Calling all air dry painters! UPDATED post #30

Windsor and Newton never worked for me. I’d scrub and nothing would happen.
The only thing that managed to get the paint off was nail polish remover, though regular acetone should work as well.
I’ve found that if the paint is still new, it’s easier to get off. On ones that have been painted a few weeks (or in the case of my worst one, years) ago, it’s really stuck on there.

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That is because once air dry paint is fully cured it is permanent.

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According to the person I got these from, yes. It’s all air dry paint. A lower quality air dry so maybe that is the reason why it wont come off but I would expect the opposite.

So is there no hope?

It will come off. The leg I stripped was about 15 layers of Golden that had been sitting there for two months fully cured. I have stripped off that, liqutex, and reborn specific air dry paint. I have never used anything but air dry, and believe me, I have messed up many kits. Lol The only time you will have a problem is if you have varnish on. Those I usually just throw away. If it was a really special kit, I’d try to kit the varnish layer off with acetone and still strip with W&N.

If you run across air dry paint that stands up to every stripper on the market, let me know what it is so I can buy some. Not for my dolls, but for things around my house. :blush:

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I think we are learning in this thread that air dry really is permanent!

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I stayed up most of the night and tried everything. I mean everything I could possibly think of. I even went as far as an SOS pad. I still have a piece soaking in W&N from the middle of the night. I figured why not try it all. Lol.

So it’ll come off if you soak the piece, usually my caked air dry brushed (I’m the actual worst at brush care) take 48 hours in Windsor and newton to clean, but I’ve literally gotten years old paint out of things and off of dolls so don’t be discouraged! Windsor and newton breaks down oil based paints faster than it breaks down acrylics, and depending on the vanish used that could be a big issue, since some varnishes are made to hold up against chemicals.

Do you know what type of paint and varnish was used?

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It’s not coming off even being soaked. It was stated that no varnish was used at all. And the paint used was Royal & Langnickle. However at this point, there was some information that was not shared in the beginning by the person I purchased these kits from so I am not sure that the varnish or paint used is true. After working on these kits most of the night and again today, I am pretty sure that they were “stripped” possibly at one point and this is staining that is left. It could be that there is varnish and it’s just not coming off but I find that unlikely at at this point. So for now I am just trying to make the best of a bad situation. Seeing how this is a fellow artist who may possibly be a member here, I am trying not to go into too much detail and make a bad situation worse. Right now I am working on color correcting one of the kits. Just to show what I am working with though, here is a photo of the one I am trying to color correct, one of the kits I purchased that I have not touched yet (a bright salmon and hot pink color) and a blank kit. As you can see, the red is still very prominent on the one I am working on. I tried and failed with mint green washes. I resorted to bright green and while that toned it down a tiny bit, it still wasnt enough. I had to stop with that color or run the risk of the baby turning green all together. :frowning:


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I will say yes that orange tone is what staining has looked like for me when using certain brands of air dry, you can lighten the staining with acne cream (Oxy10 I believe?) if it is a case of staining.
As for color correcting on Ever, I would use a aqua color to correct this rather than a green, I’d apply it and then dry brush pounce it but that’s just how I personally correct stains like this.

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I will try the acne cream next and see what happens. Otherwise I will try to color correct a couple of these and hopefully sell as booboo babies to try to get my money back out of them. Thank you for all your suggestions and help :heart:

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Btw the acne cream can take anywhere from 3-10 days to work, I replace every three days normally, until I see change and you want to make sure it’s in a warm place and UV helps a ton (you could get a UV bulb to help)

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Thank you. I will have to get a few tubes of it. I think my husband has some UV bulbs. :crossed_fingers:

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Have you tried acetone? While it is not great for the vinyl, I have resorted to using it on spots as a last resort.

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I did. It seems to make it brighter. :weary:

Anyone ever try bleach? Not that it would remove paint. Wondering if it would remove color.

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I wouldn’t, bleach is a drying chemical that could do who knows what in reaction with the vinyl. I can only imagine how brittle vinyl would get

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I tried it last night and it didn’t do much. But I didn’t leave it sit. I put it on a scrub brush and then washed it off.

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Have you tried a magic eraser? Not sure it will remove much but it’s worth a try. I recently had a kit that the limbs had been painted previously and when I stripped it, I had terrible yellow stains on the vinyl. I prepped and painted it and used the yellow as a base for the primary method. He turned out really well and you

would never know the stains were there!

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I did. I used a magic eraser recommended by a fellow artist friend. I also tried a scrubby sponge and a SOS pad. :sob: