Dyeing a Doll

Yeah, that's what I thought. I guess it's a one-and-done kind of thing. Well, everyone wish me luck that I get it right the first time!! omg i'm doomed.

Thank you both for your answers!!

 

Get the first layer right and sealed and you only need to take it back so far without effecting the dye if mistakes happen later in the process - my problem (in addition to not being very good at faceups) was that no matter what I tried, nothing but very obvious contrasts showed up well on intense royal blue resin, so the faceup either looked blank, or clown-like.

Teddy

 

Alrighty I am planning on doing my first real dyeing project on Saturday, but I do have a few concerns. The body I am going to dye has some shiny patches and what looks like sanding marks. Should I try to remove these things before I dye him? Also I kept a log of the last time I dyed since I love the color. The only problem is I will be using a bigger pot for this dye job. so any tips for figuring out how much more dye I need? I really suck at math... It was 7 caps of yellow and one cap of brown in a 3 quart pot I believe, and my new pot is 5. I think. I can go get the exact pot sizes.

 

Alright guys I need some help...I tried to dye my doll this weekend and it was a disaster. Super marbled and the color wasn't right. The color was still an acceptable shade, but it wasn't quite as dark as I wanted it to be. It was perfect on my test doll, but then I went to dye my actually pieces and it was just off. The test head is normal skin and the actual doll is white, but I don't feel like that should make such a difference. The practice one is almost white already. To answer a few questions I know will pop up:

I washed the doll twice. All pieces, once with dish soap about a week and half before the dyeing then again right before I gave them a good rinsing.
I soaked the pieces for 4 minutes each. The color didn't seem to get any darker after about 2 and a half minutes.
I rinsed each piece as soon as they came out of the pot. Straight from the pot to the sink, less than ten seconds.
I used a fish net for the smaller pieces.
The rest of the pieces were strung on string, and i made to swish all of them around to make sure the dye was staying mixed.
Temp stayed right at 200 the whole time.
They never touched the sides or the bottom of the pot.

Here are some pics of the pieces I did before I realized it wasn't gonna work and gave up. There's a lot, so spoiler.

Spoiler

Here is the worst one:

A before and after of the color. Some of the pieces weren't too bad but...none of them came out how they should.

And just some general pics of how awful they came out. Looking at them on my computer I can see they don't look bad, but they are very marbled I promise.:




The practice head itself, not the head cap, is the color it was supposed to be. And its not marbled. Its perfectly smooth and even color. Sorry I didn't grab any pics of them together. The actual doll pieces were quite a bit more yellow.

Ok that is all I got. In my frustration I wiped the pieces already, sorry. I can say acetone gets rid of dye really well though. Just swishing it around in a container for like 30 seconds works miracles. So that's good at least. Anyway. Anyone have any suggestions? Or know what I did wrong? Any help is much appreciated. I really want to get him dyed the right color. Please feel free to ask any questions.

 

So after researching this subject for a couple years, I decided to roll the dice on part of my Dollzone Anson. I wasn't the first owner and I had given her an Oxy bath a few years ago when I first purchased her. Plus older DZ resin has a bad rep when it comes to dye attempts. Since she is a plant doll anyway, I figured I would try my hand at dyeing her a woody tone. So if I did get marbling or patchiness, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I did indeed get such results, and from the look of the dye job, I'd say she may have been sanded by someone else at some point. Overall, I am happy with the results and I can blush any areas if I need to give it a more earthy or natural look. She was yellowing badly in storage anyway, so this is a better look for her.




