just the learning something new part I am not fond of haha.
I have about 6 layers going on so far. I'm not sure what to think yet. she looks kinda blaaaa. I guess she has a nice base, but I would really like to lighten it up.

I have to go about painting with LDC differently. They dry fast on the vinyl so I cannot let the paint sit like I do my other paints. All the colors are different so I have to figure out my painting pattern. I don't expect this kit to be amazing, but then again who knows? I just started. :)
I read that the first thing you do is coat the kit with Matte varnish and bake it on so that the paint will stick better. I did that but I am not liking the texture. It's not as smooth as I like it. I may need to go and ask friends what I should do. I also read you can go back and do that after you have painted but need to wait a couple of weeks for the paint to cure or your paint will turn orange in the oven.
Angelica by Reva Schick is a 5 year old 42" tall girl. I have never worked on this size before. Her head is massive! You can see the difference between Shyann's little newborn head. I will be blogging about her journey starting next week. I need to finish my custom orders this week before I can even think about starting her.
Thanks to everyone who answered questions about LDC paints on all the forums. If you have any great tips, feel free to Facebook me or e-mail me!
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UPDATE: 6/24
Working all day yesterday and this morning trying to see if I like these paints, I will say this. I do for the most part! I switched her dark brown glass eyes out for the green hazel eyes and they suit her complexion better so far.
Pros:
- I was able to get this far on her in 1 day! With other paints it would take me at least 2 weeks to get to this point
- Paint dries fast. By the time you are done with the head, legs & arms you can move right onto the head again
- Water is all you need to mix paints
- No baking (except for the 1st matte varnish coat)
Cons:
- Paint dries fast! You have to work inch by inch. I'm used to painting an entire area and going back over and pouncing down the color.
- Learning how to mix colors to get what you really want
- Matte varnish kinda feels rough. Although today her skin has been pounced so many times it is so much smoother now.
- Take a few weeks for paint to cure, but that's ok!
- Hard to fix mistakes
- Learning something new hehe
I feel like my colors are really flat right now. She looks to have more of a grey complexion at this point. This over time will be corrected. I don't mean the paint it self is flat, just the way I have painted her this far. I'm having a harder time with my mottling. That's probably because I don't have the right sponges. I need to get some like Debbie has in her tutorial. Make up sponges are not holding up well with the LDC paint. I have to brush the paint onto the limbs and then pounce it down. I normally take tweezers and pluck out tiny holes out of my make up sponge and apply a thin coat of paint (on the sponge) and lightly pounce that on to create little that effect. If you are a fellow reborn-er then you know what I'm talking about.
So far so good! I won't be quitting the LDC paints any time soon. I will be selling this Shyann at some point and at a fair price since she is a tester baby. I can see from the pictures what I need to work on. Highlighting her T zone, lips and eye area.
Leg work is coming along o.k as well. It's a start!
Visit again soon. I'm sure I'll have more pictures in the next few days
Feel free to comment or give me pointers if you are also
working with LDC paints! :)
***HUGS*****