Dyeing a Doll

Hmm... thanks for that! I wouldn't mind giving it a try.

 

Thanks! Those helped alot... I'll keep trying

 

Blue would be the color to balance out orange. Brown is basically all three primary colors together, and if you're trying to tone orange down you'd want a blue-heavy brown to come out with an even color. If you did green I imagine you'd come out with a very yellow toned brown.

This is all just color theory though, resin reacts in its own way. Blue is a very strong color too so be careful with it. Good luck!

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The dye color is opaque and is not going to mix with the current resin tone to get a new color. Putting it in green dye will make him green, even if it is faint
I would try a red-brown color, and test of a headcap or other piece that wont be visible.

 

I don't think they are discussing mixing, Cydril. Dyeing blue over orange works like using color correcting concealer (which is greenish) to cover a red pimple. Requiemart does powder chalk pastel on the off-topic Pullip for body matches (www.requiemarthttps://www.pinterest.com/pin/282952789060573703/.com/pullip/toning.html). It's much the same. The overcoat does not need to mix.


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I've heard the next release of a doll I want will probably be in a green skin. That's not my favorite, but I really want this doll.
So, my question is: what color would you use if you want to take it from green skin to either pink or lavender?
Is it possible? Would I have to use several colors/dye dips to achieve it? If so, which colors?
Thank you

 

Generally with dyeing you should only expect to go darker.. It would take a process like bleaching to get the yellow/blueness out before you add the red tone. That could really damage the surface and material though. I digress - I'm not very experienced or knowledgable in the matter, but may I recommend that you get in contact with the doll's artist or company and make them aware of the demand for a white or (your desired tone) version. Drum up as many others as you can who want the same, since with a group order it can happen sooner, and you won't end up with a heartbreak or resin disaster on your hands.

 

You can't bleach a doll, and dye is not opaque so you would not be able to change green to pink or purple--you'd just get a muddy brown.

You CAN paint a doll. There's threads around on using sprays to tan dolls, and I believe DeadLegato has a thorough tutorial on using Tamiya sprays to recolor dolls. Paint, being opaque, could accomplish what you're wanting to do, but dye absolutely will not.

 

Whats the best material for dying pale resin to tan?

 

I was wondering about the Dye More when I first saw it too! I have an ultra pale girl that I'd like to take into a warmer color. Might have to give it a go this weekend!

 

Okay so I have now dyed dolls with Rit dye, and with iDye Poly for synthetic fabrics.

The Rit dye seems to work well on more porous, chalkier resins like fairyland resin, but for my Souldoll Chiron I couldn't get Rit dye to take at all, so I had to use iDye Poly for synthetic fabrics.
The iDye Poly works brilliantly, but the colours are quite limited, so you may need to blend colours to get the colour you want, and compared to Rit dye it is Very noxious smelling and fumy.

The link to my tutorial for dyeing if you want to see more of the process....

http://www.denofangels.com/forums/s...torial-Dyeing-my-doll-Chicline-Rou-gets-a-tan


My Fairyland Rou dyed with Rit bronze/tan

shoulder seamlines by Raewhitewolf, on Flickr



My Souldoll Chiron dyed with iDye Poly

Chiron's pretty new tan by Raewhitewolf, on Flickr

 

It works perfectly on Dollmore resin too I did one of my Banji's with Rit:
(I know she looks cross-eyed but iuntil I get her new eyes that's not going to change)

Teddy

 

Yeah Rit dye is a bit hit & miss, it works well on some resins, but won't work at all on others. The iDye Poly should work on all resins well as it is designed to dye nylon etc, but it is very stinky and fumy. it works very quickly though.
I imagine with the iDye Poly you could get a really nice deep black if you wanted, which seems to be quite difficult to achieve on some dolls with Rit.

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, or insult some companies resins, I'm just sharing what I've found.

 

What is the longevity of dyed dolls? Does it require a lot of upkeep or do they fade no matter what and have to be redone completely?

 

My chicline rou was died about 2 years ago now with rit tan, and not sealed. he has held up very well even though I handle him quite a lot.

