Follow along (and help me) as I learn how to airbrush silicone nipples

[dparson]

Thanks Gizmoses, that matte vs gloss finish video is actually the one that led me down the path of trying the matte thinner. It does work somewhat but having watched a ton of "reborn doll" videos about matting silicone finishes, that community confirms it's too inconsistent and only looks matte under certain lighting conditions. Instead, they all do their painting with normal, glossy thinner and then perform a matting procedure afterward.

[dparson]

Well I finally got back to this project a couple of days ago. Having watched a ton of reborn baby painting videos on YouTube, here is the best one to reference for matting. It shows the consistency of the silicone that you apply beforehand along with lots of tips and a complete demonstration of the process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khgZRtQtHfQ

So yesterday I got the doll ready and sprayed the color. To make the paint adhere as much as possible I cleaned everything with soapy water several times and cleaned the areas to paint thoroughly with isopropyl alcohol (the alcohol is key to help make the paint stick as previously tested). I then applied a few light coats of paint to the point where it just started to get runny, waited an hour, then added a few more coats until the final coverage was achieved. It was 1g part A, 1g part B, 3g normal thinner, along with white and red pigments. I did practice airbrushing a bit on a paper towel beforehand since I hadn't picked it up in about 6 weeks. The 28mm diameter stencil was used to establish the circle and I did the rest free hand. I also added a little color to the fingernails.

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Think I nailed the color this time, it matches the color in "the goal" picture pretty well. One difference that I couldn't help was needing a more opaque color than the goal picture since I have faded and cracked paint underneath that shows through. I only added enough layers of color to *mostly* cover the older paint, but you can see the result is an areola that is less translucent than the goal picture. The other difference I notice is the color fading around the areola isn't as good as the goal picture. You can see the one on the left has a smoother fade than the one on the right, but neither are quite as good as the goal picture. I think this part just takes some practice and very good lighting...neither of which I have.

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That brings us to today where I continued on and mixed up a tiny batch of parts A & B (too small for my 1g scale to measure so I just did it by eye) and then added some thinner to create a runny mixture that matched the consistency shown in the YouTube video.

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I then took one of the special latex-free sponges (that won't inhibit the silicone) and applied the runny mixture to the nipple area, dabbing it to create a very thin layer that extended 1-2cm outside of the painted areola.

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Using one of the smaller brushes in the set (since I will only be doing the nipple area), I proceeded to spoon the fumed silica "matting powder" onto a paper towel and rubbed it around to break up any clumps and saturate the brush (again as was done in the YouTube video).

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I then dabbed the powdered brush onto the wet silicone. The area immediately took on a matte finish and looked exactly how it appeared on the YouTube video.

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Unlike all my previous posts that included painting overtop of some type of release agent, the paint and matting done yesterday and today is as permanent as I can make it. So fingers crossed this new matting procedure works out and I'll report the final results tomorrow!

[dparson]

Total success, the runny silicone and fumed silica powder worked perfectly!

Here's how the unused silicone cured. It only took an hour or two since it didn't have a lot of thinner in it.

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And here's the final result. The silica washed off easily with soapy water and was cleaned further with isopropyl alcohol. I tried scratching off the finish (and paint) and thankfully didn't have any luck, it is extremely robust and just feels like it's a part of the original silicone when I scratched and stretched it. I was pretty aggressive too since I really want to see how it holds up. After all of that the matte finish remained pristine and as you can see, blends seemlessly with the areas where it wasn't applied (it was applied in a circle with a radius 1-2cm larger than the areola). It's completely matte in all lighting conditions and matches the rest of the doll perfectly.

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A year ago when I first received the doll, its very light pink areolas looked faded and didn't have complete color coverage, especially on the more vertical surfaces indicated with the arrow below. So today's result is far better than the doll ever looked, the coverage is much more consistent and complete.

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Having gone through all of this, I think I could perform a similar type of paint repair in 2 days now, one to paint and one to matte, so not too bad. I hope all the pictures and the writeup helps someone else. Some of the major lessons learned:

• A cheap airbrush can work, especially with normal (non-matte) thinner.

• The silicone and thinner (paint) mixture needs to be like water: 1g part A, 1g part B, and 3 parts thinner is a good starting point. If it's too thick the paint will splatter and more easily clog the airbrush.

