Make that base Muy Macho!

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I've been making dolls for three years, and lately people have been asking about how to make male dolls look male, especially with a female base as a starting point. Ok, I haven't done the 'how-to' for the FtM Base edit, but here are my Useful Tips on making any base (in this case a DHF base) Muy Macho!

First, we're going to use a very macho photo as refference. This is Josh Holloway, as Sawyer in the TV show LOST, to which I am addicted. He's not my favorite, but he's the one I was dolling when I had time *and* ambition to do this project. You could just use the base as is, it's not bad, but what if you want something more manly-man? Follow along.

The first major thing to change is the jawline. Most bases have very rounded, soft jawlines. Making the jaw more square is a must for machismo. Making it a shade more grey than the regular base outline gives the chin a bit more depth.

This is a subtle step - the nose. Check the first picture and this one - I made the nose narrower and more angled by using a 30ish% airbrush on a small setting in the second-darkest skin shade along the sides near the eyes and a quick dash across the bridge of the nose. Men's skulls are generally a little heavier in the brow, so the brigde of the nose often has a touch of shadow.

Ok, not all men or male dolls have stubble. But if you want to do it, use an airbrush on a low opacity setting and the smallest brush size. You want to have heavier stubble on the jawline, getting lighter as you move up the cheek. The place right below the bottom lip is often more bare - look at pics for refference. I color-shifted the stubble in the example to show where it is. You'll want to use a color from the eyebrow for the beard. If you want a full beard, just use a higher opacity, and shde as you would any hair. Also, notice the orange blush on the colorful copy? That's the highlights on the cheekbones. Slashes look more rugged/less cutesy than dots.

The big key here is to break up the perfection of the lips. The top pic is the raw base - see how perfect those lips are? All one color = lipstick! I use a dusty plum, usually grabbed from near the eye, and airbrush some diference in there. You could pixel it, too - just grey out the colors and mix them up a bit. Also notice there's no big wet 'lip-gloss' highlight on the lower lip.

Get rid of the black eyelashes! I pulled a darkish shade from the brows and replaced all the darkest pixels of the lashes. Men generally have heavier brows, so go over them with a little airbrush to mix up the colors and darken them. Take the outside edges of the eye in a bit, and get rid of the shiny white highlight. (Also, make sure the highlights are not both on the inside of the eye, or it can make the base look cross-eyed.)

Add hair! You know how to do hair, right? Men have hair in pretty much the same way women do, so look at photos if you need ideas.