 

The oldest dyed doll that I still own is almost 4 and he hasnt faded or chipped at all

 

My dye job was muy botched, but the dye stayed on for a good 7 years... until I finally sanded it off.

 

I have 3 dyed dolls. The oldest one I've had for about 6 years. No problems.

 

Mine's going about seven or eight years now and he's not faded at all. I can't remember if I even sealed his whole body or just his head. I think just his head. He's still that beautiful, soft green. Not done any maintenance.

 

This is fantastic to hear. I'm feeling really comfortable with dying my doll now.

 

I'm very happy to hear that. I don't really have the resources to properly seal a doll after being dyed, but if RIT dye can hold up at least that long, that's good enough for me.

 

Hey everyone, fantastic thread and tons of information! I'm still working my way through it though and I have some questions:

1. I've been considering a future doll I would like to be brown but isn't available in that color. Would it look better to hybrid him with a body that already comes in tan and only dye his head to match, or get him as a full doll and dye him completely?

2. Does stark white resin dye better than the more pinkish/yellowish "normal" color resin?

3. I already have a doll that's dyed, but then he was airbrushed over it to make the color more even. He chips like CRAZY and sadly, because of that, I never touch him anymore and keep his body as covered as possible. This has made me super wary of dyeing any of my other dolls. I have one doll whose been sitting around here blank for years because I'm too afraid of coloring him and it's honestly making me doubt my decision to get this other doll who also needs to be brown. I absolutely hate, hate chipping, it drives me nuts and I'm looking for as much testimony as I can that just regular dye won't have this problem. Any positive comments?

 

The dye won't chip, it's the sealer that chips, so if you don't seal the doll before or after you dye it there should be no chipping.
You can eventually get dyed parts rubbing in joints etc, where it may rub off the dyed layer over time. It's a possibility, though I have not seen this with my own doll yet.
You can also get scratches, if you get a very deep scratch on a dyed doll it may go all the way through the dyed layer, and you may see the original colour underneath. For this reason I suggest letting dyed parts cure for a few days before putting the doll back together, especially if you are dyeing with iDye Poly, and especially if it is a tricky doll to restring.
I can tell you with my chiron I tried to re string him several hours after I dyed him but it seemed as if the dyed surface was slightly soft still, and he was VERY difficult to re-string so as a result he got several white scratches in his lovely tan.

As for the original colour of the doll, if you have a white doll to begin with you will get a truer result with your dye colour, it's like starting with a blank white piece of paper. The darker, or more coloured the doll is that you want to dye, the more it affects the final result.
You can actually use dye to add pink tones back into a very yellowed doll though.

 

1. This would depend on what you're more confident in or what you'd be more comfortable with. I'd personally go for dyeing the entire doll as it's easier to get a full match when all parts are dyed in the same batch rather than trying to match a head to a body. However, considering your fear of rubbing color off(though using the right dye, this shouldn't happen in any noticeable amount), getting a body already dark and dyeing the head to match might be more of an ease off your mind.

2. I haven't tested on more than one color of resin, but I would imagine for darker colors, you would want a darker resin to start with, that way when the joints rub, any major scuffing won't be as easily noticeable. You have to keep in mind too, for dyeing lighter colors, some of the darker toned resins will affect the color by showing some tint to it. I kept this in mind when picking the resin color for my green kid because he's not meant to be a stark, pure green, he's meant to be a green tinted flesh tone. So I picked a pinkish flesh colored resin body and head for him, and lightly dyed him green. Which color resin you go for all depends on the project.

3. As Raewhitewolf stated already, it shouldn't chip, do NOT seal it before you dye it, though sealing afterwards should be fine. I've had some rubbing in the joints of my green boy, but they're not noticeable. Though he's also not dyed terribly dark. Sealing on top though should be able to help prevent chipping as long as your cover colors meant to even it out aren't done in heavy thick layers. Rather than airbrushed paint to cover uneven areas, I've found it's much better to use powder pigments like non oiled eyeshadows or even better, pan pastels. They adhere really well and even stain the resin a little bit, so even if some rubs off, it takes a lot of wear for it to completely come off. Then seal after all color is applied.

