What not to do when painting silicone

[anjsmiles]

I am titling this post What Not To Do Silicone 101-
When matting your silicone babies, it is popular teaching now days to thin your silicone Part A/B mix down so that you can apply it thinly on the doll. Let that cure and then apply another thin coat to which you dust with your matting powder. This was very appealing to me as it is much easier than matting with the thick unthinned Part A/B mix. I now know without a doubt that is not the best way. Why? Because you run the risk of the adhesive factors of your mix not being strong enough to hold onto the matting powder and cure down to the casting at the same time. What can this lead to? Peeling of your matting layer. How do I know? Look at a sample photo of my Benny below. See the shiny spots? He has had several to pop up. The first one I noticed on his hand and I freaked so badly I kept peeling at it til I peeled off color. I am now in process of repairing him, have his color all repaired and will rematte him tomorrow. Thankfully he is my keeper baby and so my mistake is my own.
I contacted the person who poured him and discussed this at great length with her as well as another well known silicone caster and both told me the same thing. That this is due to not using full strength silicone Part A/B to matte the baby. I had used a little OSS thinner in my mix. I was also advised to only use Smooth-On recommended products when painting. This means using very small amounts of NOVOCS to thin paint colors when needed. Even then it is best to paint with full strength as much as you can. As much as I liked my OSS thinner, it will now only be used for cleaning brushes. And as much as I hate matting with unthinned silicone I will be doing so from now on. Lesson learned for me.

Here you can see the color on the hand has been repaired and is curing. It will get rematted tomorrow. Whew!

[RosieCait]

Thank you for sharing this!! I massively messed up my silicone matting on my first. I’m starting a cuddle head tonight and was going to do just how you said in the first part… now I’m going to try it the way you said with full strength A&B and hope I don’t mess up again!

How do you apply it that thickly where it doesn’t look blobby? Brush? Do you pounce it on?

Then do you still wait for it to start to cure then dust on the matting powder?

[anjsmiles]

I stipple mine on with a little brush and pounce over with a wedge where needed. Using it full strength it will start to tack up pretty quickly on you. It does take more work pouncing it out and you will have to work in smaller sections. This is why I hate doing it but I am finding out that it is necessary. Especially with these softer silicone babies because all their squishiness makes them easier to delaminate. