Painting seamless bodies (NSFW?)

skywalkersaga wrote:Sorry to double post, but I have been considering the viability of certain of my planned future projects, and was wondering if anyone has figured out how to either paint or draw tattoos or 'war paint' type designs onto seamless [male] bodies? I know Ephiane had some smaller painted acrylic tattoos on one of her female figures recently, but my concern is with anything covering a larger area like the chest or back, that it would flake. I'm not sure how one would be able to use the oil pastels for such a thing either, as they require blending to make them work, so doing intricate details seems out of the question.

Just to be clear, I'm talking about actually drawing designs onto the bodies [such as with a pen or something], rather than applying some kind of pre-made sticker type thing.

I know this has been discussed before -- I also recall Stryker having issues with the tattoos on his mini-me -- but just wondering if anyone's figured out anything?

If there really isn't any reliable way of hand-drawing tattoos onto a seamless body, would something like one of the more realistic WorldBox type bodies be the next place to look?

It is a good question, but I have no definitive answer for you. The first post in this thread included some examples, and for something relatively simple ("line art" if you will), if you can get an acrylic marker with a fine enough tip, you should be able to do it. As long as you are not trying to fill up a substantial area with an even color (as in repainting the body's skin tone, in effect) the acrylic marker might work. My very preliminary experiment seemed to produce decent and permanent results, but I didn't have a super fine tip and was focusing more on testing for the repainting of the body rather than the application of tattoos. (NOTE: this was based on applying acrylic marker to a Jiaou TPE body.)

Stryker seems to have had some luck with tattoo decals and identified a good eBay seller who provides a range of them that work even on seamless bodies, but the details escape me now. For comparison, this recent set includes, among other things, a "flag tattoo sticker" which would be a decal, I imagine:
https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t1009-new-product-acplay-new-1-6-street-fighter-american-soldier-double-head-carving-set-atx044

World Box and other hard plastic bodies should be much easier to paint, although I imagine in place of the paint flaking away you would have to worry about the paint chipping/scraping away.

ReverendSpooky is the guy to ask. I tried to do tattoos on seamless figures, but aside from water slide decals, which are very shiny, I didn’t have much luck.

Stryker2011 wrote:ReverendSpooky is the guy to ask. I tried to do tattoos on seamless figures, but aside from water slide decals, which are very shiny, I didn’t have much luck.

So apart from being shiny, do the decals hold up ok while allowing all the usual articulation? Of course, I realize that might also depend on size and placement...

I put one on the back of a thigh, just below the buttocks, and it held up fine. I tried it on the crease between the shoulder and bicep, and not so much. It really does depend on the area. I would think a pectoral muscle would probably be okay, as there is very little movement and stretch, and it is fairly flat — anywhere where there is a lot of creases and stretch will be problematic.

Stryker2011 wrote:I put one on the back of a thigh, just below the buttocks, and it held up fine. I tried it on the crease between the shoulder and bicep, and not so much. It really does depend on the area. I would think a pectoral muscle would probably be okay, as there is very little movement and stretch, and it is fairly flat — anywhere where there is a lot of creases and stretch will be problematic.

That does make sense.

Thanks for explaining in more detail about those 'stickers', Stryker. It sounds like they do at least work for smaller tattoos in certain areas, and that is very good to know.

And thanks, GF do remember you using the pen earlier in this thread, but for some reason I had just assumed that you had reasons for not experimenting with it further. I guess it could be worth looking into -- I know the oil pastels work, but does oil paint stick to silicone? There are such things as oil paint pens, so I sort of wonder about that. But perhaps it would interact different than the pastel....hmm.

And of course, you are right that there are probably downsides to painting on either type of surface, but I think that, with the right primer, a hard plastic would still be more likely to hold the [acrylic] paint than silicone presuming it wasn't going to experience a lot of handling and wear. Even so, it is  difficult to find even just a hard plastic body to use, especially one that is semi-realistic enough but still the right shape, size, etc. So.... argh, yet another that requires some extensive experimenting ... ;p

Hmmm.... guess I was a little premature in thinking the white oil pastel had 'worked' on the tbleague body even as much as I'd thought it had. When I went back and gave the body another good couple of rinses, what remained of it washed off. The areas I worked on are now just the slightest bit paler than the original skintone... so not really enough to justify using up an entire stick of oil pastel on it. :/ I guess I could try it again on one of the pale bodies, but honestly I am not sure even then it would achieve the results I'm going for. The one saving grace is that the s12d  body I was using will hopefully at least still be usable now for a different (non-alien) project I have in mind, later on. 

