DIY Gone (SO) Wrong

Today, in things I didn't see coming: this shit.

This is a Nibbles horse from Mattel, Barbie's buddy, and after rescuing her from the "this is probably going to get tossed in a landfill" bin at a secondhand shop, I decided she could use an upcycle. And a bath.

I picked her up specifically because she poses. Neck up, neck down, head up, head down. Most playscale horses are static, so being able to actually set a scene with one was a huge selling point for me. I had grand plans of grazing shots, alert shots, head-tossing shots, the works.

I started repainting her, and, like the dumbass I apparently am, I wasn't thinking about what happens to acrylic paint at an articulation point. Spoiler: it chips. Every single time you move the joint, it chips.

Every. Single. Time.

So now I have two choices. Either I touch up the chipping every time I want to repose her (which would be a special kind of hell I'm not signing up for), or I pick a pose, commit to it, and accept that this horse is going to be a one-pose pony.

I picked grazing because it's different from what I have with Socks. Now that she's going to be in permanent grazing mode, the name "Nibbles" suits more, which I kind of hate, because I'm not a fan. I'll still probably rename her when I'm finished with her and give her a proper introduction.

Lesson learned, and a warning to my fellow dumbasses out there: if you're painting an articulated figure, pick the pose first and treat the joint as decorative. Or accept that you're signing up for permanent touch-up duty.

Current status:  Going to strip all the paint, give her a little sanding, and start again.  Yep, back to square one.

As if that wasn't bad enough (it is, it really is), I had a second project going as well. The TL;DR of this is that today, color theory chose violence.  I've been working on dyeing the hair of an Our Generation Andalusian foal, same sculpt as Socks, but I wanted this one to have black or grey hair instead of palomino platinum blonde/white.

I went with Rit dye in black. Hot tap water (because boiling would melt the horse and we're not going for a Salvador Dali nod here), a little salt, a little dish soap, and the foal went in for a two-hour soak.  By the way, this foal looks exactly how I feel today.  It’s spot TF on.

When I pulled the horse out of the first bath, the hair was green.  As Anne Shirley once said, "Green is ten times worse!", and I couldn't agree more, Carrots.

Turns out, Rit black isn't actually black... dun dun dun! The shocking twist everyone other than yours truly already knew? It's a combination of blue and green with a little red tossed in. Normally, because you're supposed to boil wash things instead of "warm washing" them, this is no problem. But because I went with colder water, the green and blue attached quickly, but the red didn't. Awesome.

So, I decided to do it again, this time keeping the temperature warm by periodically pouring in more dye and more hot water into the janky-ass little set up I had going on.

I added boiling water to the warm water (as much as I could get away with) every 15 minutes or so. This second result, I thought I actually had it, and I was really pleased... until it fully dried, and sunlight hit the hair.

While it appears black, as soon as the sun touches it, all that green is highlighted, the horse looks like it’s a hybrid peacock of some sort. I'm not going for a "fantasy" look with this horse, just a black mane. I would order an OG foal with a black mane in this length if I could find one. You know me, though, I’m a sucker for the drama of long hair.  More practically speaking, I also want the ability to cut it a little shorter if needed.

Current status: Impatiently waiting for a delivery of the Rit Scarlet dye I ordered. I'm going to do a third pass to try and neutralize the remaining green via color cancellation. Red and green being opposites on the color wheel, I'm really hoping this works.

So that's been my last two days. One poseable horse permanently locked into grazing because I forgot how joints and moving parts feel about paint, and another horse with green tinted black hair because I didn't pay attention to the fact that black dye is sometimes three little colors stacked on top of each other in a trench coat trying to pass themselves off as being gorgeous midnight black.

Talk about getting humbled as fuck today.  Thinking I should rebrand the blog to “Plastically Imperfect” 😉

See you next time.  Cross your fingers for me.