Having trouble placing eyes (and looking for new eyes)

Since I got my first Dollfie a little bit ago I've had so many questions!

So I apologize for my many posts, Im just super excited ><

But I realized that maybe I might be having some trouble placing my eyes on my girls head, especially when trying to put them in a way that she's looking off to the side.

 

I'm not sure if it's just me but it just looks like her eyes are not even, and I'm not sure how to fix. I am unsure if it is the way I'm placing them or if it's just the shape of my dolls eye holes and she just needs wider eyes. Right now these are 22mm eyes from Etsy https://www.etsy.com/listing/596741546/doll-eyes-4-choices-dollfie-dream-anime?ref=yr_purchases

This one was me placing them normally

And this is what she looks like now.

 

I know I haven't had much doll experience so it could very much be me and the way I have been placing them. But this has me looking for new eyes to experiment with. 

I did some research and came across Orchid Dolls blogs, and I found one eye I really like. I think the slightly more circular eyes might do my girl more justice (and would look better when she is looking to the side<3)

 

But when I went to Taobao to look for white Dollfie story the weren't selling these eyes, total bummer. 

So if anyone can tell me other brands that have eyes that look like and are shaped like this I would love to know! Or if you guys have any suggestions for eyes for my girl<3 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Chiakisenpai

In all of your pictures, you have her left eye (eye on our right) tilted more than her left eye. While with some eyes that is a bit hard to judge, with the ones you have it's quite easy; just look at the small darkest center part of the pupil. This is especially true in your second picture.

I try to make my eyes be like | | but people also do \  / (not that exaggerated), but you've got | / or in that second picture sort of / / with much more tilt on her left eye.

When making them look off to the side, you have to sort of cheat to make things look right. In your picture, the two eyes are looking in different directions, you've made her left eye look further left than the right one. Consider how the eyes look when looking forward--unlike a real person, there isn't a symmetrical amount of whilte visible; on the inside there's almost none. So in order to keep both eyes looking in the same direction, as you move them to one side, you can't have them where you've just eliminated all white on the one side. Instead on her left eye, for this particular head, you'll put the eye about where you have it (but not so tilted) while for her right eye, you'll need to move it further where part of the iris is obscured behind her vinyl. It's tricky to get this to look right.

If you switch to a rounder style like those White Dolly Story eyes, you'll have even less white visible and you might have to partially obscure the iris on both on the inner side when looking forward; sometimes this is necessary to not have the eyes looking "wall eyed."

Vertically, your eye placement is about right, as it's typical to place them where the bottom of the iris is just touching the lower eyelid like that and that's usually what looks best.

The problem I have putting eyes in is not having them move around from where I want them while trying to get the putty to actually stick and hold them in place.

Eyes are one of the more difficult things to work with in this hobby imo. I've got one doll - Rin Tohsaka V2 - whose eyes never look right no matter how I fiddle with them. It finally clicked with me that when I have both her eyes looking the same direction one of them looks slightly larger than the other. They aren't defective, so the only thing I can think is that the way the lens refracts the iris makes it look bigger from certain angles. If I position it so they look like they are the same size she ends up with a lazy eye.

From the pictures it looks to me like one of the eyes is at an angle, and that's not helping. I often find that when I move the eyes left and right the angle of the eye shifts, and I have to twist it back into place.

Usually I set one eye the way I want it, then put the other eye in and move it into position while looking straight at the head and with a lamp behind me. The first eye will usually shift as I move the other one into place so it needs constant adjustment. (I suspect I use more putty than I need to, and that's why this happens.) I keep looking at them until both eyes just look right. It's one of those things where the normal position of eyes is so ingrained into us that your instincts will tell you when it looks right.

 

58 minutes ago, cfx said:

In all of your pictures, you have her left eye (eye on our right) tilted more than her left eye. While with some eyes that is a bit hard to judge, with the ones you have it's quite easy; just look at the small darkest center part of the pupil. This is especially true in your second picture.

