Modification Making my Pukifee Centaur - COMPLETED!

Hey all! I've wanted a Pukifee Centaur for so many years and finally got the opportunity to make one! I recently won an auction for a Tiny Delf centaur, the perfect hybrid body. I've seen many cute PKF/Tiny Delf hybrid centaurs before and I'm so excited to finally have my own!


This is what I'm leaning toward as far as coloring and markings. The centaur is all white resin, which is perfect for dyeing.




She arrived with some blushing and embellishments. First I needed to unstring her, then I needed to get all of that off so she was ready to be dyed.


Her hooves are covered in glitter glue, which is also on her sides. There are also pearls on her sides making cute little designs. Her body is blushed with pastels(?) and her legs are embellished with some kind of metallic paint.


I've never restrung a doll before so I was pretty nervous to take her apart, but it was actually really easy! I was surprised by how simple the stringing was considering she's a centaur. I separated the pieces for each leg so I don't have to figure out what belongs where when I'm putting her back together (photo is from after the pieces were cleaned).


The pearls peeled right off and the glitter glue came off after a quick soak in some water. Wiping the resin with rubbing alcohol took off all the blushing. The purple metallic paint was by far the hardest thing to remove. I had to let it soak in rubbing alcohol for several minutes and scrub pretty hard to get it all off. I thoroughly rinsed each piece in running water after each time I used the rubbing alcohol.

You can see how dirty she was here! There's a big difference between the resin that was hidden in the joint versus the resin that was exposed. Cleaning made her all shiny and white though!

so clean!

I'm not sure when I'll update. I need to decide if I'm using the Tiny Delf human parts as testers for dyeing or trying to keep them nice since it's almost a complete doll. I'm not sure if I'm going to use one of my Pukifees or buy a new one, or what sculpt I want. Right now I'm leaning towards a tan PKF as I think that would look really nice with a grey body, but I don't own any tan ones so I would need to buy one.

I had the idea to drip wax onto the resin before dyeing it, leaving white spots after it's cleaned off, but I have no idea if this will work! It's what I do for Easter eggs but I'll have to test it on resin. If it works, that could potentially be a really cool way to get the dappled spots on the horse body.

I have no idea what to do with her hooves and possibly her tail. I don't really want them to be translucent but I don't know how that resin would take dye. I've seen that the little back patch of hair doesn't work with Pukifee hybrids so I don't need to worry about that. I also don't know if I'll use the resin tail or make a fiber one.

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have tips or questions. I'm super excited about this and I'm happy to share it with you all!

 

I totally overlooked that detail thanks for pointing it out! I'll probably paint on spots then.

 

Well, I tried dyeing her today. I used Frost Gray Rit Dyemore. I used a fish net to soak the pieces because of the recommendation in this project journal and it was a lot easier than stringing it on wire!


the setup

I have no idea what happened. Everything was going perfectly, giving me this gorgeous smoky blue-gray color, and then all of a sudden it changed to a gross greyish-brown. I kept going, hoping that it was just something with the resin of the front left leg that was making it wonky, but the next piece turned out totally brown. The temperature was even the whole time!



I'm really bummed out now. I shouldn't have kept going after the color started to change but I just really wanted to get her all dyed today. I just hope I can fix it! I'm going to try removing some of the brown-ish dye and then getting a new pack of Rit Dyemore to try again. Maybe the color change happened because I took too long dyeing? I was doing the pieces individually because I didn't want splotches from the resin pieces touching each other in the dye bath.

 

@Rosslyn thank you for the suggestions! I forgot to mention last time that I decided to just go with a uniform color, especially since this is my first dye project. I like the idea of making a mermaid!

@ekala First it was dyeing super blue, then started getting grayer for the bigger pieces, then turned brown. It was super weird! I just bought the dye, although I don't know how long it was on the store shelf, and the fish net wasn't leaking color. I didn't add or change anything before the color changes! I don't know how long I was at it but I think at least an hour...

Happy update! I was able to get a lot of the dye off of the pieces that turned out brown by wiping them off with acetone (immediately rinsing in water after). They became a very light gray - about the color the resin turned after ~15 seconds in the dye bath. Yay!!

Update by Stasia, on Flickr

I picked up 2 more bottles of dye in case the color changed again before I could finish. I got both bottles (normally $5 each) for $4.83 at Michael's with coupons, so that was awesome! I only ended up using one though.

Everything went great this time! There's still a few pieces that are definitely more blue-gray than others but it all looks good. I dyed the translucent pieces a really dark gray and I'm so pleased with how they turned out. The pieces I wiped off with acetone took the new dye really well. The color stayed completely constant throughout the dyeing process, and I still have no idea what happened before. I got all the body pieces done in ~30 minutes but had the tail soaking for quite a bit - it's so thick that even after a few minutes I could still see the yellowish-translucent resin inside. It was in for at least 10 minutes and now has the nice charcoal gray of the hooves.

Update by Stasia, on Flickr

I think the white lines on the body pieces are glue or something else that didn't come off when they were cleaned. They're not going to show when she's strung though so I'm not fussed about it.

 

@SynnfullKaydee Yes, I love the color! I'm so relieved that it worked too.

@Kitkaze It makes sense for the spots to be glue. Since they're inside I really don't mind though. I thought about using iDye Poly but this tutorial said that Rit Dyemore is pretty much identical and doesn't smell so bad. Weirdly enough the frost gray Rit Dyemore doesn't actually seem to have a brown base. Several of the pieces were very blue at first. Maybe I got a bad batch of dye.

I forgot to mention in my update post that I also tossed in some little ram horns that came with a Pukifee I won on eBay. They're cute and may end up on my centaur!

 

Way overdue mini-update:

I got absolutely slammed by work and school over the last 6 months and I haven't had time to do any of the body blushing, although I did get a few coats of sealant on. I decided that I want a tan Pukifee for the human part - problem is I don't own one. I'm trying to sell or trade a different Pukifee in order to get a tan one. I haven't decided what face I want yet - there are so many cute ones! I thought about dyeing the one I have but I decided that I'd rather not. I think the minor variations in color I got look good for a horse but wouldn't look as nice on the human parts. I tried to do a little mock-up stringing to see how the body looks now that it's dyed but I definitely need to get some tiny crochet hooks or something to help with all those tiny channels.

I hope to be able to do more with her this year!

 

Well, it only took me 4 years in the end.

PKF Centaur Update by Stasia, on Flickr

Yesterday I decided it was silly to keep such a cool thing in a drawer waiting for the possibility of getting a tan Pukifee, so I just strung Ophelia (Nanuri 16) onto the centaur body. I had to boil the waist to get the PKF butt to fit in it, and all the leg sockets were a bit warped so I poured boiling water on those and then jammed the legs in so they actually fit into the sockets again. It was MUCH easier than I thought it would be!

I hate re-stringing but that really wasn't too awful either. I had to do it twice because the first time I hadn't boiled the leg sockets yet and I ended up using string that was too lightweight.

I might redo her body blushing someday, or just add some details, but for now I'm really happy.

PKF Centaur Update by Stasia, on Flickr

PKF Centaur Update by Stasia, on Flickr

PKF Centaur Update by Stasia, on Flickr

 

Thank you so much! I love her. ❤️

 

Exactly, and thank you!