Acrylic paints I tend to use a lot of for these sorts of things. Small brushes work great for tiny details, but the draw back, is it often takes a few layers of paint. Plastic is about the worst surface for acrylic.
Pencils and pastels and other dry materials will need a sealer of some sort. Mr. Super Clear is good for solid parts, but things like the shoes, not so much. Its not designed to really flex and stretch so the sealer can crack in those areas and show up white.
Paint markers are fantastic for detailing and tend to have a lot of control, but its often hard to find the small tips for hard to reach places.
I didn't really do a step by step for this, because each item is going to be different, but I will give you the steps I used. When starting, you have two options, paint over the existing paint, or be OCD like me and strip it down the the base plastic colour. Most plastics have a base colour that they are cast in. In this case I'm useing Frankie's Maul shoes and basic purse. Winsor and Newton Brush Cleaner and a Magic Eraser and voila! Solid black bases to start fresh.
I sealed both with MSC (I know I said don't use it on shoes, but I can't follow even my own instructions sometimes. In the end I wipe the MSC off the black sides, but I really wanted to use coloured pencil on the shoes.)
The sole and tongue of the boots I coloured with a couple layers of coloured pencil and I gave a couple layers of pencil to the purse as well, but as I wanted the purse to look like a different material I put acrylic paint over it. I did a lot of detailing with a tiny brush and some silver paint and took off the MSC from areas the shoes would be stretching to fit. My dolls all have one 'official' look so I'm not planning to be taking the shoes off much.
So for about an hours worth of work, swapping pieces as another one dried I have this;
And that's pretty much all there is to repainting accessories. Its really easy, just takes patience since if you're using acrylic and sealer everything has to dry in between so I tend to work on more than one piece at a time.
On to clothing dyeing!
First pick the clothing and the tools. In my case, Frankie's Maul fashion and Prismacolors markers.
You can use Sharpies, they now come in a wide array of colours, and you can also use actual fabric dye. As I am only dyeing this one doll dress green, I don't need a whole box of Rit dye sitting around here.
So decide the colour you want and test in out of the way unseen spots. The dress has extra fabric inside for the seams and I tested around the waist band of the leggings.
Also think colour theory, how you mix colours. I wanted a green that popped more so I ended up colouring the blue diamonds with yellow and the red with purple. The dress got a full light green.
Also important, NEVER do this while the doll is wearing the outfit. Markers bleed and vinyl stains.
After you've finished colouring each colour, let it dry. If you add a second colour to a wet colour, it will bleed into the first. After its completely dry, wash the pieces in warm water, until it runs clear. Darker colours tend to give me trouble and bleed forever, so I actually put those in the washer with some dark clothes I'm washing. If you don't rinse out all the dye it can stain your girl. Even the Sharpies.
Dress the doll and accessorize!
The leggings ended up a bit too Christmas, even though the red squares have a purple tinge, so I went with black for the complete outfit.
And with that, Mara Nigh, daughter of the Nightmare is complete!
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