I try to make my eyes be like | | but people also do \  / (not that exaggerated), but you've got | / or in that second picture sort of / / with much more tilt on her left eye.

When making them look off to the side, you have to sort of cheat to make things look right. In your picture, the two eyes are looking in different directions, you've made her left eye look further left than the right one. Consider how the eyes look when looking forward--unlike a real person, there isn't a symmetrical amount of whilte visible; on the inside there's almost none. So in order to keep both eyes looking in the same direction, as you move them to one side, you can't have them where you've just eliminated all white on the one side. Instead on her left eye, for this particular head, you'll put the eye about where you have it (but not so tilted) while for her right eye, you'll need to move it further where part of the iris is obscured behind her vinyl. It's tricky to get this to look right.

If you switch to a rounder style like those White Dolly Story eyes, you'll have even less white visible and you might have to partially obscure the iris on both on the inner side when looking forward; sometimes this is necessary to not have the eyes looking "wall eyed."

Vertically, your eye placement is about right, as it's typical to place them where the bottom of the iris is just touching the lower eyelid like that and that's usually what looks best.

The problem I have putting eyes in is not having them move around from where I want them while trying to get the putty to actually stick and hold them in place.

This was super helpful, thanks so much~

I guess with the light and how shiny the eye are its really hard to tell where its straight until I see it in photos, but even now I'm having a hard time seeing it so I hope over time I'll get better at placing them! Right now I'm just nervous to take them out again and align them in fear I make them more crooked and won't be able to fix it lol!!

59 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Eyes are one of the more difficult things to work with in this hobby imo. I've got one doll - Rin Tohsaka V2 - whose eyes never look right no matter how I fiddle with them. It finally clicked with me that when I have both her eyes looking the same direction one of them looks slightly larger than the other. They aren't defective, so the only thing I can think is that the way the lens refracts the iris makes it look bigger from certain angles. If I position it so they look like they are the same size she ends up with a lazy eye.

From the pictures it looks to me like one of the eyes is at an angle, and that's not helping. I often find that when I move the eyes left and right the angle of the eye shifts, and I have to twist it back into place.

Usually I set one eye the way I want it, then put the other eye in and move it into position while looking straight at the head and with a lamp behind me. The first eye will usually shift as I move the other one into place so it needs constant adjustment. (I suspect I use more putty than I need to, and that's why this happens.) I keep looking at them until both eyes just look right. It's one of those things where the normal position of eyes is so ingrained into us that your instincts will tell you when it looks right.

 

I noticed with my eyes that because they are super shiny I do have a hard time seeing how to make them even, and I almost thought one of mine was bigger than the other as well! But reading this it totally makes sense now, I didn't even factor in that the reflectiveness of the eyes can alter the way they look. 

I like the lamp idea, I'll have to try that myself whenever I reset my dolls eyes<3

One other bit to keep in mind is that in most if not all of the heads, the two eye openings aren't identical mirror images of each other; that's intentional because otherwise it wouldn't look right since real people don't have perfectly symmetrical features, but it can make getting the eyes to look just right more difficult.

I believe your head is a DDH-09. The area where the bottom of the pupil usually sits with that head is a short straight line, but it isn't horizontal, it droops downward which means a slight difference in where they eyes are placed gives a pretty large difference in the height of the opening at that point, which can also contribute to that effect of one eye seeming smaller or larger than the other.

Lovely doll! Lovely eyes too! Eyes are so difficult. What I do though is place the eyes, then leave the head without the cap on somewhere so I can glance at it over the span of about an hour or so. Within that time I'm able to look at the eyes with a new perspective and not have to hassle with the wig or the body while I do subtle adjustments. Unfortunately, I have no special placement technique. It's just a lot of guessing and (no pun intended) eyeballing it.