 

I only just saw this reply now, but that's EXACTLY what I was looking for! Thank you so much @americanseamtress!

 

I just finished reading this entire thread, and several other sources and even tracked people down for questions.

First, dyeing a grey color seems like a hit or miss proposal. I am not terribly picky about the exact hue and shade I want from my guy, but I do want it to be fairly unsaturated and yellow/green/blue rather than a purple/brown/orange tone. I've also learned that since I want to do some fairly heavy modifications to him, I will have to first do my reductive mods, smooth the cut apart pieces and then dye him before sculpting his additive mods. I'm hoping that I can get an even color on his body, and then his head from another company and hopefully tint the epoxy to match. The final step will probably be to seal him, though I might need to give him a solid spray paint primer if it is too stark a divide between his Resin and the epoxy. I will be starting his project journal as soon as I finish the layout for his Mod work, and do some cosmetic sanding.

 

I think if you did your mods first KiyaraSabel and gave iDye Poly a go it may dye the added expoxy parts as well, the colour take might not be exactly the same as the rest of the body, but it might be close enough that you could get away with a little bit of blushing to match it after. They do have a silver grey that should work pretty well for what you want.

Just be sure to have pleanty of airflow when you use iDye Poly though it is much stronger than Rit dye, and has a very strong smell.

 

Yeah, from what I understand, the epoxy will pick up alot more dye than the resin will, but I'm very glad that there is a specific color I can get. I only just finished plotting out the way I plan to fill out his body, and I'm trying to decide what approach will be the most intuitive, because I am probably going to have to sand the resin where it meets the epoxy, and if I dye the resin first those scratches will show. The mod areas being darker might not be a deal breaker as long as the overall tone is more even, and Idyepoly does seem to have developed much more uniform results than the rit dyes have. And if nothing else the character will be wearing clothes most of the time.

 

I'm sorry if this has been posted before, but I've been wondering if anyone has succeeded in dying a white doll to a NS color. I have a white head (well, it's more of a pinkish-white) I'd love to try dying as I don't really like the white skin, but I'm not very knowledgeable in dying to begin with and can't seem to find anyone whose went from white to a peachy skin tone.

 

Since there is no "flesh" dye readily available, you'd need to mix the color on your own - pink, yellow, orange and red (and maybe a bit of brown and/or grey) would be your starters It is possible, but you'd need to be careful to not 'overdye' the head, unless you want to go for a sunburn look.

 

I've only dyed one doll ever, but if you're careful not to put too much dye in the water and dip the head for no longer than a few seconds at a time, you should be able to darken it slightly without over-colouring it. As for the dye mix - it's probably best to find a spare part in the same colour as the head (I used my boy's hands which I'll toss anyway as soon as I can replace them with better-looking ones), or maybe the headback, to check how the colour looks on the resin. RIT dye looks super different from the finished thing - the sandstone colour I used for my boy looked green. Green. So you definitely need a test part. This might help, too.

Good luck, keep us posted!

 

Here are a couple of my "normal skin" dye jobs (note that Doll Chateau Normal Yellow is very dark)

Dollshe/Dollstown Snow White Pure Skin dyed with iDye Poly (mostly yellow dye) to match Granado White Skin


Doll Legend Normal Yellow (jointed hands) dyed to match Doll Chateau Normal Yellow (not that head is airbrushed/painted to match, not dyed)

 

while you can I find dyeing rein to a light color is much more difficult than dying it a dark color
like it was said above me there wont be a perfect color of dye that will match your resin you will have to mix it to get a good color this is going to be rather difficult and I would suggest dying small bits of the head cap to test the color till you find the perfect mixture of colors then dye each piece for a short time and slowly build up to the color you want it will be easy to over dye your doll if you leave it in for too long try only a few seconds at the most and see what works based off of the color you have
also I would suggest IdyePoly if you can find it I dyed a doll with RIT it was awful I hear RIT DyeMore is better but I dont have first hand experience with it

personally since it is just the head I think it would be more efficient and safer to send it to someone to get blushed to a more peach color I know a few artists do it for a fee and that way the resin is safe under sealant and it doesn't give you anxiety about messing up the dying process (or that just might be how my brain overthinks things lol)

 

This is so thoroughly written, thank you!

