Paint & Sunfading Tutorial courtesy Tehrin
Awhile back on the old arena, I posted a topic stating that you can use paint to cover symbols when
sunfading. The example I used at the the time wasn't very good (I didn't have any good before
pictures), and I used thick yellow liquitex paint. It was also turning to fall, so it wasn't a very good
time to write a better in-depth tutorial. Since it's now moving into spring, and we have some warmer
and sunnier days coming, I thought it would be a good time to write up a better tutorial!
Wait what... did I read that right?! PAINT?! ARE YOU
CRAZY!?!?!
Yes, I'm probably a little bit crazy, but I've tried it! It does work, excellently in fact! Many ponies have
very complex and detailed symbols that are a pain in the butt to cover with other methods such as
cutting out paper, attaching tinfoil, you name it. Other people have suggested covering the pony with
plastic wrap and drawing over the symbol with a sharpie. I ended up getting sharpie on the pony while
handling it, and we all know what sharpies do to ponies!
This method can be removed effortlessly without effecting the paint underneath using 70% alcohol!
How I discovered this
When I started collecting, I actually used 70% rubbing alcohol to clean your general surface dirt, pen
marks, and other stuff on ponies before I was brave enough to move onto the stronger stuff. I got one
pony in particular who was covered entirely in sharpie. I was trying to get it off, but while using the
alcohol, it removed the sharpie completely from the symbols and eyes without harming them! Sadly
the body was horribly stained. So I decided to repaint her and make her into a quasi-custom of sorts.
I realized that when I rubbed alcohol on the paint, it removed the acrylics I used without effecting the
original paint underneath. Hmmm... useful, I thought!
So I tried it... on another pony. It worked! Except I globbed on yellow liquitex brand acrylic paint, not
thinned down. I scrubbed and scrubbed that stuff off with the rubbing alcohol, putting lots of elbow
grease into it. Low and behold, nothing happened to the symbols! ;D
But for the sake of this tutorial, we'll be using cheap craft paint! It's much better, cheaper, and less
stressful to remove!
Pros and Cons
+ You can fade your pony with very detailed symbols without fretting about covering all those little
lines and shapes with random pieces of tape.
+ You can leave your pony better unattended without worrying if your tissue paper or whatever else
used has shifted or fallen off. The paint stays in place no matter what until you remove it.
+ Depending on how you wrap the hair to protect from the sun, it shouldn't effect the texture of the
hair at all. Peroxide baths have been known to make ponies brittle over time.
- Not for the faint of heart or collectors who are paranoid about doing anything to their ponies aside
from cleaning them with a magic eraser.
- Requires a somewhat stable hand and works better if you are able to get small brushes.
- Should be avoided on glitter symbols (see next section).
- Not tested on all types of paint. Sofar, I've tested this on Hong Kong and Italian with no paint loss.
But I'm not sure about other countries and especially airbrushed symbols/eyes.
The DO's and DON'Ts of this method
DON'T USE ON GLITTER SYMBOLS! The rubbing (with a cotton swab or ball) is going to remove
glitter! For this, I'd suggest using a peroxide bath, OR... using another method to cover the symbols.
Obviously, this shouldn't be used on So Softs! To my general knowledge most times, when a So Soft is
really discolored and it won't come out from gentle washing, it's usually the glue discoloring with age.
No amount of sun will fix it at that point. ;_; So you'll have to look into deflocking.
DO TEST IT OUT BEFOREHAND! Always test a small area of the pony first. For example, a tiny area
of the symbol, just to make sure it's not going to be removed. I've tested this sofar on Hong Kong
flat-painted ponies and it works fine and dandy. I'm using an Italian pony in this tutorial, and testing it
out, no paint was lost. I don't know about other countries, so you will want to test it first!
What you will need
1. A pony needing sunfading.
2. A very small brush or two (having a liner and flat is a good suggestion)
3. White craft paint, such as folk art, plaid, delta creamcoat, etc.
4. Tinfoil, clear scotch tape, or whatever method you prefer (if you have one) for covering hair.
5. 70% Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol
6. Cotton balls and/or cotton swaps/q-tips.
7. Patience!
Here is our specimen, Italian Gusty! She is very lovely and is missing her tail. But beyond that, she is
very yellowed! Here she is next to US Gusty. Not exactly the whitest of my collection, but still pretty
white in comparison!
Gusty's head has been removed, but isn't exactly necessary for this tutorial. The reason why I have it
removed is for some neck repair. So for the purpose of this tutorial, our specimen will be remaining in
two pieces. I've sunfaded other ponies just covering the tail and mane when there was no reason to
remove the head.
Step 1: Prepping the Pony!
Make sure your pony is CLEAN of ALL dirt and removable marks! I can't stress this enough! If your
pony is dark and dingy, make sure that it's not just ingrained dirt first. A good way to test this is dab a
little acetone on a cotton ball or swab and scrub on a dark area away from any paint (a leg works). If
you don't see the ick being removed, then congrats! Your pony is just discolored (or stained)! If you
notice some change in the brightness, go give your pony an oxyclean bath (watch out for chartruse
hair, princess symbols, and twinkle eyes) or scrub with a magic eraser first until all that stuff is off.
Basically, we just want to get the plastic in full exposure to the sun. The sun isn't going to fade dirt!
Otherwise, we'd have white sand EVERYWHERE! That would be cool, right?
Here is our specimen all ready to go and supplies are out!
Tehrin: Hey Baby Moondancer, you're not a supply!
Baby Moondancer: But... I'm cute! PONYBUTT! WHEEEEE!
Okay here we go, one ponybutt, and one baby pony out of the way. Also, paint and some brushes! I'm
using a small sable liner here and some Folk Art craft paint.
Step 2: Painting the pony!
We're just going to paint directly on top of the painted parts. I paint directly out of the bottle (or cap
rather). Folk art is really thinned out anyway.
As you can see, you don't need to be super-neat about it. Just make sure that your paint is covered.
This is after one coat.
I'm also going to paint the eyes. Generally... I just cover the Iris (colored part of the eye). But since
this is a Nirvana pony, I'm not taking any chances, so I'm covering the black too just to be safe. As a
forewarning, areas around the eyes can be a pain in the butt to remove because of the creases. But
this paint is way easier to remove than artist-grade acrylics.
About two coats of paint should do it. You don't NEED to be uber-precise. Just make sure all your
colored areas are covered from sun exposure!
Step 3: Prepping the hair
Since this pony just has straight hair, I'm sticking it in tinfoil. Her hair's been a little mussed since I
started messing with her anyway... the blowdryer namely to warm up her neck seam. It's going to add
kinks to her hair. But it'll come out easily by taking a mug of hot water and dunking her hair in for a
second... which was how I was planning on getting her hair back in place to begin with.
For ponies with factory curl that you wish to preserve, I would suggest rolling it up in a foam roller
and covering the pony with a napkin or tissue paper using fabric pins to hold it all in place. I've used
this before with excellent results. Rainbow curl ponies can be especially difficult with this. x_x So
patience and care is needed!
When I'm fading a whole pony and covering the tail, I'll roll up it's tail in a foam roller. Wrap with a
napkin, pin in place. I've also used painters tape around the base of the tail to hold the napkin in
place. I don't have to worry about this here because Gusty has no tail. HAR HAR!
Here is Gusty all wrapped up in the tinfoil:
As I go, I attach a little bit of clear tape to hold the tinfoil in place. I'm trying to cover the hair entirely
and make sure that the roots aren't exposed. If you're off a little, don't worry. Just make sure you've
got it taped. You'll see why next:
Where the hair is exposed under the tape, I'm painting over it with the craft paint. Reds really like to
fade in the sunlight. I have no idea what this hair will do because of it's different texture, so to play it
safe, it's getting covered. I've done this right at the top of the hairline where it starts near the horn
and all along.
The tape will probably make the pony sticky. So it can get removed with a swab of acetone or googone. I'm afraid of getting goo gone near the hair because of the glue, so I'll probably use Acetone
since it evaporates quickly. I've used painters tape before too in place of tinfoil. But I have a better
feeling about doing it this way, just because I have WAY more control on what gets touched by
sunlight.
Step 4: Preparing for the sunbath!
My personal favorite method of sunfading is to put the pony in a plastic bag and put it directly outside
and then bring it indoors every night once the sun goes down or when I come home from work
(whichever comes first). I avoid putting ponies fully outside without any additional protection because
God only knows what will land on the pony... bird poop, insect stuff, random leaves and weird things,
random out of the blue rainstorms... So the plastic is there for extra protection.
