Soom Petit Gem Discussion - Part 1

I’ve had luck with Obitsu 11cm clothes.

 

Got my Leepy and Meipy yesterday, the little poodle tail is stinkin cute! Messed up on Meipy's magnets a little but I'm gonna dye it so I'll fix that later.

We had training at work this week so I doodled some rough sketches for the two in my notes. Decided to get a rough idea for Black Phillip on paper too.

Spoiler

 

Ok, so I haven't dyed a BJD, but I have dyed a My Little Pony yellow. My Little Ponies are vinyl, so plastic. If it goes anything like this, I want you to be aware that yellow is one of the colors that does not take well at all using regular dye. Some colors work better then others. Blue for example is one that works really well, yellow does not at all. It took me very literally 8-12 hours to get the color I was after. Basically, all day. I don't know the time exactly due to the fact I had to stop and eat. It's difficult enough that I actually temporarily gained some popularity due to this because no one had actually pulled yellow off yet at the time. The color I used, which is honestly a great color, is the regular rit daffodil yellow. I was happy with my result, but it was such a frustrating and time consuming experience, I can't really totally recommend it.

Due to how this went, I did do this again using Dyemore instead. I got about the same level of color intensity as I did the first round or so in a few minutes. I think it still took me 15-30 minutes though (which is still pretty slow vs some colors). However, what I discovered is that the yellow Dyemore color I bought was very much yellow, but almost to the point of being green. If I repeat this, I would absolutely add orange with the yellow. I actually at this time tinted over the yellow using the regular rit in the daffodil. This did work, but..... It took me a few hours.

So based on my experience, I'd say yellow dye is one of the safer colors to dye because it as a color does not take well to materials as well as other colors. It's a very good color to start with in the sense it's harder to overdo, but I would expect the possiblity of doing some back and forth to get it dark enough. Like those videos people drop something in and take it out, yellow may barely take in that time, even with the dyemore. The only complication is if I do this again I would absolutely use 2 colors for this if I did it: yellow and a little bit of orange.

So in short, rit dye daffodil is a great color but may not hardly take to the doll at all. If does, expect it to take a very long time.

So, before picking up dye, I'd recommend using the color chart on Rit's website so you get the proper color mix/shade. I think you'll see what I mean about the yellow shade being really yellow when you check out the swatches https://www.ritdye.com/color-formulas/?type=203&hue=0&collection=0&collaboration=0
Color Formulas — Rit Dye

For dyeing: I had 2 pots, one warm on the stove with the dye, and a second one of just water. I would drop it in the dye, stir pretty much constantly, and then move it to the water to rinse it to see how well it would adhere. Then I'd dry it or throw it back into the dye. I pulled the pony out using metal tongs. I'm not sure what to use for a bjd on this. If there's a YouTube video that may be a thing to check out. Also remarking I splattered a fair bit of yellow water around, so I'd make sure you have a bunch of room. Synthetic may not take the yellow, but other cloth things might.

Also a tip, clean the entire doll prior to dyeing like you're about to do a faceup. This will remove any mold residue that may have been missed and hopefully give you a better cleaner application. I saw a suggestion about this on Facebook. Previously I would suggest sanding to make an even surface texture, but at least cleaning the doll is a good idea I feel

 

White buttons are a great suggestion. When I did a my little pony, I used actually just a paper towel to check the color last time, but this wasn't as accurate as this would be due to the fact it takes extremely well to paper towels. A button would give you a much better idea of how long it may take for it to actually take on the color. One up side, paper towels however does still give you a very immediate idea of the color, you just don't bank on the same intensity. So if I do this again with a color mix, I'd likely check with a paper towel to get an immediate idea of where it was looking and then use a button if I was really concerned about how it was actually going to turn out

Agreed. I had an extremely frustrating time with this last time. I keep trying to tell myself: At least then all the buttons will be glued the same way on all the dolls I own but... i really did not enjoy this part of the process. I'm just glad they're blank so at least I can't chip the blushing

 

@Biff thank you so much for this information! I did buy some i-dye poly yellow and have not done anything since. I don’t want a dark yellow, so that is a plus, but I’m beginning to think I might just not dye at all and have a white Isabelle wanna be. I haven’t been inspired enough to do basic face ups and blushing for most of my time in the hobby, so I’ll procrastinate this out indefinitely. I REALLY admire everyone who has a vision and does what it takes to see it though (coming from someone who lacks this, lol).

