Darker Skin Tones?

I wanted a dark skinnged BJD too (but I suppose I'm biased) but honestly, I don't think any of the major companies have made one. Some of the smaller ones might have, I'm really not sure. But you can always just tan them especially dark yourself if you know how. If you don't I'm sure someone here could do it for you.

 

This has been asked before and was locked.. this type of topic is usually hard to discuss. ^^;

http://denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6229

 

As far as I can make out, it's because apparently it's very difficult to dye the resin so that it takes evenly (or at all).

 

mmm...yes, there was some discussion about the darker resin colors in Donn's thread about the making of his dolls. From what he said, the darker colors tend to cure unevenly, apparently because of the heat emitted from the molds while the resin sets. He said when he did it, the bigger pieces ended up a different shade than the smaller pieces (heads and torsos vs. hands and arms). *wanders off to find the link*

Edit: Linkage!

The post he mentioned this in...
AND the thread itself

 

I agree, I think it's more due to the difficulty of dark resin than that there's no market for it, or that the companies think it's not pretty..I've heard they make 5 tan Hounds, and only one comes out even O.O but there are more and more tan dolls coming out, perhaps, after a while, the companies will find out ways to make the resin even darker..

 

You could do what others have done, using color to airbrush a darker shade, then MSC the whole thing to keep it done.
Someone used vinyl to make a white (and devil) Lishe... Was it Paul?

 

Someone painted a very dark skinned Nono once. She looked Indian and was quite pretty...but I don't remember the link or anything. Maybe it's in that other discussion thread... *laziness*

 

Yeah, from what I've gatherd the dark skin dolls are just hard to do in resin.I guess thats why any tan dolls that companys make are limited.

 

I was thinking recently that I would like to find more dark skin girl dolls, but after looking for a bit it didn't seem like there were any.

Dumb newbie question #1: Could you get a regular skinned doll, and then airbrush it?

EDIT: n/m. Someone mentioned it a couple of posts above me and I somehow missed that. ^^;

 

I'm just waiting for DOD to release their tanned guardian boys!(i read this somewhere here o.o) I'd love to purchase a DOC tanned SI he's just perfect for the character i made,dark skin, white hair and beautiful esmerald eyes!(i think i got something with green eyes ) so x.X

 

I've heard that you can dye or paint dolls a darker color, so that would be cool, just be careful

Volks' sunlight skin is very delicate, I've heard, and it is very hard to keep the color even, if you sand it yourself. If a doll had even darker skin, the "sand marks" would stand out glaringly.

It would be cool to have more dolls with deeper skintones in the future. They'd look so pretty and exotic! A Drow (dark elf) doll would be awesome too! But in that case, the skin would need to be completely black. That might be hard to do...

 

Yeah -- the reason isn't that companies don't want to make darker dolls (tan dolls always sell like crazy), it's that it's *very* difficult to get this type of resin to take pigment evenly throughout the doll body and parts . . . and coloring only the outside of the resin means that the color will wear away around the joints or on scratch marks.

Doll companies are definitely aware of the desire for more dolly skin tones, so it's not just you wanting them, they're trying to make them!!

-- Andi

 

To piggyback on everyone's comments about it being difficult to make the darker dolls -- if you check out the DOT thread, you'll see someone mentioning that many of the Korean orders have been delayed because they're having problems making the tanned DOTs.

 

Despite the fact that the Western world and Asia have been having a love affair for some time now, I doubt the doll companies have even considered bringing out any dolls that are darker then the tanned. Most tanned seem to have the skin tone of the darker skinned of the Asians (at least Kazumi-chan was that dark... then again she was also ashamed to mention it, but she was of the Japanese Ain(?) minority group(basically the Native American/Aboriginal people of Japan before the Koren invaders came in and made themselves into the Japanese)) while most seem to represent traditional obession with pale skin Asians have always held in esteem. I mean, Asian ladies used to pain their faces white with powder and bird doo-doo. While it's not as bad as the Europeans taking Belladonna ("beautiful lady" AKA Deadly Nightshade) to make their skin pale, it's still rather extreme.

While people are mentioning that darker skin tones are hard to make, I believe that if enough people asked for really dark dolls the companies would start thinking about it. After all, I bet they haven't even considered making an Indian or a African dark skinned type.

It's probably a good thing I have no artistic skill and I don't own a airbrush or one of my dolls would become Middle East dark right about now.

 

Honestly, I doubt it's really a matter of race like people seem to think-- yes, there are racial issues in Japan, even with the Ainu, but it's not something I'm going to get into on here.

It's really more a matter of A: the resin and B) interest. If you look at the majority of collectable dolls in the world, most of them are pale skinned. People are used to it, it's more acceptable and more people will buy it.

Personally, I'd love to see some darker skinned dolls-- Particularly the Delf models (Dark Skinned Soo *___*;;; ) but I think that there will not be enough interest and sales outside of a few interesting limiteds to warrant spending the money trying to develop and perfect the process of making dark resin.

 

Please let's not shift this thread into one about racial issues or cultural issues. Thanks!

 

I do think that at least a part of it is that it's hard to dye the resin intense or darker colors. I have some friends who wanted to make some dark brown resin spikes for an armor project. Eventually, if you put enough dye in the resin, it just won't take any more color. The dye just seeps out and doesn't go into the resin anymore. They eventually had to go with a light/medium grey and PAINT the resin spikes brown. It was very grueling!

Also, think about the first CustomHouse tan dolls and how you couldnt really sand them... and how even with newer current tan dolls from all companies like Volks, CH, DoD, etc... that they worry about you sanding the doll (that it might get paler, etc.)

Also, consider what Anu says on tenisya.com about her tan Hounds:

however, I do think that if people write various companies and say that you like tanned skin dolls, and that you'd like to see one with an even darker skin, that eventually, they might make one. I think that many people requested tan skin, and so eventually companies made it! Didn't DoD say that tan skin DoTs came as a request?

 

From what I've heard, Dark-colored resin is not only hard to produce, it's also almost twice as expensive. I think 1 in 5 of the Tanned Hounds actually came out well. It's not necessarily a question of race, it's more of the fact that it is extremely difficult to reproduce.