Compared to eyebrows, lips are pretty straightforward. The two basic types are the closed mouth or the smile one

    Yet again, Gene Marshall® has slightly uneven features. Her mouth is just a tad crooked. I had not even noticed it myself until a fellow repainter pointed it out to me. I kept having trouble with keeping it straight but thought it was a technique problem.

    Furthermore, when the paint is removed from Gene's® face she is left with a very small mouth. The contours of her features are barely there anyway. In the hands of an experienced artist, this lack of strong definition allows the repainter to give her any likeness he or she wants.

    When I was finished my first Gene® repaint, I took a step back to look her over. For some reason she looked decidedly stuck up to me. After some careful examination, I realized that I had faithfully followed the lip line as the vinyl defines it. If you compare a blank face to one with it's original paint intact, you will see that even Mel Odom® gave her a slightly larger mouth then the vinyl outlines.

    A closed mouth seems to be the easiest to repaint. I usually outline it first and then fill it in with color. You may do the outline directly with diluted acrylic paint. Use the color you intend to be her final lipstick. Alternatively, you may employ the pencil technique to outline the lips and then fill them in with color. Either way keep looking at the doll in a mirror to insure that both sides of her lips are well balanced.

    If you are repainting a smiling mouth, start with the teeth. For future reference, I would suggest painting in the teeth along with the whites of the eyes. The layering of the paint is the same. Once the teeth are done repaint the lips. More likely then not you will get some lipstick on the dolls teeth. Simply touch up the teeth with more white paint.