My steps (for science): Dye used was Rit Dyemore Synthetic in a mixture of Sandstone and Chocolate Brown. I used a 16qt stainless steel pot. I did add dawn dish soap into the water when it started to simmer. Doll parts were hand washed with warm water and dawn dish soap and rinsed prior to dyeing. I used a thin nylon thread to suspend the parts across three different hangers and spaced them so that they would fit into the opening of the pot, but not collide with each other. Once the water reached a boil (which took forever), I added the ratio of dyes I wanted to mix, stirred for a moment, and then dunked the entirety of my pieces at the same time to ensure an even shade across all pieces. It took some time for the pieces to even start to take the dye (yes, I left the water at a boil the whole time the parts were submerged). A potential increase in marbling risk came when I got impatient and didn't want to leave the pieces in the water too long, so I started pouring additional mixtures of dye into the pot while the pieces were still dunked. I did stir in the additional dye as I poured, but I did this knowing it may increase the risk of marbling. The large quantity of water may have also factored into the long absorption period of the dye since the water to dye ratio was heavy on the water side and not much water had evaporated from the pot at the beginning of the dye job. also, the nylon was so thin that it actually found its way out of the slim opening in the eye hook on the right foot and it fell to the bottom of the pot at some point and I did not discover it until I removed the parts to air cool, so it got an extra minute of dye time in there. I quickly saved it with a handy ladle.

What I learned for the next dye job I attempt: I will most likely use less water, change out that thin nylon thread for something slightly thicker (like a thin yarn) so that we can avoid losing any parts to Davy Jones locker (and the annoying inevitable strand tangle that occurred while stirring) and I will refrain from adding additional dye while the parts are submerged.

 

Oh wow she looks great. The color is very even. I heard that sometimes the dye doesn't go on that evenly so I was scared to dye mine.
I am new here btw. Nice to meet you

 

Welcome! Nice to meet you!
Dyeing is very much a roll of the dice. There are so many factors that affect the outcome. I did research and waited for a couple years before even attempting to dye my doll. There is some marbling that doesn't show very well in photographs on Anson's dye job, but one of the key tactics in getting an even tone across all pieces of a dye job is to dunk at the same time for the duration of the dye job. If pieces are done individually, they will become darker as time passes because the water is evaporating from the dye bath (because boiling) and the dye pigmentation is becoming more concentrated. So a lot of times you see that happen where people are getting parts done in multiple batches and each batch comes out darker than the next.

 

That makes a lot of sense, Thanks for the advice. I was afraid of dying the dolls because I have seen on some people with the same doll parts turned out different shades, like it depends on the material I guess. Wasn't sure also if the results aren't great, would it be possible to remove?
I have a few older dolls that I am thinking about dying to a darker color.

 

Dye can be removed in a couple of ways. Sanding and chemically (if it can remove a faceup, chances are it can remove a dye job). The process is time consuming, as it is not instant magic. Some companies have reputations for not dyeing well. I have heard that some practiced casting resin parts in different batches before assembling for an ordered doll and a dye job can sometimes show the subtle difference in resin tones more clearly. Sanding beforehand is also a double edge sword. I did NOT sand when I did my doll. Sometimes pre-sanding can help the resin take the dye, but I have seen a few videos where it practically repelled the dye from the sanded areas. Not wanting to risk such a result it was my personal choice to not sand. I recommend checking out users on here with dyed dolls and asking them about their methods. Everyone here is pretty nice and willing to help people. Don't be afraid to reach out.

 

I had dyed a pair of hands brown but they had a green overtone, they were very dark brown but green
I dyed them in just red until the green became warm brown. It was sort of a dip and wash, to check on the color, but it wasn't going to turn red red because it was already so dark.

 

I have some experience with resin dyeing—both in parts and a full bjd.

Some advice I picked up and used during the process was going over each piece with a magic eraser to even out the texture of the resin, and then giving it a thorough wash afterwards before dipping the pieces in the dye vat. I did each of the pieces either separately or in small batches and used a timer (my smartphone has a by the second stop watch feature) to measure the length of each dip in the vat. It takes a bit of trial and error and keeping track of time lengths to make certain all the pieces will end up the same, uniform color.

