I’ve been asked over whether red cream should be used on top of brown or dark brown. This maybe in reaction to how Rit DyeMore’s brown does appear better when red dye is added to mix. This is not the case for shoe cream however. There is already a very high amount of red pigment added to most brown colored cream, especially with dark brown. If anything needs to be added, its typically a blue tone which could be mixed into brown. In my 1 minute tutorial video ‘How to Suntan a Phicen’ I use ‘Dark Oak’ which despite its description is a mid-brown with a hint of blue. Avoid an overly red-ish or yellowish brown unless the head sculpt you are trying to match contain high tones of red, yellow or other.
In online shopping, we have access to multiple brands of shoe cream, many with a vast array of colors. But if online shopping is not an option, locally available brands should at least have black and brown. Mix up a tiny fraction of black to brown to make dark brown. Do not resort to using shoe polish! That is a solid block and cannot be smoothly applied.
I would recommend washing the body with dish soap before applying cream. I have also managed to get good results without doing so, but washing off the protective powder will most likely unclog TPE’s pores and make room for pigment leading to deeper coloration. Wear latex gloves for each application and make sure to clear sink space before rinsing.
Being soft in its liquidity, shoe cream will not cause surface damage to TPE as reported in cases of excessive rubbing of oil pastel. If you sense that your latex glove is catching as oppose to sliding over TPE, apply additional cream. This ‘catching’ only occurs when cream has dried. Dried cream has a capability of being better able to penetrate pigment on patchy lighter-colored areas. Dry cream mixed with moist cream acts as a thickening agent, increasing pigmentation, therefore, add additional cream in conservative quantity.
The amount of color fade that occur from cream is quite a bit less to that of Rit DyeMore for synthetics and other fabric dyes that I’ve tried. Around half the color fades within the first 48 hours which will dilute unevenly colored patches to a nice even tone throughout. Provided you wash, there’ll be no color transfer whatsoever to skin, fabric or other TPE.
In regards to Rit Dye, dyeing TPE in boiling water is not advisable. As in reported cases, prolonged high temperature seems to damage the integrity of the TPE material, making groin and arm pit regions (of most flex use) easy to split. They will start out small, but in some instance as mine, a split can gradually open wide, exposing the skeletal armature.
There’s some talk that the quality of the new Phicen bodies are different to the originals. Having observed the quality difference myself, my personal theory on the matter is that Phicen factory workers are applying too much mould release agent and not cleaning the mould as before. Gradual build up of the agent may even effect TPE’s surface aesthetic.
Shoe Cream vs. Oil Pastel
In reading up how only the first application of oil pastel color seems to fully adhere while subsequent colors have less adherence got me curious of why its so different for cream. What happens with the cream is that each added layer washes away some of the colors from the previous application. My theory is that TPE in fact is not ‘stained’ with color, but rather millions of micro-pores in the TPE are being filled in with pigment, like juice inside popsicle trays. Like newspaper, the million dotted pores of TPE only looks as though its solid color in our eye. Some pigment by its molecular structure is able to cling inside the cavities of the pore and is unaffected in its grip when rinsed with dish soap, while others types of pigment will slide out rather easily with soap or just a water rinse. In the case of oil pastel, it seem to clog the pores with its initial application, so there is almost no room left in its cavity to house additional pigment, leaving subsequently added color sitting so close to the surface of a pore that when rinsed, much of the new pigment washes away, revealing the color of the first application. If so, by the nature of pastel, the first color we apply shall remain the dominant color no matter how many subsequent layers we apply. If this is the case, a Gamsol-type solvent may be the only way to empty out those pores.
With shoe cream on the other hand, the soft liquidity of the wax and other ingredients in cream seem to act as a lubricant, enabling subsequent color applications (new pigment) to slide into pigment-occupied pores and get mixed within it. This cohabitation allows for actual color blending to occur. To me this is evidenced by how each new application of a different color cream appear to somewhat dilute the previous color, enabling subsequent layers to become a more dominant color. Its unlike any color-mixing with paint. Normally when new color is added to canvas, its previous color does not diluted the more you add new color. Normally when color is applied to canvas, much of that color does not fade in 48 hours, but that is how it works with cream. The nature of cream takes a bit of getting used to, but once you do, it is magic. For a fussy perfectionist like myself, it is a rare gift that colors and shades can be corrected with added application, without over-saturation. But if bright and saturated comic book color is what you seek, oil pastel is the way to go. If cream is too messy for your liking, the easiest coloring method may be that of powder make-up foundation, presented by Kayla. Its aesthetic results are most similar to cream, and since both methods require a rinse, they may be complementary in their application.