Painting seamless bodies (NSFW?)

Ovy wrote:
Last week I experimented with color pigment powder on a body, has this been covered here yet?

Ovy wrote:Last week I experimented with color pigment powder on a body, has this been covered here yet?

Ovy wrote:Yeah nice one, although don't underestimate good powder, if rubbed in enough you won't really see a powdered texture but a shine. And I wouldn't recommend the use of resin dust, haha.

skywalkersaga wrote:
Someone mentioned using crushed pastels mixed with water, but I don't think anyone has brought up colour pigment specifically. Would be interested to know your results?

skywalkersaga wrote:Shovelchop - yes, in this instance I'm referring to 'soft' pastels ... similar to chalk pastels, only with much stronger and higher quality colour pigments.

I've used oil pastels and they work ok for my needs, but I'm still always curious about other methods. Putting the soft pastels directly onto the body still leaves some residue, but someone has previously mentioned a method that grinds the soft pastel into dust and then mixes it with a bit of water and a drop of liquid dishsoap (so that it mixed better with the water). This gave a more 'watercolour'-ish result on the body. But Ovy has just said he's tried applying the powdered artist pigments themselves, not even soft pastels but the actual pigments. So I'm curious to know more about that method. : )

shovelchop81 wrote:

skywalkersaga wrote:Shovelchop - yes, in this instance I'm referring to 'soft' pastels ... similar to chalk pastels, only with much stronger and higher quality colour pigments.

I've used oil pastels and they work ok for my needs, but I'm still always curious about other methods. Putting the soft pastels directly onto the body still leaves some residue, but someone has previously mentioned a method that grinds the soft pastel into dust and then mixes it with a bit of water and a drop of liquid dishsoap (so that it mixed better with the water). This gave a more 'watercolour'-ish result on the body. But Ovy has just said he's tried applying the powdered artist pigments themselves, not even soft pastels but the actual pigments. So I'm curious to know more about that method. : )

I see, sorry I haven't gone into too much depth reading this thread, I have oil pastels to hand so just looked for any info of dos and don'ts using those. Thanks for explaining it to lazy me!

Stryker2011 wrote:Interesting technique and results. It looks pretty good.

GubernatorFan wrote:I agree, interesting technique and promising results. Thanks for sharing. There is a possible benefit to this being (possibly) reversible. Technically, it may be possible to (largely) remove even oil pastel with enough determined washing with soap (and perhaps more effectively with other means). The RIT dye method is perhaps not reversible, but it seems to yield variable results. So this might be a viable alternative. How long has it been since you experimented, Ovy, and is there any fading to the color and (a different matter) any less transfer onto other materials? Interesting presentation, too; I would have censored a bit more on principle, but very artistic.

Ghost808 wrote:Quick question about gundam markers...

Are they blendable, to create colour variations, or are you stuck with the static colours available?
The stock colours available from gundam are quite limited, and not necessarily ideal for light, natural skin tones (I'm looking to paint nipples, freckles, blemishes on pale/suntan TBL bodies, so need some warm pinks/yellowish browns).

Sorry if this has been answered already, I don't get much time to study the threads in detail lately.

P.s. thank you for doing all these tests and putting this thread together. It's excellent.

GubernatorFan wrote:

Ghost808 wrote:Quick question about gundam markers...

Are they blendable, to create colour variations, or are you stuck with the static colours available?
The stock colours available from gundam are quite limited, and not necessarily ideal for light, natural skin tones (I'm looking to paint nipples, freckles, blemishes on pale/suntan TBL bodies, so need some warm pinks/yellowish browns).

Sorry if this has been answered already, I don't get much time to study the threads in detail lately.

P.s. thank you for doing all these tests and putting this thread together. It's excellent.

You are welcome -- for my part.
As for Gundam Real Touch Markers, the basic answer is no, they are not readily blendable, at least not in the normal sense of the word. Remember, this is also a fairly unusual material for coloring, so it is impressive enough they work at all. The member who pointed them out to me as a solution discussed possibilities of mixing them (presumably having removed the ink/paint from the marker first) with the help of Mr.Color Thinner -- I bought that but still haven't figured out how to even experiment with it. So, theoretically there is a workaround. Also, the two sets of Gundam Real Touch Markers include a "Shade Off Marker" which appears to be intended as a colorless blender, but I'm not sure how to use it in this instance. Perhaps there are some YouTube tutorials that would shed more light on the matter. Someone asked a question about it on Amazon, which was answered as follows: "The clear is used for blending. You can move around the ink from the other pens with it for, well blending, or weathering effects." Presumably that also requires "extracting the paint." The brown provided in Set 2 can be used for natural enough effects. A single light application (soaked up immediately with a cotton swab or paper towel) would give you a slightly lighter color than two or more applications (you should still soak up the excess liquid carefully and quickly). It may take some time (and additional careful soaking up/static massage with paper towels) until a body you have colored with the real touch markers becomes completely safe to handle (no transfer at all, no smudge at all). I just checked on my real touch-colored custom Darth Maul 3.0 before posting this answer, and he is in perfect condition, colors have not faded, and there is no transfer or smudging. Do remember that these markers don't appear to be a very successful solution for painting hard plastic (they can be rubbed off -- at the very least while relatively fresh, haven't checked since). Of course here we are talking about coloring extensive areas. More limited and specific application like nipples, moles, etc is probably going to give less issues and become stable quicker.