There will always be some inconsistencies in the texture or grade of the resin that will lead to marbling or splotching, but I like to think of it as a quick and easy way to add some skin texturing

 

Thank you very much for your advice. I have tried sanding my old bjd before and it wasn't a good experience because the detailed parts are so hard to reach, causing uneven tone. Also some of the resin texture changed as well. Now I dont even know what to do with the sanded dolls, and since it uneven I got afraid of dying it.
But yeah seeing your dye job gave me courage to try it. I will let you know if it turns out well.

Thank you again for reaching out to me. Fingers crossed

 

Note the above advice to go over it with a magic eraser to even the texture out. I found that really interesting. And you can get the eraser pretty much everywhere.

 

Oh, how I want to do this. Sounds like this summer, my blank Beryl will get a green bath. I always wanted a wicked witch out of her, just wanted to get a white body. Normal is going to have to work and Sooms normal has a yellow undertone with her age. So a minor adjustment it shall be..... Now to figure out what tone to try for. I always find myself going for a light olive tone when I think about it.

 

I'm probably going to dye my mnf kyle once his body gets here so this thread has been really helpful! Is there really no way to remove a faceup without removing the dye?

 

There is not. I asked the same question, even though I knew the answer already. Dye can be removed by pretty much anything that takes a faceup off...So removing the faceup will ruin the dye job.

However - I recently took a normal skin head that had a faceup, and blushed it to match a tan body over the existing faceup with pastels...and that worked perfectly. So in theory, if you only dyed the body and left the head the old color, you could do a faceup as many times as you wanted before it was perfect...then do the color match. If color-matching is something you think you can do, this is an option. A weird option, but an option.

In other news --
HELP. Now that I successfully dyed one doll I'm considering doing two more D:
I need someone to talk me off the ledge. I'd be really upset if I messed them up!

EDIT: Crap since I made this post I've pretty much decided to dye one and leave the other one as is.
@Fushia Lace if you decide to go green I would like to see lots of pics!! Because I'm right behind you with Poison Ivy.

 

oh i have no IDEA how to color match, ive never done a faceup before cfdvgbhn i guess when i send him off i can have them color match?

 

@Urushi-kitty If you're not doing it yourself you may as well have the whoever is doing the faceup just do it over the dye. Or are you sending him off to be dyed? Either way, it's probably easier for a faceup artist to do it the way they're more comfortable with.

 

Woo double post!! I dyed another doll today! It did not go nearly as well

she’s very streaky, and I had to remix my dye and dye her a second time to get a color I liked. But it’s not the end of the world... I’m pretty sure I can make her work as is.

I'm almost glad I had problems, I have yet a third doll to dye, maybe I can do better by making sure I have enough water and I like the color the first time around!

 

Pictures, so we can admire your work?

Teddy

 

Poison ivy by Vampire Angel13, on Flickr

I tried to take more, but my phone is completely washing out the green. She doesn't even look green in them! This is a lot of editing.

I have her strung, and she looks really good, despite being a little streaky!

However. One of her hands warped.

Do you think I can reboil it and carefully try to move the fingers again?

 

YES! I've done it.

 

Sorry about the hand @VampireAngel13 but congrats on the dye job (looks especialy good with that wig colour - I have a couple of off-topic green dolls who I always try to dress in red becuase it looks so good).

Actually, I'm surprised about the hand warping - in my experience hot water tends to make resin relax back to its original shape rather than warping it out of shape (people have got rid of flat ends to noses from being dropped by putting a head in boiling water). Best of luck fixing it.

Teddy

 

It probably got warped after being heated and cooled, if I had to guess. A re-dip should almost definitely relax it back into place; I've personally never done a hand, but one of my elves has a bent ear that I messed up the first time, reheated to pop it back, and redid, with no issues at all.

 

Hello again everyone! I had issues dying my boy a few months ago and was told he might just be too new and that's why the dye wasn't sticking to him like it was my practice head. I am getting very impatient though since I wasn't able to restring him. Not sure why. It was the exact same elastic he came with. Anyway. He has literally just been sitting in his box untouched for the past few months while I wait on new elastic. But I was wondering, could I give him a light sanding? Would that help the dye stick? Or would that make the surface just way to uneven and end up even worse?

