Dyeing Phicen figures with Rit Dye (NSFW)

Curious to know if the dye on your latest two efforts has faded any since the last update...?

They have faded a little bit but they're still much more brown than they were before I dyed them again. This is the s29-





It's not quite as dark as it was before, but it's stopped fading at a nice mid-brown sort of tone. Unfortunately the repeated boiling sessions have started to cause some damage to the silicone, as I posted previously, so I don't think I can keep continuing to dye these two bodies anymore. I just ordered another s28 (yay stimulus money) that I'm going to try dyeing soon. This time, I'm going to put a lot of dye into the pot. At least one full bottle of brown dye, maybe more, and see if I can dye the body a really dark brown. After it fades a little bit, hopefully I will end up with a nice "dark chocolate" skin tone.

I want to try and get a body that's similar to this color of brown-

Cool. Thanks for the updated information. The brown you have isn't bad for a mixed skin tone, but I can see what you are going for. It'll be interesting to see if using an entire bottle all at once, and maybe keeping the body in a bit longer, but only one time -- no repeats -- will have the effect you want. Looking forward to seeing the results -- i'm really curious about attempting this, but with a really tight budget at the moment, I can't afford multiple attempts. I'm hoping with all your experiments, that I'll finally have the answer I want and can go ahead and give it a shot.

I can imagine you needing some black - and maybe a splash of red to counteract dullness from the black) to achieve the color of that head sculpt. Very curious to see what happens. Thank you for these experiments and for sharing!

Forgot about this thread. I tried dyeing the new s28 but unfortunately I got careless and set the water temperature too high and ended up with some small bubbles with this figure. I intended to dye this one a much darker brown, but I had to stop part way through because of the bubbles. They would probably just get worse if I continued to leave the figure in the pot.

I forgot to take a picture of the s28 immediately after dyeing, but this is what it looks like now after a week or so.



Here's a closer picture of the bubbles. They aren't particularly egregious, but I think putting the figure into boiling water for longer would just make them bigger. There are some bubbles just above the nipples on both breasts, and a bubble on her right shoulder.



Comparison with an un-dyed s28 and s29.



Also, I didn't notice this when I first started dyeing figures but the way you can tell when your dye has stopped fading is by looking at the interior of the silicone. When you first take your figure out of the pot the exterior will be a dark brown, but the interior will still be the original pale/wheat color. When both of them match the figure should stop changing color, which in my experience is about 1-1.5 weeks.



I suppose my final verdict on using Rit Dye is that's it's great for dyeing figures a tan or light brown color, like for a middle eastern or asian character, but things get a little trickier if you want to get a much darker shade of brown. The more time your figure spends in the pot the more likely defects will emerge, so perhaps oil pastels might be better for really dark shades of brown. It's also hard to control the final color since the dye will spread/even out through the silicone and end up looking lighter than when you dyed it.

Also, I'm thinking about selling the s28 listed in this post if anyone's interested. There's nothing wrong with it aside from the bubbles I showed above, I just already have a light-brown dyed Phicen and I don't really have need of another. Since I can't dye this one any further, or use oil pastels on the figure since it would probably rip/tear the bubbles and make them look worse, I thought someone else might be interested in having it, not to mention I'd also like to try to recoup some of my money to spend on another figure to use oil pastels on.

Those bubbles don't look much more distracting than a few real skin imperfections. But I suppose it is a cautionary tale.

Sorry for your struggles with achieving a darker colour via this method, but I salute you for taking one for the team so to speak. I look forward to seeing more of your ventures into oil pastels.

Hmm, that’s a bit disheartening, but thanks for the extra insight into what to look for as far as dye retention.

This is a GREAT thread. I have experimented with this process but using a worldbox fat body. It worked out very well and I am looking forward to do a few of these TBleague bodies. Titan's suggestion to add red dye to the brown is great advice to further fine tune the color.
I dipped the torso and upper arms only. The sculpt was painted by another artist and I matched the body to the sculpt.