I had another seamless body colouring disappointment the other day -- the Jiaou 3.0 body I ordered finally arrived, and I tried it with the headsculpt I mentioned in a different thread that needed a Kumik-compatible neck peg. It did indeed fit, so I went to work straight away on trying to colour it with the oil pastel method. It started out well and I got quite excited that it might be the break I needed. But in order to get the right colour to match the head, I needed to go over it several times with different colours. At one point, I tried to 'shade' the area around the hips and waist, and.... it left quite a noticeable scratch mark/gouge on the surface of the body: 






These pics are after washing the area several times, and then going over it again with the colour.... this time, it didn't stick. I can only presume that this means the top layer of the TPE was sloughed off during my colouring attempt. Really sucks, as the midriff area needed to be visible on this one, so I can't even hide it with clothing. :(

So now I'm wondering if the Jiaou body is really not as compatible with the oil pastels as I hoped...

Sorry for your troubles. Keep trying with the TBLeague. What pastel are you using? I'm using Staedtler. Perhaps there is a point at which the material gets saturated with oil pastel and additional applications fail to take hold? Also, make sure you're not using a water-soluble oil pastel version -- these blend better but will indeed wash off.

After reading your post, I went back to my Jiaou body experiment, trying to finish it up real fast. The body does take the first oil pastel application quite well, but blending is difficult. In the process, the top layer of TPE does get scuffed here and there, and wherever that happens, the TPE does not really take on or keep additional applications of oil pastel well. It happened in several spots on mine, though mostly in places where clothing or digital censorship stickers would show up So the apparent fragility of the TPE top layer and the apparent inability of the underlayers to hold the paint make the TPE Jiaou bodies a slightly less viable choice than the silicone TBLeague ones in this respect, too. On a more cheerful note, I think I finally got to something that more or less matches the head sculpt's strange skin tone. Haven't tried painting the hands with acrylics yet.

I had the same experience trying to color a Pale TBL with White oil pastels, Skywalker. It doesn’t seem to work at all — that’s why I ended up having to use a Lady Death body for a character that was supposed to be skinny.

Thanks, GF. I guess I'm used to things turning out to be 'too good to be true' when working on 1/6 stuff. At least now we know the less-robust TPE doesn't work nearly as well as the silicone with the oil pastels. Though I'm glad you were able to make yours work -- that is a nice headsculpt and no doubt frustrating that it was so hard to match. 

I think the Jiaou might be ok with the pastels if one is only doing a single coat, but it seems unable to handle the layering and blending. 

And yes, I will definitely keep trying with the oil pastels on the tbleague bodies -- at least for the ones that need to be made darker. I would have preferred to use a tbleague for the above blue experiment, but the neck connector on the tbleague makes it incompatible with the head. There are a couple more tbleague bodies I want to colour with pastels, but I was sort of trying to get a bit more practice before attempting those, since I realllly don't want to mess up on them. :3

Stryker2011 wrote:
I had the same experience trying to color a Pale TBL with White oil pastels, Skywalker. It doesn’t seem to work at all — that’s why I ended up having to use a Lady Death body for a character that was supposed to be skinny.

Ah, gotcha -- I hadn't realized you'd tried that as well, but now I can fully understand why you went with the LD. It seems that one can really only 'dye' the tbleague bodies a darker colour, rather than actually 'paint' them with the oil pastels, if that makes sense. I had to try it for myself to know for sure. Ah well. Wonder if tbleague will make any other 'white' bodies like that... since Lady Death bodies are kind of rare to come by and get snapped up quick. :/

Maybe it's just something about white oil pastel...? As for the TPE, I suspect you could damage its outer surface even on the first try if you are not super careful.

Yes, I had the same thought about the white oil pastel — perhaps since it’s not a ‘pigment’ like the other colours, it doesn’t have the same dyeing/staining effect, but rather stays more on the surface.

And yeah ... TPE is essentially similar material to styrofoam (I think?), so it’s no wonder...

Oh, I forgot to answer GF's  question about what type of oil pastels I'm using -- currently, I am using Staedtler pastels as well, though I've recently ordered a couple of other artist quality brands to experiment with on tbleague bodies, just in case it makes any difference.

Not sure I'll ever dare attempt this again with a Jiaou, as they are nearly as expensive as a tbleague these days, and I just can't affording to keep purchasing bodies only to damage them or find out they are of no use to me after all. :/

Well, the cost and wait is annoying, but I suppose it is a valuable learning experience. Perhaps there is a better method for TPE that is different from what works with pastels. The whole thread started with wondering whether TPE would take on color more readily, because it seems easier to stain. If that notion was correct (which I'm not sure of), there might be some other trick. The oil pastel method does work on it, but apparently only as long as the outer layer remains in perfect shape, yet it has the tendency to scuff easily here and there.