 

No, don't do that! You'll just scratch him, and the dying will show the grooves. (And sanding him much finer will put you back to where you are now, with the dye not taking)
What you need to do is MrSuperClear him all over. Resin dolls are hard to dye, after they have bee cast, so you use the spray varnish and you dye that instead. Result will be much nicer and so will redyeing him, if that comes up. Us 4 coats. (And spray outside, and use a proper industrial mask). (Other resin-safe mat transparent varnishes will work too)

 

Uhm...I really have to HARD disagree with the recommendation of dyeing over MSC. Seriously, DO NOT DYE A DOLL COATED IN MSC. Dye does not permeate as deep as one might think; its little more than surface deep. A thin layer of pretty much anything on top of the resin usually means that the dye will not fully penetrate thoroughly onto the surface of the resin.
In this scenario, assuming you coated the doll completely evenly, you would mostly just be dyeing the layers of MSC which means that their dyed color will come off if they are ever scratched or if one wanted to give them a new faceup/body blushing. It would basically be the same as spray painting your entire doll; the color on all the points of articulation will inevitably chip off due to movement. Some of the dye may actually make it deep enough to color the surface of the resin, but it will likely be very patchy, should you ever do a basic cleaning on your doll or try to redo their faceup. Anyone who has dyed a doll and accidentally left a bit of MSC on them (very common in the ears, it can be very hard to see) will know that after dyeing you can tell right away because MSC dyes darker than clean resin, but when that dyed MSC is removed the resin is either much lighter or completely undyed underneath.
The point of dyeing a doll is so that you can make them a different color but still play with and repaint them just as you would any undyed, unblushed doll. Dyeing a doll coated in MSC completely defeats that purpose. To reiterate, A dyed doll can be cleaned with soap & water or Winsor and Newton and moved around to your hearts content, but a MCS coated dyed doll cannot be. Seriously, DO NOT do this. The dye may look lovely and even at first, but it will. not. last.

My take on the subject comes from having first-hand experience dyeing more than a dozen dolls, some that had MSC left on them and others who i've purposefully added thin layers of coating on top of the resin to create resist-dye patterning.

---

But to answer your question @lividdarkangel, NO you definitely should NOT sand your doll before dyeing him! Anywhere a doll has been sanded will take dye differently (usually darker) than any unsanded areas. This means that you would need to sand every nook and cranny of the entire doll to the same surface grit to expect an even result. If the doll is a light color that hasn't yellowed, it can be very difficult to know if you've missed spots with finer grits, and using coarser grits you'd just be running the risk of loosing detail in their sculpting for absolutely no benefit. The ONLY times one should really consider fully sanding their doll is to remove severe yellowing, or to remove extremely dark dye that cannot be fully removed in a non-destructive way.
As for why your doll did not take to the dye, i'd need to know your process before I could give a thorough analysis. Like, what type/brand of dye did you use? What doll are you dyeing? Are you using a stainless steel pot on top of the stove with constant heat at the right temperature? Things like that. Though I will say that the dye not actually coloring your doll AT ALL usually means that you did not get your dyebath to the proper temperature. If you are using synthetic fabric dyes (which are best suited for dyeing plastics such as resin) they absolutely NEED to reach and maintain a very high temp (typically just at or above boiling) to work as intended. They literally will not work if the temperature isn't high enough, and if the temp is high but below the recommended temp you cannot expect a result that is accurate to what was advertised because you did not follow the instructions. Not that i'm assuming, but this is unfortunately something I see way, waaaaay too often.
Also, let me be perfectly clear; a doll being "new" is not a legitimate reason for why it would completely resist all dye. Not sure where you may have heard that, but i've never seen any legitimate evidence that suggests that is a thing. I've never seen a case where a doll did not dye at all that was not the result of user error.
(All this assuming we are speaking of resin or vinyl dolls, of course).