 

Hi everyone.
Has anybody tried to dye their doll by the use of adding colour to liquid resin and coat the BJD ?

 

I would not try that. The liquid resin would form a thin coat of the parts, but even if it's thin, you could get issues when you try to put the doll together.The tolerances (= gap distances) between parts can be very narrow in places. Especially in knee and elbow joints.

I make dolls and in one a made an tiny error in my tolerances (too tight) and it had a huge impact on fitting and movement. All the joints popped out of their sockets and the doll could only stand when leaning over at too great an angle. If the doll prototype had been resin, it would have fallen on her face.

 

Thanks for letting me know !
Had that thought as I felt that the colour would be even that way...
Dyeing it is then !

 

Quoting just this part to emphasize it. I am going to have to remove paint work I did on a doll and dye the parts instead because the very few thin layers of paint are too thick to let the doll function anymore! Dye doesn't add any thickness at all, so it won't interfere the way the paint is. And, @Quinty, the paint is removable (as is dye with persistence and time), but the clear resin wouldn't be, so while I can back up with the paint on my doll, you would be stuck with a doll that no longer functions.

 

Gosh! That's super good to know! Thanks for the info!

 

I have a question I was wondering if anyone had any experience with. I purchased a tan doll secondhand that came with body blushing. The body blushing was chipping so I removed it, and when I did I saw that the owner before the previous owner had tried to sand the seams. Where the owner sanded became discolored slightly.

While the sanding seams aren't terrible, I still can't ignore them. I was thinking about dying the doll to cover up the seams. I've read it's not a good idea to dye sanded dolls, but this was done a few years ago so I wonder if it'd still be a problem. Would dying cover up the sanding marks?

 

@ATBryant, it'll be much easier and much lower risk to blush the sanded areas to match the rest of the doll. Dye will affect all areas, and will still affect the sanded areas differently due to the change in surface texture.

 

I recently found a doll I really like for sale, but it's in pink resin and I'm not thrilled about that color. Pink is pretty light though so I was wondering if anyone had any luck dying over pink resin? I was thinking maybe a purple or something, but would other colors be possible with a base of pink?

 

I haven't dyed a doll before but theoretically you could dye it any colour that can be made by mixing the pink with a dye colour. The main thing to remember is that the doll will always be a darker shade after dying it. You'd definitely have to look into some colour theory to figure out how to get a colour you like.

 

Lol, I don't know why but looking at color theory didn't even cross my mind Thanks, I'll try that!

 

Rit dye has an amazing color recipe guide on their website and I have gotten very good results using it dye fabric.

 

Thank you, I will check it out I've dyed wigs with rit dye before and really liked it

 

There's a thread section on dying resin here.
/threads/per...rimer-sanding-epoxy-dye.724501/#post-12027609

I've used iDyePoly, and I think it's really nice. (I plan to use it again in the future.) Very nice, very vibrant, deep, saturated colors. It's made for more plastic-type materials (vs RIT which is made for cloth)

 

My bad, it's actually pink normal skin

 

Rit actually has a product called Dye More which is their equivalent to iDyePoly. I have used both with great success on poly fabrics and beads. Regular Rit works on plant and protein fibers.

 

When I was looking for black dye for what I needed, my local craft stores only had iDyePoly! Well, they had space for the DyeMore, but it was sold out at the time. So my only experience is the iDye. I do have a future project which will need a yet-undecided shade of dark blue, and iDye only has two (the dark blue and turquoise), whereas DyeMore has formulas for specific colors, which I really like, so even though it would be more expensive the DyeMore will probably result in what I want. :3

@DrHorus Oh, OK! I thought you meant something more like Soom's Baby Pink color, or like a custom pink-pink. If it is one of the 'normal' type color resins, then you shouldn't have any trouble dying it purple.