Oh sure, I'm glad I know now, at least. And I'm opening to using a Jiaou in future if there turns out to be a more suitable method for colouring them. But the oil pastels seem too risky, at least for my purposes, since I need a material that will hold up to a great deal of blending. 

It's a frustrating trial and error process, though it's my own fault for deciding to tackle so many female 'alien' characters, lol.

Has anyone tried to use Ephiane's pastel technique to make bodies look dirty?  I eventually want to do a post apocalyptic faction that lives in the wastelands and is physically dirtier than my PinUp Patrol girls, whom they might otherwise somewhat resemble.  

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/677228862697529590/?nic=1

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/327144360431949674/?nic=1


https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/809099889289138927/?nic=1

One thing I found out accidentally is that allowing TBleague bodies come into contact with newspaper pages will definitely stain them; the ink in the paper must have some peculiar chemical reaction with the silicone bodies.  I found that if this happens, it takes quite a lot of washing and rubbing to get the stains out.  Has anyone else had this experience?

ThePhotogsBlog wrote:Has anyone tried to use Ephiane's pastel technique to make bodies look dirty?  I eventually want to do a post apocalyptic faction that lives in the wastelands and is physically dirtier than my PinUp Patrol girls, whom they might otherwise somewhat resemble.  

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/677228862697529590/?nic=1

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/327144360431949674/?nic=1


https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/809099889289138927/?nic=1

One thing I found out accidentally is that allowing TBleague bodies come into contact with newspaper pages will definitely stain them; the ink in the paper must have some peculiar chemical reaction with the silicone bodies.  I found that if this happens, it takes quite a lot of washing and rubbing to get the stains out.  Has anyone else had this experience?

I haven't tried painting a tbleague yet, bit I got stains from the rough side of black leather. Looked a bit like machine oil, if that helps. The stains magically disappeared some day.

...


For a crazy future project, I want to paint a body for a character that's supposed to be suntan (spends most of the time outside) and then will mostly be covered in multiple colours. I don't know yet if I should choose a suntan or pale one, as I think the colors might be brighter on the pale one, while the suntan one is more fitting to the character.
Does anyone know if it makes much difference?

Ovy wrote:
For a crazy future project, I want to paint a body for a character that's supposed to be suntan (spends most of the time outside) and then will mostly be covered in multiple colours. I don't know yet if I should choose a suntan or pale one, as I think the colors might be brighter on the pale one, while the suntan one is more fitting to the character.
Does anyone know if it makes much difference?

The colours will likely be a bit 'brighter' on a pale body, but the suntan is itself quite pale, just a slightly different tone, so the colours still do show up no problem. 

I'm not sure if I quite understand the effect you would be going for with that, but be aware that layering colours might be a bit tricky.... I would definitely experiment first, if you can. I say this because some colours may not show up very well over another colour, and in some cases too many colours on top of each other can cause problems, especially if some of the colours have lighter pigment or white in them [white oil pastels seem to not adhere to the silicone almost at all, and may even 'erase' the colours underneath]. If you have a tbleague figure that has an area of its body that will be covered up, experiment on that part of the 'skin'. I did that with mine because it was the only way to make sure I could get the colours 'right' prior to colouring the entire body.

Thanks for the input! I guess I would start with yellows and later add purples, reds, blues and greens etc. while trying to avoid overpainting and whites..I want to try some kind of full body painting.
When using the body as some kind of abstract canvas, it would be an oil pastel on tbleague experiment itself, so errors could be turned into design.

I might highlight curves and forms, but try to avoid recognizable images, more of an impressionistic and abstract approach.

Like that marble design, but less detailed.


I imagine adding simple colorful/paint splattered baggy pants, and a rainbow colored wing contraption on the back.



I want to paint the heads too and add/color the hair.

That will be interesting. Good luck.

Oh, very cool! I guess you could probably achieve a multi-coloured effect, but you'd just have to be careful about using white , as honestly I have had zero luck with it and it does not stick to the bodies. Also, you'd only be able to get the colours as 'thin' as the actual thinnest edge of the oil pastel. 

Curious to see the eventual results.  

I will try to update regarding my own body-colouring projects soon, but RL has been kicking me in the arse the last few months and I've been too stressed to do much of anything, so bear with me.

Thanks a lot, although it will take some time before I will start that new project.