 

I'd avoid doing that sicne it would onmly dye the MSC and that would quickly wear off aorund the joints and scratch off in other places.

I don't know why dying new resin would be any different form dying old resin - I've done both without noticable difference in how the dye takes.... Perhaps you did something wrong/different in the dye process....? But I see that @Arkelle has alreayd covered that in more detail.

Teddy

 

The problem with dying resin is that, other than knowing it's "resin", one has no idea about the actual chemical mix a particular doll has been made of. Nor what the added skin color chemicals are. Each doll company will have different skin color chemicals. And even if two resin parts from different companies look similar in color or resin feel, chemically, they may be completely different. Some doll companies get their base resin from the same supplier, but we don't have any information on that, and the only way to know for sure, is the takes samples and have them chemically analyzed. Resin is not standardized thing!
Also Resin ages, I by that I mean they change chemically over time, because of heat, humidity (low or high), UV, etc.

In short, we, the doll customers, have no clue whatsoever, as to what we're trying to dye here. And any result one of us has, may be of no significant information to any one else.

MY best result was 4 coats MSC and several dips in a cold-dye fabric dye (like Rit, but I used Dylon).
Yours may differ.

Edit:
Forgot to add: Doll companies change resins, as they go, to better resins all the time. This means that if you could dye an older doll from a particular company with such-n-such technique, that doesn't mean you will be able to dye a new doll from them with the same technique.
And no, there is no way to know when a company changes up to new resin. For the sake of their business, they will make sure that the look and feels is the same as it ever was.

 

Thank you everyone for your answers! I do remember from my first round of research into dying that using msc is a bad idea, because as you put it @Arkelle it would just dye the msc and even the slightest scratch or attempts at further customizing could easily ruin the whole thing.. My issues the first time was the dye just not taking. It was very marbled and didn't get as deep and rich as I wanted it to. I did get the heat up, but I am thinking that might have been the problem. It was on the low side of what the dye recommended though still in the range. Should I aim for the high side and see if I can get him the shade I want?
Here are the pics from my attempt at dying him. The marbling doesn't show very well, but it is definitely there.

Spoiler

[/IMG]

Hopefully these pics can help. I really would like to get him dyed the proper color soon. I miss him.

EDIT: let me know if the images are working. They show up here in the edit box, but at least for me they are not showing on the actual post.
EDIT 2: Ok, no idea whats going on, or why my images are broken, but if you look on page 70 fourth post down is my original post from when I failed to dye him. There's more details there on what I tried, along with at least a few pics that aren't broken. Sorry about all this. I am not good good with technology.

 

All but the first image are showing up for me.

Bad luck with the marbling - do you live in a hard water area?

The marbling on the shooulder(?) in the last image looks like some of the marbling I got before I started using filtered water with the dye.

Teddy

 

I definitely live in a hard water area now, but when I tried dying him the first time i dont think we did. There was a ton of chlorine though. At my current place even with a filter its still quite hard. Should i try to get some distilled water?

 

I don't really know as I tend to fly by the seat of my trousers when dying dolls.

I don't really understand the whys and wherefores of the science involved, but I remember thinking that the markbling looked like the scum left around a teacup when I make tea in hard water areas as opposed to not getting that scum/mottling in soft water areas... so I tried re-dying my doll with filtered water and got better results... But I'm by no means scientific in my methods, so it may just have been blind chance rather than the hard water Vs filtered water.

Hopefully somebody with a more scientific understanding of the process will chip in and give you advice based on more than just my experiences when dying

Teddy

 

Very interesting. I think if its cheap I might pick some distilled water if its cheap enough. It can't hurt at least. Especially since the water at my current house is very hard. I want to do everything I can to give myself the best shot at this working. This boy has already been a massive pain to work on.

