How To Dye Your Vinyl - Another Way To Ruin Your Toys

As requested, this is my humble tutorial on how to dye vinyl toys. I've been experimenting with this process recently and, I think, I've had some pretty good results. I know that not everybody thinks dyeing these figures is a good idea, but with the recent scarcity of VCOLOR, the availability of SOLID figures, and the style I'm going for with my customs, dyeing figures has become an interesting way of helping me achieve the results I'm going for.

With that, on to the tutotrial:

STUFF YOU'LL NEED:

-RIT DYE: It comes in powder and liquid form. I've been using the powder. This stuff is cheap, easy to come by, and easy to use. It comes in an assortment of colors.

-TWO POTS: Big enough to hold enough water to completely submerge the toy you're wanting to dye. One for the dye and one for clean water. Get some cheapies, you probably shouldn't use ones you use for your food.

-SOMETHING TO STIR AND GRAB: A wooden spoon, tongs, chopsticks, whatever.

-A BOWL: To place the figures in after you boil them.

-A TOY TO DYE: Right now, we'll use this one:



THE PROCESS:

-Fill your pots with water and start heating them up to a boil. In one, mix in your dye.

-In your dye solution, you've got some room to experiment. It doesn't take a whole package of dye to do one figure. For the ones I did, I only used half a pack. I'd imagine that different amounts may yield different shades of color (given the amount of time you leave the vinyl in it). Mix the dye with the water.

-Take your figure apart. However you like. Heat helps.

-Once your water is hot, put the parts in the dye. This is another time for experimentation. The longer you leave the parts in, the more color they'll take from the dye. This is also where I think it's better to err on the side of more color than less. You can do it however you want. Stir the parts around a little and check on their color. Make sure they fill up on the inside as well. This part of the process looks like this:



-Once the pieces are the color you're after, pull them out, empty the dye from inside the parts back into the pot, and put them in the clean, boiling water. Leave them in there for 5-10 minutes. Basically, until dye stops coming out of them. As they boil, excess dye will come out of the vinyl.

-After the second boiling process is complete, pull the figures out and place them in the bowl. Rinse them with water to make sure all the dye that's going to seep out has done so. If not, boil them some more.

-When you feel confident that the dye is done seeping, dry them off with a towel and set them out to dry. Once they're dry, inspect them and reassemble.

-You should have something like this:



Hopefully, this is helpful. The whole thing is really simple. If anybody has anything to add, please do so. Most of the information I applied to this process I found on this site, and for that I'm grateful.

Thanks, everybody.

-Dustin

 

Excellent , thanks D !

Time to start the experimenting

 

Yes, thanks! Very interesting.

Does the boiling process affect the shape of the toy at all? Or is so, does it "rebound" when it cools? I have to imagine that the vinyl gets very soft when exposed to boiling temperatures.

 

Right on, man. Multi-color jobs, fades, all that stuff is possible.

They "rebound." Just let them cool slowly on their own. You could possibly deform them, or "re-form" them by taking them from their super-soft boiled state to the cool state by dunking them in ice-water though. Might be another experiment.

 

melek taus has some awesome dyed figures. check them out here

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=28663

 

i did some skuttles a long time ago, rit sticks well, doesn't wash off by any means but your fingers may be a little dyed. i think as long as you don't shock it with ice cold water, any deformities undo themselves.

 

Very cool! Thanks for sharing!

 

I wonder what happens if you dye GID vinyl.

 

hhhhmmmmmmmm.....i need to find a victim

 

Those are great! Really interesting stuff going on there.

Nice work. The clear takes the dye very nicely. Thanks for the pics.

 

Rit Dye is awesome- all of these guys were dyed (except the orange microbrain), and I never had a problem with dye leeching out. When I dye I don't even bother with the pot of clean boiling water- I just submerge the pieces for a few minutes, swishing them around (I hold everything with alligator clips, and that does leave small teeth marks) and then move them to cold clean water. Then I repeat the process until I get the color I want.



take care,

phil

 

Rit does stick really well, and it's easy to do fades with it. I think it's funny that everyone is so "whoa it's awesome I have to try it" now, but when I started here a few years ago, dye was VERY frowned upon. I haven't done "kaiju" with it since then, but I have done a few skuttles. All of the fades and base colors are rit dye. All of the accents are paint.

 

I used only RIT dye to make my Lifesaver Bagman; the only difference is that I didn't use boiling water... I think I remember it saying to keep the temp just below boiling. That way, I was able to just hold onto the pieces with me bare hands.

 

lol, looks like all our secrets are out. now time for denial

 

Nice stuff; I was thinking about dyeing a couple years ago, but a little voice inside me said:


"But I vant to liff! I tell you I vant to liff!"

So maybe I'll try it after this current batch finishes up.

 

Rit works very well, and it actually doesn't stick to the vinyl, it bonds or soaks into the vinyl...

If you dye gid vinyl, it still will glow whatever the GID color was...

 

Thanks a lot for the tips and tricks. I just did a little search on the evil bay and found out that I can get RIT here as well.

 

does the powder version work as well as the liquid one? i've only used liquid

 

Thats what I was wondering. Gonna try some stuff this weekend cant wait !

 

Mine were all dyed using the powder kind. I'd imagine the results are similar with the liquid.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, LASH.

All the examples of dyed toys posted here have been impressive. Thanks for sharing the pics and information, guys.

 

That life saver bagman is pretty dope.

 

^^^ Thanks!

The differences I've seen are:
-the powder is much cheaper than the liquid
-usually can find more colors in powder form
- no matter what, my powder batches have plenty of dye "grain" floating around in it. If a tiny bit were to get lodged somewhere, I could see it causing color burn/uneven finish...

 

Question ...

Has anyone tried to bottle the liquid with the dye in it afterward, for the next time you use it ?

I mean I doubt it looses any property, and it would be a waste to just flush it.

Has anyone done this ?

 

I never did because I usually boiled a pretty large pot of dye so that I could fit the figure into it. I would have multiple 1-gallon jugs sitting around with various colors if I kept the dye.

 

You know, I thought about doing this too. It seems possible and might be worthwhile if you mixed up a custom color you planned on using again in the future. It would also save you a little bit of money and time spent on trips to the store.

However, RIT is really cheap and, when using it, I rarely use the entire packet/bottle. For custom colors you could just jot down the "recipe."

I guess it just depends on whether or not you feel like storing bottles/jars of the dye solution.