Set 1 includes: Gray 1, Gray 2, Blue 1, Red 1, Orange 1, and "Shade Off Marker" (also called "Grading Marker" or "Blurring Marker")
Set 2 includes: Gray 3, Brown 1, Green 1, Yellow, Pink 1, and "Shade Off Marker" (also called "Grading Marker" or "Blurring Marker")

Ghost808 wrote:Thanks for the detailed answer. I figured they might only provide a fairly static colour. 
Still, maybe with some playing around, I can get the results I'm after. I think I'll try them out. I'll also look more into this grading marker too.

Your maul custom is excellent BTW. Thanks again.

Ghost808 wrote:I went with oil pastels in the end, and overall I'm pleased with the effect. So thanks all for your experiments and trial and error.

Sadly I'm not happy with my colour choices. As such, I need to ask another question...

Am I right in thinking gamsol is essentially just an odorless white spirit? And if so, can I use regular white spirit? I have a gallon of the regular stuff going spare, so would rather avoid paying out for a fancy artists spirit.
That being said, I also don't want to melt my figures!!

Anyone tried regular hardware store white spirit?

Thanks.

GubernatorFan wrote:


If you are trying to get rid of the oil pastel coloring you applied, before you try any chemicals consider other options:

1. Would applying a different oil pastel color (or two) on top and trying to blend that in make a sufficient improvement toward your desired goal? Oil pastels do not blend very easily, but they do blend.
2. Depending on just how successfully you ensconced the oil pastel into the TPE surface, repeated washing with soap and water may eventually undo or partly undo (fade?) the coloring. It takes a lot of time and effort, and you want to keep it gentle.

After our exchange, I tried painting a body to match an African American head (been planning that for a while), using the Gundam real touch markers. The process was working, but the brown was too warm a color for the head I was trying to match, and it was not a head I wanted to repaint. So I gave up on that, and proceeded to color it with oil pastel. I thought Van Dyke brown would be a close match, but it was not -- it ended up being too dark on the body, even once I applied the protective powder (which created a slightly lighter and cooler effect). So I washed off the powder again, and without trying to remove the oil pastel coloring, applied a layer of olive brown oil pastel over it, and then rubbed it in thoroughly, just like I was coloring the body from scratch. The result was somewhere in-between the two colors, and a pretty good match.

Ghost808 wrote:Hi Gub,

Thanks. I have had some good results with blending, but as you say, it's not the easiest. It requires a lot of time and care.

Sadly I overdid the blending, and ended up with too dark a colour. I also had a bit of colour bleed around the nipple (which I think is actually where I spread the colour around too much in the wiping off process. 
I used your hole punch template technique, which is great, but I think I need to go slightly smaller next time.

Another reason I want to strip some of the colour off, is that I had some oil pastel residue on my left hand when I picked up the figure, and innadvertently smeared a small strip of rosewood over the figures butt! DOH! Lesson learned.

I've given it a soapy, vigorous, but careful wash. Sadly it seems I did too good a job at working the pastel in.

The annoying thing is, I have a broken old S09 that I test everything on. Painting on that went PERFECTLY! Soon as I move onto my good quality figures....oops! Oh well

I might test basic white spirit on my old figure, and see how it goes. I'll update with my results.

P.s. I'd love to see your results with the African American recolour.

GubernatorFan wrote:


Sorry to hear it is not working. Again, I would not recommend using chemicals, but maybe I'm just being overly cautious. I have some vague notion that it might be ok to use odorless spirits or something like that. Check out this thread, it might have something about this somewhere in it (in a hurry right now, haven't searched) --
https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t215-staining-and-cleaning-continuously-updated.

