Skintone and resin dye?

ask on their forum, they're super nice. :3

 

I thought the colors, both for skin tones & for other colors, looked chalky on the Alumilite website.

Part of that I attribute to their showing their opaque resin.

I bet if you started with the plain, flat colors & painted on shadows & highlights that you could get a very dynamic coloring on a doll.


Not an epoxy clay but--there's been rumors on the board of a Sculpey product called "Living Doll", which probably has some translucency for a more attractive coloration. Oven-bake polymer clay. Here's the thread, so you can check it out yourself, if you wish:
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39331

Seams to be England only, at the moment. sigh.

Ann in CT

 

I've noticed that too, and have bought the tiny samples of each of the skin colors so that I can mix them into a reasonably realistic shade. It's kindof like painting - you almost never use the color straight out of the tube, but rather mix colors to get that perfect tone and shade - or at least darn near close enough.

 

Been searching for this for about 6 months.... About a year ago, we (me and the hubby) started researching what resin we wanted to work with, I came across a site that did a ratio mixing chart using alumilite and their three skin tones. Tiny little faces in various hues with their exact mix of the 3 colors to each other and to the resin to produce everything from albino to ebony and it looked darn good... this was a year or so ago.... in the last six months since we've started actually casting though, I can't find the darn thing again to save my life. If anyone has seen this post/picture/thing... please post it I've just about given up ever finding the link again.

Hugs!

 

http://www.kitsuneudon.com/temp/alumite color gradation chart.bmp
I found that about three months ago, and haven't stumbled across it since. Thankfully I downloaded the image, so here you go. ^_~

 

There's been an oven-baked clay with some translucency around for years. Cernit brand. Been used by lots of porcelain doll makers who branched out. I used to see it at major art stores (it's been a while since I did the art thing. I' blanking on the name of the chain art store I used to browse all the time. SIGH.) Comes in a lovely range of white, pink-white and fuller flesh tones.

I've also heard of people mixing a bit of Fimo with it for added strength (Sculpy, back when I did the clays, was noticeably not as strong as Fimo. You could make a thin sheet of baked Fimo that would even bend a little without breaking.)

AND all the major brands, Sculpy, Fimo, Primo, also make bricks of translucent clay to be mixed with colored clays (so far, used a lot by people creating polymer clay versions of natural stone and semiprecious stones for jewelry.)

 

Could kiss you, kitsuneudon!!!! Thank you!!!!!!!!! *spins you around and hugs the stuffing out of you*

 

Hi all, that image of the little faces comes from alumilite.com. Here's the link:
http://www.alumilite.com/index.php?page=show_info&type=HOWS&id=49
scroll to the bottom for the images of the flesh toned dyes.
Helen

 

spreads the love! Thank you! I knew I saw that somewhere. Glad to see someone found where it was hiding.

 

*Laughs* No Problem.

 

I used the Caucasian one, and it looks much pinkier and nicer in real life. I think if you mix the African American and the native American you'll get a nice tone.

(wanting to make an African American doll too)

 

I dont remember who it was, but someone who had made their own BJD and posted a bunch of stuff on it here made a comment about the darker resin colors. From what I remember, its very difficult to get a consistant color in the resin (and with diffrerent pieces if you have to mix more resin) with the darker dyes.

I'm sure the same sort of thing happens with the lighter dyes, but its less noticeable because the dye is so light to begin with.

 

Nods conceivably there are a couple of pitfalls to working with darker skintones. Would definitely like to see that writeup if anyone finds it.

The one that has me concerned admittedly is the translucency issue.... for instance the chest and head are much thicker than say the hands. In pale skin tones this really wouldn't be as noticeable but if you're using say French resin where the point is having it as translucent and glowy as possible, with a dark skintone in mind it might be a real concern.... hold up 2 pieces of translucent blue glass... now put one on top of the other and the thickness doubles the darkness..... Same ratio of dye could conceivably produce 2 different skin tones depending on the thickness of the parts cast.... Might be part of what the person ran into on inconsistent colors with darker tones. Just a wild guess.

 

That makes a lot of sense acutally. That might be one of the reasons that the companies that make dolls dont make darker skinned dolls (unless they blush or color the resin afterward).

I'm sure it could be delt with though, if you have enough time and money to make all the appropriate changes in the amount of dye you add to make all the pieces the same color.

 

Hm. That's an interesting point. I've been planning on using the french resin technique, with the purpose of creating different nationalities - aka - using various hues and saturations of skin tones. I'm still pretty far off from working out the specifics of the mixing ratios, but I'll definitely have to post my findings.