BJDcollectasy is happy to present the 3rd of the series of 4 planned presentations of face-ups featuring a variety of talented artists. Each artist whose work is displayed was invited to interpret the theme “Summer”. Many of the artists were included in the previous projects Winter (seen HERE) and Spring (seen HERE). New artists have also been included in this article.
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Napoleonchan
I love summer, it’s my favorite season. I love the heat, the humidity and the summer thunderstorms- that have conveniently decided to not show up this year. I could think of no better doll in my troupe to represent this season than Peach, everything about her just seems to cry sunshine and happiness. So in the tradition of Peach face-ups, I gave her one that combines sunny flecks of gold, warm blush and blue in her eyelashes and makeup to compliment her bright blue eyes.
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Izabeth – Isa’s Face-up Shop
For the summer project I wanted to stay in the same vein as with the spring face up I did previously. This time though, I actually chose a type of flower I wanted to paint. When I think of summer, I think of hot weather, and a flower that came to mind that thrives in such conditions is the orchid. There are so many different types of orchids, but for my color palette I chose purples and yellows. To bring forth even more of a summer feel, I added a small sprinkling of freckles to the cheeks and nose as if the doll spends a lot of time in the sun.
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Retrograde
Summer: Living in the South has always meant unbearable heat during the summertime. One of my favorite ways to cool off is with a glass of pink lemonade, brimming over with ice cubes. I wanted to include shades of lemony yellow and soft pink with my project. I added a bit of an edge with the dark shading for her eyeshadow, as summer is always full of adventure!
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Asella – Noble Dolls
Since I was a child, summer means to me the Sun, holidays, the joy of living. I have spent a lot of my summer in the countryside, in my grand mother’s house, so for me the makeup of summer must be something colorful, charming!
The flowers in the fields growing between wheat. They must be sweet with glitters, who shine in the Sun! I love soft colors, like pink, oranges, maroon… they can be bright or smooth what of them I use. For me, summer make up has freckles 
because the sun put on our face lot of them, so why not on our dolls ?
I like lips like cherries, with lot of juicy gloss and I don’t often do eye liner black, but more Brown, which gives a softer look and to finish, not too long eyelashes, because I don’t like it.
Summer is the good time for fairies, no ?
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arrowchild – DollSylph
My Dollzone Megi, Switch, became the model for my summer inspired face-up. To reflect the drought my area of the US is currently experiencing, I chose a largely monochromatic color scheme of browns, with only faint, neutralized greens around the brows and eyes. The intricate designs on his cheeks represent summer foliage and the two larger swaths of color descending from beneath the eyes were initially inspired by ‘eye black’ used by athletes to reduce sun glare, though I’ve made them ‘melting’ to incorporate the idea of heat.
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Kiki chan
Summer is a time when you get to hang out with your friends. It’s when you get to just sit out on the sand, or let the water lap at your feet while watching the sun set over the water. Freckles start to slowly appear, your hair bleaches itself and the scent of the ocean infuses itself within your body. It’s a time filled with memories of picking up hermit craps and playing with the sparkling, glittering water in the bio-luminescent bay on a moonless night. Summer is beautiful, wild and transient.
For my face-up and aesthetic work, I wanted my boy to look like he spent most of his time out on the water with his surf board. He has subtle freckles on both the bridge of his nose, and across his shoulders. The light ‘sunburn’ also goes down the shoulders and arms. This is the sort of ‘sunburn’ a person will get after spending hours in the water and forgetting to re-apply their sunscreen.
I stayed away from harsh blacks on the tattoos themselves in order to give them a more ‘natural’ appearance; instead opting to use a dark brown that would still give a nice ‘graphic’ quality to the work. To see all the tattoos, the doll must be viewed from all sides, this is intentional. There are three main groupings of tattoos, along with various small scars on the arms and face.
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Keysha Costley – Charm City Doll
Summer is, by far, my favorite season. I love the hot weather, I love the long days and warm nights. On cold January nights I dream of the beach and days by the pool. So for me, summer means sunshine. They are synonymous. My face up reflects this idea of sunny days, and sun-kissed pink noses, clear blue skies and bright Summer mornings.
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Nefer Kane – Circus Kane
So, I painted that Humpty thinking of the strawberries growing in my garden when I was a child, once my grand father told me ” if you keep on eating so much strawberries, you’ll turn yourself into one!”
That Humpty is a funny creature who ate so many strawberries that she became one. From nail to skin, eyes, lips, and even strawberries are now growing on her face.
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Shin – Kanojo Kakumei
For this project I used my own boy, my Crobidoll Jun, as a model because many people often refer to my crew as the ‘sunshine boys’, a nickname they’ve already started using themselves! I think it’s due to the intense blushing I tend to give my dolls, it makes them look as if they’d been running or playing outside on a sunny day and that’s exactly what I wanted to represent this time: a young kid who loves to play in the sun! Perfect for the summer season.
Kanojo-Kakumei-Aesthetics-Face-ups-by-Shin
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Popomini – Rose Bleu
When summer comes to my country, I think about the sun and hotness only. Because of them, in the theme “summer”, I made this face-up to present the heat of fire. I chose red, yellow and gold for eyeshadow color presenting glow of fire and added blue eyelashes for the outermost color of flame that is hottest. Finally, crimson red was the shade that I added for her lips in the meaning of eternal blaze.
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Loren – Grotesque Cabaret
Summer is easily my favourite season of the year, so it was easy to get excited about reinventing ‘summer’ in a doll form. However, when I began conceptualizing the idea I began thinking of the way summer is revealed in nature, and I began to see the heat haze coming off the road, the scorching pavement as the tar begin the melt , the cracking of the dry earth, dried peeling paint on old fences, the blackened shrivelled leaves of the plants and dried peeling skin of sunburnt children.
As I result I decided I would try to capture the extreme sensations experienced after a few weeks of a solid 40C+ heatwave, and set out to to show the dramatic way the heat begins to make the skin and flesh begin peel away. I used a base of yellows to represent the summer sun, while at the same time contrasting it against the burnt black aridness of the dried up plants and the shimmering bitumen.
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