After the body dried, I used a light mist of matte acrylic spray (Mr. SuperClear) to seal. I don't think it was necessary but I applied the matte spray to be safe.

Wow, that looks amazing! You did an incredible job matching the colour. I know how hard it can be to match body colours to pre-painted head sculpts, but it turned out perfectly.

Thank you so much skywalker saga! I figured it would be easier to match the body after the sculpt is painted. I achieved a darker color by repeated dipping and checking against the head sculpt to compare.

Seventhbrother wrote:Thank you so much skywalker saga! I figured it would be easier to match the body after the sculpt is painted. I achieved a darker color by repeated dipping and checking against the head sculpt to compare.

Sounds like you already have a good grasp on the process!

It's funny because I've always had trouble matching bodies to heads and tend to prefer to do it the other way around. But that could be because I'm primarily using the oil pastel colouring method, which doesn't always allow for as much nuance in colour tweaking, since one is limited to whatever oil pastel colours are available, and blending colours with that technique is difficult.

Great job, Seventhbrother!

GubernatorFan wrote:Great job, Seventhbrother!

Thank you!

This is brilliant! this might be the solution to my quest of finding Lexi a new body. Lexi is on of the original Phicen figures with plastic skeleton in tan color.

I followed your outline Titan but I used 1/3 bottle of Chocolate with one capful of Racing Red. The body came out GREAT

Titan wrote:Thank you, GooBoo. I followed your instructions to the letter with a few modifications: To get a more realistic skin tone I mixed two Rit Synthetic dyes together.



I fully submerged the body for 20-30 minutes dipping the body every ten minutes:



First batch, I do not remember the Pale TBLeague body designation:




Second batch was on a TBLeague Keir body which has a blueish tint to it and bloody calves and forearms (covered in the photos):


Both together:


Second batch after I added more red dye:






This is a game changer for me. My welcome back to the hobby.

That does look good. I bought the necessary materials to do this, but haven’t attempted it yet. Did you keep the water/dye boiling, or did you just keep it at a hot temp?

Stryker2011 wrote:That does look good. I bought the necessary materials to do this, but haven’t attempted it yet. Did you keep the water/dye boiling, or did you just keep it at a hot temp?

I heated the water (about a gallon and a half) to 170°F and turned off the flame. The process only takes 5-10 mins or so. If doing multiple bodies, you may need to reheat the water to temp and continue working. Agitate the body in the bath by submerging for long seconds then check color and continue to dip until you get your desired shade.

Excellent work, Seventhbrother!

GubernatorFan wrote:Excellent work, Seventhbrother!

Thank you so much GubernatorFan!

Late to the party but, brilliant work! I think these look great. I'm wondering how the fade settled out in the end. Have noticed it continuing to fade or have you reached dye equilibrium? Either way, thank you for sharing this!

Wraith64 wrote:Late to the party but, brilliant work! I think these look great. I'm wondering how the fade settled out in the end. Have noticed it continuing to fade or have you reached dye equilibrium? Either way, thank you for sharing this!

Thanks all around! Yes I actually but did notice some slight fading of the color after a few days. It's been about three weeks now since the last attempt and there have been no further changes. I know that I can likely darken it a little more and it should adjust to the desired tone with the slight fading over those initial couple of days.

Here is my final build of my custom Luke Cage. I dyed the body to match the head sculpt and there was so e fading but not enough to deviate from the skin tone. Very happy with the way this turned out+

I think he turned out very well.

GubernatorFan wrote:I think he turned out very well.

Thank you so much! It came together fairly quickly once my vision was complete. The head sculpt is by Waruna Weligamage. It was painted by Figuremasters and I did some touch ups on the head band and flocked the hair and beard for more realism. The styling and concept is a mashup of the Netflix show and comic book versions of Luke Cage.

Wow, he is absolutely fantastic!!!

skywalkersaga wrote:Wow, he is absolutely fantastic!!!

Thank you so much!

That’s an awesome Luke Cage. I’m not seeing much of a difference between the head and body.