Exactly what size (length & thickness) brush to use for veins?

Exactly what size (length & thickness) brush to use for veins?

by gypsy martine-tetzloff
(chicago, Illinois, U.S.)

Hi! This past winter I took a reborning class & made a lovely first reborn doll, with continual help & teaching from the teacher -- now I want to make another one, on my own (scarey), and already have a problem/question: I started trying to paint veins on the head of the new kit, using a very thin brush whose bristles are about an inch & a half long, & when I tried to paint the veins, the brush bristles just bent & flopped, & either NO paint came off or too much did - some of each.

My teacher emailed me today to mix the paint with lots of thinner, so maybe I didn't put in enough thinner. But what surface can I practice on that will give me a rough idea of how the paint & the brush will behave when I put it on the doll? I was using paper towels to test it last night, but they just drank the paint right up. Meanwhile, the baby head has some "killer" veins on it : { , and they WON"T come off - right?

Is there anything I can use to take the badly-done veins off?

Thanks to anyone & everyone who can help with this.
Gypsy

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Exactly what size (length & thickness) brush to use for veins?

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veining boo boo
by: Anonymous

I just started a reborn class and the teacher said be very careful when using the blue color for veining because it tends to stain. Of course some of us had some boo boos and the only way of removing them if they could be removed was to basically scrub it out with thi thinner on a sponge and hope for the best. The problem is the blue acts more like a stain on the vinyl. Sorry

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Painted on veins
by: Lisa

If you are using heat set paints, from what I understand, as long as you have not baked the parts, you can just wipe them off. If they won't come off you may have to use some mottling techniques to layer over the vein. I use air dry paints and they can be very unforgiving when it comes to mistakes.

As far as testing your work, I have boo-boo baby parts that I use to test both my technique and colors on before I try it on my baby kit. Hope this helps.

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Can painted-on but not-yet-baked veins be removed?
by: Gypsy, again

It's me, Gypsy, again, with a highly-related! question to my previous one (thanks for accepting it, BTW). A helpful person named Kim answered my question, & I'm going to try her suggestions soon -- but first, what she says makes me wonder, IS THERE ANY WAY TO SAFELY REMOVE PAINTED-ON VEINS (without damaging the vinyl) if I haven't yet applied any heat?

My fingers are SO, SO crossed on this one...
Thanks!
Gypsy

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reborn doll veins
by: Kim

You want your veins to be barely there at all. Try taking your thinnest paintbrush and cutting off all but one or two bristles. Make sure your vein color is very thin and blot with a cosmetic sponge(pounce) until the color is barely visible. Do NOT bake until you are happy with the look. The blue is a very intense, highly pigmented color and will not remove after heat setting.
Good luck!

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