 

@DrHorus Oh, OK! I thought you meant something more like Soom's Baby Pink color, or like a custom pink-pink. If it is one of the 'normal' type color resins, then you shouldn't have any trouble dying it purple.[/QUOTE]

It's my bad, I thought it was a baby pink but it's just a pink toned 'normal' color. It's pretty pale so I hope it won't give me too much trouble but I've never seen anyone dye a resin that's not white so I wasn't sure if the color would turn out wonky or something

 

I know this thread hasn't been touched in a long while, but my question is kind of relevant, so..

I have a formally White skin boy (Fairyland/Old school Dollzone) that with age has become the dreaded beauty green. From doing research, some people have said its the lack of red pigment in the resin. On another note, Idye poly brown supposedly has a lot of red pigment in it, so should I use just a super lightly concentrated of that without adding any yellow to make him normal skin? Or would sandstone dyemore + a touch of pink or red be better?

I'm assuming the regular rit dye color combos that are posted are probably a little different to Idye or Dyemore.

I'm open to buying either that will get a nice preferably pinky normal skin, but yeah.

I figured dying was best, as I absolutely adore his faceup and don't want to lose it since the person who did it no longer does them, and blushing him is not cost effective/not handle friendly.

I do have experience dying one doll before, though it was more of a happy accident she turned out okay (and a nice not-so uniform dark brown.)

I'd appreciate any advice, I'm a little worried to attempt it on this doll as he's one of my favourites. Thank you!

 

@Kitter - theres really no "THIS is the best mix for NS!" receipt. Your idea with brown sounds reasonable; I'd just test it. Light dyes can be removed easily with windsor/newton or acetone free nailpolish remover, so if one solution doesn't work out, you can start over

 

What I don't get is the faceup preservation part. Is his head still the normal colour and only the body needs dyeing? Because if you want to dye the head you need to wipe it, otherwise the dye won't take as it can't go through the layers of sealant ...

 

Unfortunately, you have three choices.
1. Lose the faceup and restore the resin color.
2. Keep the faceup and live with the current resin color.
3. Blush his body to match.

There is no magic fourth option. You can't just dye over the faceup and expect it to work out. (Yes people have triedthat, and they're going to be in for some unpleasant surprises in the future.)

 

@meanae That's what i figured, I was kind of hoping someone could point me in the right direction before I risked it, but I guess there aren't enough doing this specific kind of dye job yet.

@Jany @vicemage,

According to the idye poly threads, some people have said you CAN dye over faceups. I thought this was odd myself, the mechanics don't seem to add up, but at least one person proved that it IS do-oable, and it seemed better than losing a really nice faceup for something that might not work out.

But I guess that's not the case, hm?

The head and body are different companies, but are probably about a 99% match to each other, as they both are roughly the same age. They're just very white-green and in having him be next to other more creamy white skin dolls isn't great looking.

What it comes down to was more so my question of advice, if anyone had done a ws to ns dye with the new idye method, and if they had tips for me on color combinations, as I know I came across a thread way back that had that for Rit dye.


As that doesn't seem to be the case, I'll take the advice and look into possible face-up artists, or do a little more research.

 

Thing is, if there's something - anything - covering the resin, the dye will not get through that (or it would mess up the faceup anyway). It also only gets into a very thin layer of the material, hence how people have been able to remove dye-jobs. So maybe you can dye the faceup along with it, but once it needs removing (or it cracks, or flakes, or gets damaged in any way) the actual face will still be the pre-dye colour. That's what vicemage was hinting at.

As for combinations, I've never dyed white skin. When I dyed my NS Miros tan, I noticed that a very short dip in sandstone with a drop of chocolate RIT resulted in a more pinkish normal skin tone ... BUT as your doll has yellowed / greened noticeably, that doesn't say much. Mine already had normal skin undertones even though they were on the yellowish side of normal.
Maybe you could dip a part of the headcap in sandstone / chocolate mix and check what happens? Or a knee peanut or anything not-too-visible when your doll is strung together. You may need more chocolate than I used, but it has very red undertones.
Again, I've never dyed white skin let alone de-zombified anything greened, but I'd guess straight chocolate would still be too red. You'd need to try. (I was lucky because I wasn't using the bodies' default hands anyway, so I went ahead and used those as test pieces - but I was trying to match heads, while you're trying to restore the whole doll's colour, so you have more wiggle room.)