• Make the paint less translucent by adding more pigment.

• Even though PsychoPaint has a working time of 20 minutes, when you thin it enough for airbrushing, the working time can be 4+ hours...you just need to add more thinner as it evaporates.

• The airbrush will not usually clog if you rinse it out with thinner after a spraying session but if it does clog, use a toothpick or the cleaning tools that came with the airbrush to clean the needle cap since that's probably where the paint dried. Don't let wet paint dry on any brizzle brushes since it's hard to remove from all the fine brizzles, instead let the paint dry inside the airbrush's cavities and then use cleaning tools to remove it.

• A stencil is great for making circles.

• A thin layer of petroleum jelly makes a great release agent and works well for removing practice painting.

• Isopropyl alcohol must be used to clean the raw silicone before paint is applied to give it the best chance to adhere well.

• Matting should be done by applying a matting powder, such as fumed silica, overtop a thin layer of wet silicone and thinner (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khgZRtQtHfQ)

I'll post follow up pictures as the year progresses since it will be interesting to see how the matte finish and coloring hold up.

[dparson]

Here's a high resolution picture of the final result. It will be nice to have this stored here for reference in the future.

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[muesky6969]

First off thank you for being so detailed with the process.. I have only been working on TPE dolls and am planning on adding silicone dolls the modification process. Here is something I figured out when painting TPE that may work with silicone. Felting needles... I was working on a modification of an older doll. Prepared the tpe like I always do, made the tpe paste paint, applied the paint only to have it peal off right after it dried.

A few months back I picked up a set of felting needles, to see if that would make hair punching easier. After prepping the area for paint, I used the felting needles (seven needle set) and made small punches around the area I was going to paint. Then I applied the paint and before it dried I used the same needle set again and punched the paint a little deeper in to the tpe.. Used some thinner to smooth out the punches and let it cure for a couple of days. Now the only way to get it off is to cut it off.

You do have to be careful in what direction you punch in the paint, and always punch towards the center, because for lighter colored TPE you can see the embedded paint. Darker tpe isn't really a problem..

Another idea that may help with the process is instead of using paper to make the paint templates that you have to move up and down to blur the edges, you could use plastic sour cream, dairy containers. Cut out the template and the container to the right height so it sets at the right height, without having to hold the template and paint gun at the same time.

Again, thank you for this.. It is given me a lot to think about when it comes to modifications on silicone dolls.

[dparson]

Thanks for those additional ideas. Just to clarify, I didn't use the template for shading of the nipples, instead it was just used to establish a starting circle. I found it far easier to do the airbrushing free hand due to the nature of how airbrushing works (or at least how mine worked). It put out just a tiny amount of color and in an equally tiny area, and the template got in the way of been able to see how the coverage and shading was progressing. Before I had any experience with the airbrush I thought the template idea would be perfect but it just didn't work because of the behavior of how the airbrush lays down color in a very tiny area.

[john1972]

If you contact SmoothOn they will tell you that there Psycho Paint system will not adhere well to silicone that has been cured for more then a few days to a week..
This is probably why its peeling off your doll..
Instead they told me to use there pigments and mix it into silpoxy and thin it with there standard or matte finish thinner..

[RevJack]

If you contact SmoothOn they will tell you that there Psycho Paint system will not adhere well to silicone that has been cured for more then a few days to a week..
This is probably why its peeling off your doll..
Instead they told me to use there pigments and mix it into silpoxy and thin it with there standard or matte finish thinner..

I've worked with smooth-on and their products fo over 10 years. I have had them consult on projects I was undertaking. Tell me who you talked to at smooth-on and he will lose his job.
Psycho paint is a silicone has been specially formulated to improve the ability to adhere to fully cured silicone. Yes, for the fullest and best adherence you psycho-paint just after the target substrate has set and demolded.
However, that's just not always possible. Psycho-paint still continually out performs competing products and silicone mixes for surface adhesion.
When they sell $10,000 of the stuff to repaint a life size T-Rex, I doubt if the guy selling it their top customer tells them "there Psycho Paint system will not adhere well to silicone that has been cured for more then a few days to a week.." (sic).

Thinning Silpoxy is silly since it is not a silicone and it cures hard(ish) and is not pleasant on soft ladybits.