If you plan on putting the pony directly outside in a baggie, I also suggest weighing down your pony
(if you've taken it apart) or the bag so that it doesn't blow away in the wind. It's not going to go far
on my patio, but still not a bad idea to add some weight, or strong magnets and put the pony on a
metal surface of some sort.
Right now, I'm going to put Gusty in the windowsill. The next few days are going to be rainy, so I'll be
keeping the pony indoors to soak up what little UV rays he can!
For that matter, UV rays are of course, what causes the sunfading. So... even dark and cloudy
envoirnments still get some filtered UV rays. It just takes longer for the fading to happen.
Here she is ready to soak up a little bit of rays.
Step 5: Forget for the most part, that your pony even exists
The worst part of course is waiting!
Leave your pony alone! However, DO check on your pony.
Obviously if you are leaving the pony outside during a very sunny day, make sure that the wind hasn't
blown it over, or some hungry cat or hawk hasn't snatched it up thinking it's a tasty treat! So yes, do
check periodically throughout the day!
I suggest using the white paint because you can view your progress a bit better using it as a guide!
Make sure that the pony gets turned every day or two.
During the summer when the sun's rays are most direct (June 21st in the Northern Hemisphere) it
takes about... 3-5 days to get a cream colored white pony bright white, longer if the pony is darker.
Much, much, longer if you are fading out ink stains. This is my most discolored pony, so we'll see what
happens. I have no clue how long this is going to take, but it's likely that a few weeks in late winterearly spring will probably do the trick, since she has no stains.
So I'll be updating this post every... 3-5 days or so with a progress picture!
Fading marks on a darker
pony using paint!
Say you have a pony that is prone to discoloring when exposed to sunlight, for example blues and
purples can be prone to this. Can you use this method to cover your pony and allow the marks to be
exposed for sunfading? The answer is, YES!
This works better than just covering your pony with tinfoil and leaving say, the leg exposed. You can
control which parts of the leg get the sun exposure. In this case, I'm going to be trying this on my
Forget Me Not. I bought her from a vintage toy shop for cheaper than their "ebay-priced" minty ponies
because she had some marks, but she also had her original curl... :p
Here she is before:
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And now, we're going to cover the symbols, but we're also going to cover any and all of the leg that is
NOT ink stained:
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Then we're going to go over it again with a finer detail brush to make sure nothing is exposed that
shouldn't be:
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Next, we are going to cover the rest of the pony's body. Because I don't want to mess up her hair, I'm
wrapping her up in a paper towel. Then pinning it in place with fabric pins. After it's all wrapped up
with only the leg exposed, I made sure that anything else that was exposed was covered, like the
bottom of her foot.
And then to protect her from a freak rainstorm, or... anything because I covered her with a paper
towel, into a ziplock bag she goes to fade with Gusty! (who is progressing really well, might I add!
She's NEARLY white)
Step 5: Removing the paint
While Gusty is fading, I've prepped another pony using this same method. Once Gusty is complete, I'll
replace these images with ones of her getting the paint removed. For now, Miss Jubilee wanted to
demonstrate for us!
Here is he coated with two layers of craft paint:
And to remove the craft paint covering the symbols, we just use a cotton ball and some rubbing
alcohol. Symbols are REALLY easy because they wipe right off after about 10 seconds of gentle
rubbing, but I've taken some progress pictures so that everyone can see it as it goes:
And viola! As you can see, no trace of pink or green paint on the cotton ball! After wiping the symbols,
give the body a good quick rubdown as the craft paint will go elsewhere. Just one quick wipe with the
alcohol should do it!
Next, the eyes. These can be a little tricky because the paint likes to stick in the crevices. This would
be the same issue if you were covering raised/3D symbols too.
Now that I got the paint rubbed off the big surfaces with a cotton ball and cotton swab... I needed to
grab a paintbrush. I took a CLEAN (please test that it's clean first!) flat brush with plastic bristles.
These are a bit rougher and cheaper, so they're better for getting at all those problem areas!
After a little work, not very long... maybe a minute, tops... the paint was removed. Again, give the
large general area a wipedown with a cottonball and alcohol to remove the remaining paint.
And she's just as good as new!