 

@Jany hit on exactly what I was talking about, yes.

@Kitter if restoration is what you're after, not specifically the color change, have you tried a very light sanding? (I like to also do an alcohol/magic eraser bath to get any and all accompanying "grime.") You can test it on the headcap to see if it helps; like dye, yellowing is also often very shallow and a gentle sanding can remove it on smooth parts, and lessen it enough to conceal with simple blushing on detailed ones that are tough to sand without loss of detail. It can be another approach that could let you preserve the faceup while making the doll look better.

 

I attempted to dye my Doll Chateau Madeline a light tan color awhile back. I used iDye Poly in their brown color, carefully washed all her resin parts, and put each piece into the dyebath for the same amount of time (15 seconds, if I recall correctly...)

The result was an epic fail. She came out all blotchy.

Blotchy dye job (UGH) by [email protected], on Flickr

As far as I could tell, the parts that were closest to the bottom of the dyepot were darker than the parts farther away. The dyebath only had about a quarter of the packet of dye in it, and I was careful to stir it in and get the water simmering before putting any resin into it. The color also had a strong pink undertone, and was not really a tan as much as a brownish-pink.

At any rate, I was upset, threw her into a box, and hid her in a closet for a year.

So this morning I decided to give it another try. This time I used the rest of the dye (about 3/4 of the powder, left over from last time) and the intensifier. I suspended the resin pieces in the dyepot a few at a time, using a couple of skewers tied together to hang the strung pieces into the bath.

Dyeing process by [email protected], on Flickr

(Guess I forgot to take the price tag off when I bought an old kettle from Goodwill, ha!)

I left all the pieces in for around five minutes, until they were a solid, dark brown. Almost black, more like dark chocolate (mm, chocolate), or an imperial stout (mm, stout... I think I must be hungry.)

I noted that there was a LOT of particulate in the dyebath, even while it was boiling, so I don't think the dye was fully dissolved - which could explain why my previous dye job was so blotchy.

Madeline dyed brown by [email protected], on Flickr

And a close up:

Madeline dyed brown (close up) by [email protected], on Flickr

Overall, I'm not sure I would try this again, as I really just wanted a warm tan and not a chocolate brown doll. But the dark brown is at least even. I can live with that!

 

@chemcat Aww, sorry to hear that your first dye attempt didn't turn out so well, but the second attempt looks like it turned out really nice, even if it wasn't what you had originally intended.

I've done about six different dye jobs at this point and personally I find that Rit Dyemore is a lot easier to use as its a liquid so doesn't have the issue of not always dissolving properly like iDye Poly. Also from experience i've learned that dolls tend to dye much more consistent with significantly less unevenness in color and/or blotches if they are left in the dye for longer periods of time. All the dolls I only had in the dye bath for under a minute have had much more unevenness than any I left for 1 1/2 to 5 minutes. Should you ever want to attempt dyeing a doll again i'd recommend trying Rit Dymore and also submerging each piece(s) for somewhere between 1 1/2 to 3 minutes. If you're aiming for a lighter color this means that you'll need to use just a tiny bit of dye, like just a pinch of powder or maybe a half a cap full of liquid. Also, i'm not sure if you did this already, but remember to thoroughly scrub all of your doll's pieces with a magic eraser under running water to remove any and all excess dye that may cling to the resin. This is especially important with iDye Poly as it has that tendency to not fully dissolve and may leave a thin "film" of excess dye that should be removed immediately after taking each piece out from the dye bath or it may leave blotches/unevenness. This is much less necessary with Rit Dyemore, but is still a good practice to get in the habit of so as to not transfer any excess dye onto the doll's clothes or other dolls that come in contact with it.