Why would a professional company like smooth-on design a product and then tell (just) you that it doesn't do what it is designed to do.
Bah!

Reverend Jack

[dparson]

This is probably why its peeling off your doll..

The only time I had trouble with psycho paint adhearing was when I didn't clean the area to be painted with isopropyl alchohol. If I only cleaned the area with soapy water and rinsed, the paint stuck a little bit but could be scratched off if you tried. However, after cleaning further with IPA it would bond extremely well as mentioned (and tested) in viewtopic.php?p=2475969#p2475969 and viewtopic.php?p=2503964#p2503964 I scratched the paint really hard with my fingernails on these two tests to try and peel it off and was unsuccessful both times. On that first post I was only able to start the paint peeling by picking at the top part of the paint circle that did not have raw, IPA-cleaned silicone underneath.

I'll be sure to post follow ups as time progresses (I set myself a reminder in 3 months...May 23rd) to report how the painting holds up under real world usage with a doll. It hasn't been too long but so far, no problems at all and the paint is still sticking great. I used 1g Psycho partA, 1g Psycho partB, and 3-4g of normal thinner to produce a mixture that was extremely watery for airbrushing. Enough thinner has to be added so it drips off the mixing stick immediately with small drops and normal thinner was used after a ton of testing (with pics) of the matte thinner being a big fail.

To go along with RevJack's post, I think for repairing our dolls, sil-poxy has limited applications. It cures so hard that I'd only use it for areas that are never exposed. Even if you have torn silicone on an arm or the middle of the back, I'd still use psycho paint or the no-name silicone flesh color adhesive on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-Adhesiv ... B0BNPJ8K92 as a bonding agent because they cure so much softer.

[john1972]

If you contact SmoothOn they will tell you that there Psycho Paint system will not adhere well to silicone that has been cured for more then a few days to a week..
This is probably why its peeling off your doll..
Instead they told me to use there pigments and mix it into silpoxy and thin it with there standard or matte finish thinner..

I've worked with smooth-on and their products fo over 10 years. I have had them consult on projects I was undertaking. Tell me who you talked to at smooth-on and he will lose his job.
Psycho paint is a silicone has been specially formulated to improve the ability to adhere to fully cured silicone. Yes, for the fullest and best adherence you psycho-paint just after the target substrate has set and demolded.
However, that's just not always possible. Psycho-paint still continually out performs competing products and silicone mixes for surface adhesion.
When they sell $10,000 of the stuff to repaint a life size T-Rex, I doubt if the guy selling it their top customer tells them "there Psycho Paint system will not adhere well to silicone that has been cured for more then a few days to a week.." (sic).

Thinning Silpoxy is silly since it is not a silicone and it cures hard(ish) and is not pleasant on soft ladybits.

Why would a professional company like smooth-on design a product and then tell (just) you that it doesn't do what it is designed to do.
Bah!

Reverend Jack

Because I lie, I love to lie..
It was about a year ago when I bought the pigments..
But maybe come to think of it.. I was dreaming ..
My plan was to mix there pigments with Permatex and thin that using there matte finish thinner because I was told to
not use there Psycho paint to repaint my old Zelex 165 because the silicone had cured too long and the paint would not stick good and
just peel off..
I will see if I can find the email.. Because its probably not there and I lie .
I have not tried it yet..
But I am sorry to offend you lol..
Like I said.. I love to lie ..

[john1972]

This is probably why its peeling off your doll..

The only time I had trouble with psycho paint adhearing was when I didn't clean the area to be painted with isopropyl alchohol. If I only cleaned the area with soapy water and rinsed, the paint stuck a little bit but could be scratched off if you tried. However, after cleaning further with IPA it would bond extremely well as mentioned (and tested) in viewtopic.php?p=2475969#p2475969 and viewtopic.php?p=2503964#p2503964 I scratched the paint really hard with my fingernails on these two tests to try and peel it off and was unsuccessful both times. On that first post I was only able to start the paint peeling by picking at the top part of the paint circle that did not have raw, IPA-cleaned silicone underneath.

