New doll, customising materials + update

Hey everybody! It's been a while since I posted on my blog, but I'm back now... and there are a lot of cool doll happenings going on in my world at the moment. 

1. I ordered Pullip Mami Tomoe from Amazon US and I have received her!~  There's a photo I took of her up at the top there. I'll be doing a more in depth review soon :D

2. I've ordered a Pullip MIO kit, eye chips and a wig. I should have everything this week, so I'll be documenting my process for that too.

3. My Monster High customs are coming along too. I've had a lot of set backs trying to find a good surface primer and sealant, but I've found something that works well now that I can buy in this country. Sadly Mr Super Clear isn't sold here and you can't import aerosols into the UK where I live. I've been using Tamiya Acrylic Color Clear Matte after trying a few other options. I tried Game Workshop's Purity Seal but I found it left a sticky residue and didn't have a good 'tooth' surface. I tried painting on matte varnish but I didn't find it made a surface that could hold pastels easily enough either. I'm pretty sure I tried another one too, but I can't remember what it was! I've recently bought some Testor's Dulcote so I'm going to be trying that out on my Pullip MIO and see how it goes.

I bought the smallest brushes from Games Workshop and they were still too big for painting details onto my Monster High dolls! So I bought these small nail art brushes from eBay, and they are BRILLIANT! So much better for avoiding a blobby look.

Since I had to take off and put on the different sealants so many times, the surface of the doll's face is a little damaged. As a result, it doesn't hold pastels very evenly, some areas are taking the blush much more than others. I've learnt a lot with this doll, but after I redo the face I'm going to move on to a different one with everything I've learnt because there are a lot of mistakes and accidental damage etc that I'm not happy with. 

 I haven't redone the face with the new brushes. I'm going to be repainting my first doll head since the brushes were too big, but for the sake of documenting my progress, here's my first attempt!

What happens if your brushes aren't small enough!

I also think I need to make an eyebrow stencil of some kind!

So there's all my updates for now... I will hopefully be writing more on this blog over the next few days!