Original doll was a light tan. Unfortunately he ended up with some green yellowing but only in specific spots. (Poor choices were made, I know better now but I can't undo the past, so he's been sitting in a drawer while I felt lousy about it.) Are there realistic options for bringing him back to an overall light tan, or at least reducing the green? If not, does anyone have tips on dyeing a doll that has patchy colour? If I can't fix him back to normal I might just go with a fantasy colour like blue and make it look more intentional.
If it's just a few spots, you can try blushing reddish tones back onto the green parts. You can layer with sealant and pastel until you're happy with it, or do a bigger body-blushing job to give the whole body a bit of a refresher.
I agree with cobaltconduct, blushing the faded areas to match is probably the easiest. It's mostly fool proof, as it can simply removed and redone if it doesn't turn out right. Blushing isn't very dificult and since it's likely mostly the red pigments that have broken down, it can probably be done in a single layer, or two, making it a fairly quick process. The downside is that it does need to be redone every now and then. You can prolong the life of the blushing by minding how you handle the doll, choice of clothes and jewelry and what sealent you use, but it is never permanent. It's not possible to dye a tan doll into pure blue. Nor is it possible to completely conceal an uneven colour. Dye is added to what is already there, it doesn't really cover anything. Dyeing blue over a beige colour will give anything between a desaturated dark blue to a greeninsh brown. The faded parts will likely still be paler and possibly a slightly brighter blue, since there is less to compete with the dye in those spots. If it was me, I'd probably go the blushing route and if it turned out a little uneven, I'd try work it into the character of the doll. Not all humans have perfectly even skin colour, after all.
Thank you both - I've never tried blushing a doll myself so I hadn't thought of that as an option, I will have to go learn about that and give it a go.