 

Never hurts to start now if you want to try it. I'm sure others would love this custom too if you decided to do it, but I can't blame you for not wanting to. I've not gotten much of anything done lately either and I've done a lot of this customizing. It's a lot of work. No question. I will say I've heard using layered pastels as an alternative for coverage for doing monster high dolls, which would be an idea without dyeing, but that's still a lot of work

 

I got a bottle of Rit Dymore in Sapphire Blue today. I just noticed the one I'm planning to dye has some rough seam lines in a couple of places. If I sand them down will the dye come out uneven in those spots?

 

I got great results with RIT dyemore Daffodil, personally. I added a pinch of Racing Red, but I only had to submerge the parts for a minute or two before I got the shade I wanted.


My phone doesn't capture it well, but it turned out a nice warm yellow.

@Leo Pheonix You will want to sand them with multiple grits (going up in number, but going down in roughness), to get it as smooth as possible. If you just sand it with too rough sandpaper, it will definitely show difference.
You can get sets of sandpaper pads for very fine sanding, which are very helpful in this type of situation.

 

Heres my Meipy/Ondiin she's the third in a bunch of 6 Petitgems that I got from the FCE. Shes mostly dyed with some carefully placed putty to keep parts white/yellow

 

Thanks for the advice @Snow ! I already have some superfine sanding blocks I got for another project (and a particle mask) so I can hopefully get her sanded and dyed this week.

 

Snow this is just perfect since I was planning on using that exact color. Yours turned out great, can't wait to get the time to do mine.

So far I've taken it apart, need to attach strings next. Holy moly the parts look even tinier when separated!

Was gonna do everything this weekend but I had reoccurring headaches and migraines the whole time, oof.

 

I got a secondhand meipy with oniidon parts in white from the pick your own event! I'm so excited to get them!

 

I forgot to take photos but I got my dolls!! Yayyyyy!

I have a question! Has anyone checked Lati yellow 1/8 with the Petit gems?

 

Are you asking about clothes or how they look together? Σ(￣。￣ﾉ)

 

Clothes but... How they look together would be cute! Either are good

 

I tried a Mattel Kelly dress that also fits a Puki Puki on one of mine, and it fit well on their narrow shoulders. Stretchy pants fit too, though they're snug. I'm guessing Lati yellow clothes would be much too big.

I dyed my Dreaming Ondiin face Leepy today, and while taking the pieces out of the left and right envelopes I'd put them in I dropped a hand and couldn't find it I swapped out one of the hands on my other FCE one, since the resin's the same. I was hoping I'd find it later today, but I didn't . I hope I find it soon, the undyed one currently has a paintbrush holding the elastic I place of the hand and its S-hook.

 

I have a TTYA Yellow Latty jacket and it looks too big for a Petit gem.
It is large even for Ringo from Pipos (it is also 12 cm), and it is wider than the Petit Gem.
In my experience, they are well suited for clothes for obitsu11. But not all pants, PG's hips are bigger.

 

My newly blue rabbit is restrung with the original elastic and all the magnets glued in place, but is now so floppy she can't stand up! The tension in her arms is fine, but her torso joint is so loose her head and upper body keep drooping as far as the elastic will allow.

 

Oh, this doesn't sound good
Perhaps gluing and tightening a new knot will help?

 

Tightening is always the first thing I do on Petitgems - also had to do that on all 6 PGs I got recently - pulling on a leg and getting 10cm of 'useless' stringing is really annoying :,)