GubernatorFan wrote:Update on painting silicone seamless bodies (Phicen/TBLeague) with oil-based ink

As explained above (see Post 174), oil-based ink like that in the Pilot Drawing Pens (see Post 162 above) did not prove a permanent solution when applied directly onto the silicone seamless body. That solution appears to be provided by Uni Pin Fine Line fineliner drawing pens with water and fade proof pigment ink (see Post 192 above). However, when I experimented with this last option (Uni Pin Fine Line fineliner drawing pen) on a silicone seamless body that was painted with oil pastel, it failed. So I decided to give the oil-based ink another try for this specific condition, figuring that oil ought to work on oil. Preliminary testing was very promising so I proceeded with it for my custom Darth Maul (see Parts I and II HERE). Also see The Further Adventures of Darth Maul, HERE.

Having first painted the body the base color (I looked it up, Maul's is supposed to be red), I applied the patterns of the "tattoos" (I think rather "war paint") with different tip-size (005 to 08) Pilot Drawing Pens with black oil-based ink (and, for some larger areas, black oil pastel, although that came out exceedingly dull and I partly went over it with oil-based ink). So far so good.



You want to give the ink a chance to dry, after which touching it is no problem. I knew that protecting powder ought to help (building up a thin layer between the surface and anything else), but I held off on using it, lest it dull the colors for the initial photo shoot. It was not the smartest decision (as expected), because repeated handling to pose and move the figure, however careful, led to some dulling and very slight smudging in some places. The worst problem was where areas of the surface come together (like the inside fold at the biceps or at the knee, or at the armpit and down the inside of the biceps), which allow the oil-based ink (even at a couple of days old) to transfer (stain) the clean surface. Take this into account and either coat the figure in protective powder before handling or test for staining in such places and incorporate the "problem area" into the pattern ("if you can't beat them, join them"). Now that I have coated the figure in protective powder, it seems to be doing its job, but I'm going to be handling it very rarely and very carefully.

The moral of the story is that you can draw designs on silicone seamless bodies that are painted over with oil pastel, using Pilot Drawing Pens with oil-based ink, but you need to apply protective powder after this and probably exercise great care in handling. For drawing designs on silicone seamless bodies that are not painted with oil pastels, I would stick to Uni Pin Fine Line fineliner drawing pens with water and fade proof pigment ink. Still, proceed at your own risk and apply extra protective powder (although, if you get some of the oil-based ink onto a silicone surface where you don't want it, you can wash it off with soap and water).

Update: A few weeks later, and the oil-based ink transfer issue is still a problem. While I'm experimenting to find a better solution for the painting onto oil-pastel-colored silicone bodies, one thing that has contained the problem is a vigorous but careful rubdown (or massage) of the surface with paper towels. Make sure to not move the paper towel (once used) over another area to avoid retransfer or smudging during the process. Keep going over the problem areas with fresh paper towels until you see no transfer. Theoretically, this might be the solution to the issue. But it does mean your design would look a little duller or slightly faded.

OwnsBeagles wrote:That there is the reason I even hunted up this site like-- four years ago now?  I think?  And bookmarked it.  I wanted to know if anyone could conceivably do Maul's colors and markings on a seamless, largely because I totally want to do one, and there you went and pulled it off.  Fantastic work, really; thanks for pioneering it, in case I ever have the time to make use of the damn Phicen I bought years ago hoping to make an attempt.  You probably saved me a hell of a lot of time and money.

(Also, amusingly, I am likely one of those people whose fanart you ran across.  Though I don't see him as a sex symbol, I totally ship him with his arch-nemesis and have drawn such things accordingly. )

Anyway, sorry for bringing this back around, but I wanted to give you a big thumbs up even if it's late!

GubernatorFan wrote:Thank you very much for the kind words. I'm delighted this is helpful. When it comes to you giving it a try, please read carefully the various posts here, and maybe the linked custom Maul thread. Just so there aren't any surprises or disappointments. As far as the ink/marker is concerned, I think my latest experiment, with Gundam real touch paint markers might be best (used on Maul 3.0), although with enough handling even they seem to sill transfer just a little bit. The others are just not as hard-wearing. I have yet to experiment on using the Gundam real touch markers on top of oil-pastel-colored background -- to any considerable degree. I wonder if that would be (a) practical and (b) possibly even better than Gundam on Gundam. I would be interested to see what you come up with, so don't be shy (but do keep in mind Forum policies).

OwnsBeagles wrote:If I get the time, I totally would. LOL!  (I work full time in a physically demanding job, so time becomes more and more precious the older I get.)  I do plan on re-reading even more in-depth.  Heck of an exercise, really.  As to forum policies, I am an old hat on many and can censor with the best of 'em.

Anyway, again, terrific work and I'll be sure to check out the other threads, too!