I think you can achieve that looking to the side look, but what you may need to keep in mind is that it's not meant to look quite right facing 100% forward. I have a feeling that the eyes in the photo you're referencing look quite asymmetrical when facing forward.

You might also consider something like the dollfie dream fitter. Then you can kind of nudge the eyes into different positions just from massaging them from the outside. It might be more pain than it's worth with the anime eyes, but who knows! Maybe worth a look.

1 hour ago, sunlightandtea said:

You might also consider something like the dollfie dream fitter. Then you can kind of nudge the eyes into different positions just from massaging them from the outside. It might be more pain than it's worth with the anime eyes, but who knows! Maybe worth a look.

For what it's worth the Dream Fitter only works with the official Volks eyes, not third party eyes. 

The eyes do look nice though. Unfortunately it really is just something you eventually get the hang of as others have said. But maybe snapping a pic on your phone could also help when adjusting, cos sometimes its easier to spot when something is off in a photo - and try covering one eye in the pic to see if either looks particularly weird on its own cos sometimes it can be the angle.

I tried editing your picture, I moved and rotated her left eye to what looks like it matches, to me. Something I noticed that is accentuating the placement being different is that there's a lot more light hitting that eye, and it's light of a different color, such that the highlights on that eye look yellow/orange-ish, while they're gray/white on her right eye. I adjusted the color a bit to make them closer. This isn't a great edit as I didn't spend a lot of time on it and I'm not a Photoshop expert.

Edited April 28, 2020 by cfx

5 hours ago, cfx said:

I tried editing your picture, I moved and rotated her left eye to what looks like it matches, to me. Something I noticed that is accentuating the placement being different is that there's a lot more light hitting that eye, and it's light of a different color, such that the highlights on that eye look yellow/orange-ish, while they're gray/white on her right eye. I adjusted the color a bit to make them closer. This isn't a great edit as I didn't spend a lot of time on it and I'm not a Photoshop expert.

I can what you mean about the light, this is really helpful for sure! Thanks for all your help with these eyes. I'm going to adjust them again today and upload photos later on and see if I've placed them better:)

I tried again and these are the results. 

Just posting them here to see how close I am to getting the eyes even, since I'm really struggling with this  

I took three different photos for different lighting on the eyes

That looks a lot better.

Yeah that looks much better. Assuming it's not a trick of the light, the pupil in her left eye looks slightly higher than the one in her right eye. The left / right positioning of both eyes looks good. Maybe they are slightly at an angle, but they are at the same angle so I think it's ok. Honestly, left / right & up /down are easy. Twisting them upright is the hardest, and the slightest movement side to side always seems to pop them back to an angle.

Volks USA had a thing at one point showing how to do eye putty. You basically took a lump of it and made a base in the head for the eye to rest on, then you put the eye in, then you rolled out some putty into a string and made horseshoe shape around the eye. I've never tried that, but it's something to think about. It's probably something they worked out over the years as a good way to secure the eye while still letting it move enough to position it.

I would suggest maybe trying to get her left eye level with the right, and then take a break and focus on something else for awhile. It may give you time to process what you've leaned and make some new connections. Maybe go back to it in a few days, and take a fresh look at it.

The other thing is, since you are new the hobby. It's a complex hobby that takes a long time to learn to do well. It's important to keep trying out stuff so you get better, but you aren't going to get it perfect at the start. Get it as close as you can and just enjoy her as is. She a really cute doll, so play with her some and don't worry about her little imperfections. 

Edited April 29, 2020 by BeyondTime

19 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

The other thing is, since you are new the hobby. It's a complex hobby that takes a long time to learn to do well. It's important to keep trying out stuff so you get better, but you aren't going to get it perfect at the start. Get it as close as you can and just enjoy her as is. She a really cute doll, so play with her some and don't worry about her little imperfections. 