But I experimented on the ankles of a pale and a suntan body, using yellow, purple and pink.
The pictures I took don't show much difference, it will look better in daylight. But as you said, the color is significantly brighter and vibrant on the pale body, which I like much more, so I will use one of those, for a female version at least.

And no rush young Skywalker, we all bear with you.

Oh, I'm glad your experiment is working so far! And yes, definitely the pale for the brighter colours.  

And thanks for your patience.

skywalkersaga wrote:Oh, I'm glad your experiment is working so far! And yes, definitely the pale for the brighter colours.  

And thanks for your patience.

The pale bodies make the brighter colors really pop out. Some WIP pics. I painted the body in one session because it was so sticky after washing. I watched a nice Surrealism and Jean Michel Basquiat documentary while doing that. Talcum powder magically removed all those little pastel and dust particles and I have the feeling it blended the colors a little. I didn't plan and think too much and didn't want to go into super detail, because then I would never have come to an end.
I wonder what material would be good for tattoo stencils? Sticky foil?

Wow, she looks awesome, Ovy! I'm super impressed, though not surprised, by your excellent and artistic results. :') 

It does give me a little hope for possibly using the seamless bodies for tattooed figures, after all. For the figure I'm specifically trying to do, the tattoos are really more like body paint anyway, and the lines are quite thick, so using the pastel is theoretically possible. But getting those sharper lines/edges on the design is indeed something I haven't figured out yet. A stencil is a brilliant idea, though maybe I'm just lacking imagination, but I'm struggling to picture how it would work...

Thanks a lot! I don't know about the stencils yet, but Gubernator used round hole stencils for certain unpainted areas, pressing them onto the body and then painting over with the pastels. Might work for more detailed tattoos too.

If I may guess, is your project that tribal blue worm painted Anakin from the old clones wars?

Ovy wrote:Thanks a lot! I don't know about the stencils yet, but Gubernator used round hole stencils for certain unpainted areas, pressing them onto the body and then painting over with the pastels. Might work for more detailed tattoos too.

If I may guess, is your project that tribal blue worm painted Anakin from the old clones wars?

LOL, yep, I'm not exactly subtle. ;D

It's a project that is still just a distant dream, since I still haven't even figured out if modding the tbleague body to have the mech arm would actually be feasible or not. But I need to know if it's possible, so I know if I can keep dreaming....

ETA: In case anyone doesn't know wtf we're talking about, it's the Tartakovsky 2D-animated Anakin from the Nelvaan quest storyline: 









I'm only a little obsessed..... 

Hm I am pretty sure it can be done - the animated style also leaves a lot of room for interpretation. The metal skeleton is a good base for a mechanical arm,  the skin around it could be cut off. But I guess you considered all that already. Do you know what kind of body you might use? I guess M32 (Bruce Lee) or M33. Maybe M32 as it looks  tall, slender and super strong. I have a m32 waiting to be fully body painted so the lady above has not to be alone. As I go full freestyle on them anyway, I might try out how some of Anakins rectangular, pointy blue tattoos might look like on a tanned seamless body. I will let you know, I might get it done this week.

Ovy wrote:Hm I am pretty sure it can be done - the animated style also leaves a lot of room for interpretation. The metal skeleton is a good base for a mechanical arm,  the skin around it could be cut off. But I guess you considered all that already. Do you know what kind of body you might use? I guess M32 (Bruce Lee) or M33. Maybe M32 as it looks  tall, slender and super strong. I have a m32 waiting to be fully body painted so the lady above has not to be alone. As I go full freestyle on them anyway, I might try out how some of Anakins rectangular, pointy blue tattoos might look like on a tanned seamless body. I will let you know, I might get it done this week.

It's kind of you to experiment a bit on my behalf! There was a thread a while ago where Rev described how one might mod the arm, and it sounded like with the right tools it could definitely work. And likewise, you may be right that the tattoos are possible, presuming the oil pastel can indeed be controlled well enough. My idea was to use an M33, but with ankle extenders to make up the height. 

There have been several factors preventing me from going ahead with this project, including too many other WIP projects going on already, as well as lack of spare funds, and thus my hesitation to experiment too much since I can't really afford to 'waste' any tbleague bodies. Also, I don't have any kind of tool to cut the metal on the tbleague skeleton. So it's all been a bit 'pie in the sky' anyway for now. I had even given up on the seamless bodies for tattoos and had been considering using an old plastic muscle body just so I could paint it more easily, but then struggled to find any plastic body that I liked enough to use. :p

Btw, curious to see more of your painted people! The one you showed above is just so beautifully done and aesthetically pleasing. I do love body art that enhances or emphasizes the natural body shape.