I'll be sure to post follow ups as time progresses (I set myself a reminder in 3 months...May 23rd) to report how the painting holds up under real world usage with a doll. It hasn't been too long but so far, no problems at all and the paint is still sticking great. I used 1g Psycho partA, 1g Psycho partB, and 3-4g of normal thinner to produce a mixture that was extremely watery for airbrushing. Enough thinner has to be added so it drips off the mixing stick immediately with small drops and normal thinner was used after a ton of testing (with pics) of the matte thinner being a big fail.

To go along with RevJack's post, I think for dolls, sil-poxy has limited applications. It cures so hard that I'd only use it for areas that are never exposed. Even if you have torn silicone on an arm or the middle of the back, I'd still use psycho paint or the no-name silicone flesh color adhesive on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-Adhesiv ... B0BNPJ8K92 as a bonding agent because they cure so much softer.

Thanks id love to see how it works out..
I only said what they told me in emails..
I even was fully honest with them and told them it was for a Human sized Platinum Silicone Doll..
Not sure why they would tell me it was not a good choice when this Rev guy says its the best..
Maybe he works for them ..
But I am thrilled to see results that work because I am still debating on re painting my doll so this info is great news
Thanks for sharing and keep me posted ..

[john1972]

Here you go RevJack guy..


Jeff Purdon, Material Specialist:
Hi John, thank you for your inquiry. If you are outside that recommended 2 day window for using Psycho Paint, a better option would be to use the same technique of thinning out and pigmenting our Sil-Poxy silicone adhesive. Applying Psycho Paint to silicone that is 6 months cured you will find that it would be easy to rub or flake off like it seems the previous paint coat did. You will also want to make sure the silicone is free of dust, grease, or any other contaminant that might weaken the bond. Wiping clean with acetone would be the best option for this.



WOW I was not crazy ..

[dparson]

My plan was to mix there pigments with Permatex and thin that using there matte finish thinner because I was told to
not use there Psycho paint

Please learn from my mistakes and don't use matte thinner. Study the pictures I posted to see how it looks after curing (viewtopic.php?p=2478387#p2478387)...note how it still had tons of gloss under many lighting conditions. Instead, follow the matting process that I linked to in my posts, there's a whole re-born doll community on YouTube that shows how to properly matte silicone after painting and my final pics where I copied their process backup the results.

Here you go RevJack guy..

Nice man and thanks for checking. It's good to know sil-poxy might be useful for some painting situations. Again it's super hard when cured so I wouldn't use it on a soft silicone doll.

[john1972]

My plan was to mix there pigments with Permatex and thin that using there matte finish thinner because I was told to
not use there Psycho paint

Please learn from my mistakes and don't use matte thinner. Study the pictures I posted to see how it looks after curing (viewtopic.php?p=2478387#p2478387)...note how it still had tons of gloss under many lighting conditions. Instead, follow the matting process that I linked to in my posts, there's a whole re-born doll community on YouTube that shows how to properly matte silicone after painting and my final pics where I copied their process backup the results.

Here you go RevJack guy..

Nice man and thanks for checking. It's good to know sil-poxy might be useful for some painting situations. Again it's super hard when cured so I wouldn't use it on a soft silicone doll.

I only told you because it was what they told me lol.
I felt the same way RevJack thinks...
Why would they tell me if it was not true so..
But I have never used there Silpoxy it is quite expensive and was told I could mix there silicone pigments into the Permatex #81730 and thin and spray it..
So I got that and never did try it lol.
So you used there matte finish thinner and that was a problem?
I will have to read over this post closer ..
Thanks

[RevJack]

Here you go RevJack guy..


Jeff Purdon, Material Specialist:
Hi John, thank you for your inquiry. If you are outside that recommended 2 day window for using Psycho Paint, a better option would be to use the same technique of thinning out and pigmenting our Sil-Poxy silicone adhesive. Applying Psycho Paint to silicone that is 6 months cured you will find that it would be easy to rub or flake off like it seems the previous paint coat did. You will also want to make sure the silicone is free of dust, grease, or any other contaminant that might weaken the bond. Wiping clean with acetone would be the best option for this.



WOW I was not crazy ..

John,
I apogize for coming across so heavy handed and as an ass. I projected my experience with other people onto you and that was unfair and unwarranted.

I am truly shocked at what Jeff Purdon said and recommended, especially after working with smooth-on and their products for so many years.
Kinda speechless.