Absolutely. The first two DDs I got were customs so I was stressing a lot over the fact I couldn't get the eyes to look perfect to me. I then got Sheryl Nome, and she has that unusual eye style with the irises with the truncated flat bottoms, that are supposed to be placed with the small gap of white at the bottom. One of the eyes in mine is just a tiny little bit higher than the other, as clearly visible by the width of that white bit at the bottom not being exactly the same on both eyes. With other licensed DDs I've gotten since, I see similar things if I really look.

In other words, even Volks doesn't place them to the level of accuracy I was expecting out of myself.

I haven't dared to take them out of any of the limiteds, because I know I'll never get them to look as good or the same again.

Edited April 29, 2020 by cfx

1 minute ago, cfx said:

I haven't dared to take them out of any of the limiteds, because I know I'll never get them to look as good or the same again.

I've been popping them out of my older limiteds and resetting them with silicone ear plugs so I can reposition them for photos. Everyone else is hoarding TP, and the folks at my grocery store are probably wondering why I am ignoring the TP and buying out all the ear plugs.

On 4/27/2020 at 8:30 PM, BeyondTime said:

I've got one doll - Rin Tohsaka V2 - whose eyes never look right no matter how I fiddle with them. It finally clicked with me that when I have both her eyes looking the same direction one of them looks slightly larger than the other. They aren't defective, so the only thing I can think is that the way the lens refracts the iris makes it look bigger from certain angles.

Oh dear. Rin. How many hours have I spent trying to align so many of her eyes?

I finally realized that her eye sockets aren't the same size, meaning that her face isn't symmetrical. So you can't expect to put one eye and have a certain amount of the eye's artwork visible and expect to reveal the exact same artwork in the other eye socket, because the eye sockets have different shapes.

This is probably true for any DD sculpt, don't expect the eye sockets to be symmetrical. Eventually I learned to make sure the eyeballs are both looking at me when I'm placing them, ignoring how they appear relative to the sculpt's eye sockets.

24 minutes ago, foo said:

So you can't expect to put one eye and have a certain amount of the eye's artwork visible and expect to reveal the exact same artwork in the other eye socket, because the eye sockets have different shapes.

I think think the iris looks wider by about 1/32 of an inch depending on positioning. 

31 minutes ago, foo said:

Oh dear. Rin. How many hours have I spent trying to align so many of her eyes?

I finally realized that her eye sockets aren't the same size, meaning that her face isn't symmetrical. So you can't expect to put one eye and have a certain amount of the eye's artwork visible and expect to reveal the exact same artwork in the other eye socket, because the eye sockets have different shapes.

This is probably true for any DD sculpt, don't expect the eye sockets to be symmetrical. Eventually I learned to make sure the eyeballs are both looking at me when I'm placing them, ignoring how they appear relative to the sculpt's eye sockets.

I read your discussion of Rin's eye issues before I had any doll and I've always remembered it when dealing with this issue.

There's another thing I want to bring up, both as something that I found is helpful in placing some eyes, and one of the things that causes problems. Most Volks eyes, at least the standard ones and the styles I have, have the main catchlight at somewhere between the 10 and 11 o'clock positions. In your link there about eyes in Rin, the Miku Senbonzakura eyes are like this.

Those strong catchlights are one of the reasons I always try to place the eyes like | | rather than \ / because I find it's important that they're in approximately the same position on each side; on a real person they'll always be like that. The related problem is the eye socket shape in various heads. The only heads I spent much time putting eyes in are DDH-07. That head has eyes shaped fairly similar to Rin, but spaced and sized where you need to place the eyes where there's almost no white on the inner side. As such, it also tends to be the case that on the doll's left eye, the catchlight will be partially or totally hidden inside the head, while showing on the right eye, which will also look weird. That gets worse if you tilt the eyes in the \ / way. Having noticed the same thing on Volks limiteds, I decided it's one of those quirks you have to just live with.

Picture to attempt to illustrate, and looking at this now I see I have her left eye tilted slightly. I remember having hell with the eye putty and things moving back when I did this picture: