how did the myth of "tan dolls are harder to care for" get started?

I don't think its much of a myth that tan skin is harder to deal with. Some companies had colour issues as have been pointed out. Some earlier companies only sprayed the tan colour on the top layers so if there was damage you couldn't sand it or you'd ruin the tan. And even today its hard for the companies to mix the tans and depending on the dyes, sanding can still ruin the tan. And, as has been mentioned, the batches don't always match. Even normal skins have differences in colour from batch to catch and they don't have as much or as strong of dyes.

Another issue is that they are harder to face up as well because some resins have had issues changing colours with the sealers, either from reaction or because the sealers can come off a light colour that you don't really notice on a lighter doll.

Its not that the tan skin needs to be protected all the time or treated special, just that the tan can cause some issues.

 

And a few people in that old thread were saying that Testors Dullcote can leave white spots on tan resin... This post isn't the only one, but go scroll around in there & read some of the testimonials (it's hair-raising reading)...

http://www.denofangels.com/forums/s...-in-sunlight!!&p=881567&viewfull=1#post881567

I don't personally know anything about Testors. I do know firsthand that that Zoukeimura powder-spray doesn't leave any kind of 'frosting' effect or filming on brown tan resin, and it is also easy to work with, so I would endorse that.

 

You're right though - it does sometimes seem totally random when dolls from the same batch don't age at the same speed (or in line with how they've been cared for). Luck of the draw, I guess!

I like the Games Workshop sealant as a non-so-cloudy alternative on darker resins as well.

Which reminds me, regarding the clouding not being as noticeable on lighter dolls, I think that’s the flip side of this:

I don’t think it’s so much that the white dolls will yellow/green faster (although some have been known to, of course) as much as it is that colour changes are just more obvious on them. A friend has an only mildly greened white skin doll (one of the Luts CP dolls, I think?) and the greening was fairly obvious most of the time while my very greened Lt Cocori actually still looks decent in low lighting. It’s not that they are harder to care for (or were – these are both older dolls), it’s just that (as with the cloudiness in reverse) damage/change on the same level is easier to disguise one on versus the other.

 

I'm a pretty late bloomer on this subject, but personally I thought it started with the whole Iplehouse issue. I heard about how the darker skin dolls would turn green from sun or heat exposure, even saw a few. That being said, I guess that phrase stemmed from that, since, unless you have a Hulk fetish, you'd have to keep your doll away from windows, or just not take them outside. That, and like for modding where it would involve sanding, since you start to impose on the pigment at that point. I could be wrong, but that's all I could think of.

 

Back in 2005/6, when this idea of tanned dolls was fresh and new, there was a tan Kiss from Dollkot that exhibited noticeable greening after one trip out into the outdoors, and he wasn't even exposed to full sunlight. I think that's the one that started the whole 'tanned dolls are hard to look after' thing.

 

Actually that's not true, I distinctly remember someone posting a thread about their greened hound, and the colour difference was dramatic. I think they were selling it and someone may have ended up rescuing it to try and fix up? It's been so long, hard to remember. Also I owned a tan hound, bought in early 2006 and after several months he showed early signs of greening too, despite being kept in shadows. I freaked out and packed him up for a couple years, and when I looked again it hadn't worsened, but I was too worried to keep him and ended up selling.

So it definitely wasn't a myth back then. Not sure about now.

edit: oh they talk about the tan hound in that thread as well xD.

 

I never even read Volks's info blog entry about how to use that ZM Powder spray, but this could be helpful!

http://site.volksusa.com/sumikatimes/2009/08/27/zm-finishing-powder-spray-overview/

... which sounds like another thing for tan doll customizers to be careful of. So, it seems HOW you spray your doll is just as important as what kind of spray to use: 1. Shake it up sufficiently, 2. Use it on a warm/dry day, 3. Move the can around while spraying, and 4. Don't spray it on too thickly.

When it's used correctly, though, the results on tan resin are great. : I was so scared to paint my Tan Mano that first time, but that ZM spray was so easy to handle, & there wasn't a bit of white film/frosting.

... Yeah, that thread is 12 long pages of great/scary reading! Anybody who'd ever noticed their dolls being green spoke up all at once. ;; Well, it was big news.

What Dolkot/Dollshecraft was protesting was that none of the other Kisses & Hounds from that batch had ever done that sudden catastrophic greening-and-crumbling that the poor tan Kiss had gone through. Which, y'know, I can get their dismay/surprise. Freakiness.

I too have met some very green Tan Hounds in my day, as well, but they had greened in the normal manner. And do you remember how eggplant-y some of those guys used to come out in the first place?.. O_o Some batches of tan Hounds were positively grey-purple, some just looked toasted, I mean.... odd shades of brown. Even Iplehouse's first attempt (Tan Soo Ri 1) was/is a sort of red-brown-terracotta color; they didn't nail that lovely toffee-brown shade until their second attempt. Tan resin was still an infant science at the time. ^^ It's come such a long way.

 

Oh well guess I can't say but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them may have had the same problem. I was pretty enamored with my guy and looked at him constantly and kept him safe and never allowed him in daylight and didn't notice anything amiss until one day, it was sudden. Being put out in the sun for an hour may have had much more dramatic effect.

Yep glad to hear the times have changed! I'm still a little gun shy about tan dolls though, illogically.

 

De nada! ^^ Volks's blogs are full of useful hobby-materials information, I can't even keep up with them. They have a bazillion other hobby products besides BJDs (model kits, robots, you name it) and they carry the materials needed for all of 'em, so they generally know what they're talking about.

I know, right-- of COURSE the company & the caster would both say "but it's never happened to anyone else's doll". ;; I too wouldn't be surprised if there was one or more other cases of that catastrophic-greening thing, somewhere out in the world, but we'll never know at this point. Not everything reaches DOA (not even today, with our Phenomenal World Domination Powers XD).

A moment of silence and a memorial beer for your poor departed Hound! Hope he's happy out there somewhere.

 

It's funny to see this now, because I have an AR NT Ren from 2006, right around when the greening issue came up. I was so paranoid that he was either kept in a box or covered even when my other dolls weren't. I recently took him out of his box for the first time in *cough* three years, and while his coloring doesn't appear to have changed at all, his head is a very slightly different shade from the rest of his body. I assumed it had something to do with whatever coating AR used on their faceups. His face is almost more... matte? It doesn't show up in pictures, and I never noticed it years ago. I'm glad to know I wasn't imagining it.

 

For once, that's not a tan-resin-only problem: Faces staying more "matte" than bodies happens to all colors of resin. Sealant ages. If the faceup has sealant on, but the body doesn't, its texture will look different over time. If it's a white or NS doll, its face might look more yellowed than the body, because the sealant's yellowed. On tan dolls, I notice a slightly ashy effect on the face only, wherever sealant is. Even when the tan resin doesn't discolor, ashiness is gonna happen unless you wipe the faceup & put on a fresh one.

(But, if you're preserving old LE faceups, like me, you're probably not into that idea. ^^ I personally love my old guys' old faceups enough not to care if they get ashy or yellow faces.)

And by the way, can I take this opportunity to say ZOMG Tanning Ren. Loooooove him!! It sounds like you've done right by him, the little beauty. But alas, we can't stop the aging of sealant. Time only goes one way. ;;

 

My tan Supia Rosy quickly developed a faint greenish tint to her face, neck and chest less than a year after I got her. She was in the same room as all my other dolls away from sunlight and heat sources, and the artifical lights rarely get switched on in that room. It doesn't bother me much though and it's not so noticeable, I put it down to bad luck and the rare risk with coloured resin rather than a common fault with Supia's tan resin. Iplehouse's tan resin seems very stable, I have an LT Kamau and he has no discoloration whatsoever. I bought a cheap, secondhand LT Cocori even though she had the same greenish tint as my Rosy but since I got her it has stabilised.

 

The weird thing is, it's not a problem on any of my other dolls, just the NT Ren. My Present Ren is only a year older and doesn't seem to have any difference between face and body, and my Mystic Adel is a similar shade of tan and he's the same color all over too. I don't think the color difference could ever hit a point that I would wipe any of their faces, though--I, too, am a preserver of LE faceups. Kyou (tan Ren) hasn't yellowed/greened/faded/changed at all, despite being 6+ years old; he still perfectly matches his extra hands, which have been bagged and boxed since being made. I guess Angelregion knew what they were doing with the dye!

You can, indeed, take a moment to ZOMG over Tanning Ren. I will ZOMG right with you. There's something about that particular shade of resin that just kills me, and I've never seen its like.

 

To be honest these horror stories are exactly why it took me (and several different inputs) a month and a half to decide to save up the extra money for an LT RS Mei when I could've gotten white skin...I didn't want the RS White or NS because it just...Was so pale and plain looking to me whilst it is beautiful it's not what I wanted...And the choice is mine...I plan on taking dozens of photo's to illustrate a story and some of those will be in sunlight...Do I worry?

Yes but if I worry all the time then am I really enjoying my doll or am I afraid of it?

THAT is the question.

 

Does anyone know when Iplehouse first created the Realskin tone?

 

Right... there were some of those issues with tan dolls. But there are normal and white dolls that have had problems with unusually fast or odd greening or yellowing.

I think it's because you have to be careful with sanding and modding and msc-ing... Or making repairs when there is damage or scratches...

But if you don't plan on doing that, then it really isn't any different than owning any doll.

I think it's also that tans and other colors haven't been done for as long as the other colors, and companies have to try new resin recipies for them... and sometimes there could be problems... So people just weren't used to having those colors, and companies weren't always prepared for what happens when making those colors, so they could be more difficult to make and buyers were more wary about them. That's about all there is to it.

Most companies have figured out how to make different colors... but they are still sometimes experimenting... so you never quite know.

But that's true of all colors of resins, if it's a new formula, anyway...

 

Hmmm this was a really interesting thread to read. I'm getting ready to buy my first tan doll next month, an Island Doll Lilith and I do hope to be able to get her head modded so I'll definitely keep everything here in mind.