 

If it hasn't been noted already though, not all dyes are made for synthetic materials like resin. Rit for example has two different types, one for natural materials like cotton or wool that also affects synthetics to a lesser degree so it's decent for blends, and one for synthetics for things like nylon, but is also the proper option for resin dolls. So if a dye isn't taking, you might first want to double check that you're using the right kind of dye. If you're using Rit, it should be DyeMore, not All-Purpose. It has been a long time since I dyed a doll, but back when I did, everyone was suggesting the Rit dry powder dye. I used the liquid DyeMore back then and after more than a decade there's been no fading or dulling of the color and he dyed relatively deep compared to others I saw at the time.
When he was first dyed.

Two or three years ago.

 

Hi guys any luck with dyeing or deyellowing french resin doll? I have one very old yellowed narsha doll I'd like to restore but I'm scared ill ruin her as I'm quite new in the hobby. All advice and help will be greatly appreciated

I read once someone airbrushed their white doll to normal skin and sealed her with msc maybe ypu could change yours this way?If you won't like the colour you can always get rid of it easily with rubbing alcohol.

 

The problem with that is that it's only on the surface so wears off (around the joints, especially but other places like where clothes fastenings and jewelery touch/rub it etc.) and soon looks awful.

Teddy

 

Oh I didn't realise.

 

W

What if you spray a sealant on it? Maybe it would help. I personally use Mr super clear.

 

Again, since it's only applied to the surface, the sealant gets worn off, taking the paint with it.

Teddy

 

Yeah you got a point. I saw some ppl hot glue the points, have you tried it? Not sure if it works.

 

That's a form of "sueding" to help the joints hold a pose more easily.

It might help prevent wear on paint and sealant around them, but it does peel off after a while and need reapplying, and I imagine it would take the sealant and paint with it when it comes off.

I haven't tried it on a doll with body paint or body blushing, but several of my dolls are hot-glue-sueded to help with their posing, and it does need to be reapplies avery so often, so I wouldn't want to risk it

As far as I can see (and this just is my personal opinion) paint is only really an option for a doll that isn't going to be played with and posed much - just left on display in one position so that the joints don't get wear, and the rest of the paint doesn't get worn and rubbed by clothes and accessories being put on and taken off. Or as a temporay solution that will need to be retouched or redone regularly to keep it looking good (nd I know some people will be OK with that, to me it's too much of a faff and would spoil my enjoyment of playing with the doll - which is, after all why I have my dolls.

My one fully painted BJD is hardly ever played with as a result of her being painted and I find that kind of sad, but I bought her with the intention of having her fully pianted so... it's a balancing act of what you want the doll for and matching your vision of what their charcter looks like. My dolls with body blushing do get played with, but the worn patches where the blushing and sealant have come off look awful and have made me decide never to body bliuush any of my dolls in future.

I'm currently looking at dyeing an entire doll to cover patchy yellowing, dying one body to match a darker head, and dying one head (that faded) to match the body (which yellowed but responded well to a de-yellowing bath in Polident). I'm not looking for an exact match, as I think slight differneces between head and body colouring are more realistic than an exact match, but they do need to be closer than they are now. But I'm not contemplating painting any of them.

Teddy

 

I have better luck with the liquid dyes without any floating globs of dye. As far as the floating scum from the powdered dyes, even if you skim it off it still manages to marble a lot more. I will not be using the powdered dyes again when the liquid is better and the color charts for mixing colors with Rit dyemore are online.

 

I happened to notice something neat on my Dollzone Snow Fulai's chest quite some time after finishing her dye job! It is awfully hard to photograph, so I tried outlining it and altering the contrast on the photo. In person it can be seen a little better. I don't know if some one at DZ sanded it in there thinking "white resin will never show this, no one will know" or if the dye just happened to disperse in such a way as to blot in that pattern. She has a heart!

 

Whatever the reason it's an adorable touch.

Teddy

 

Awwww....that's cute!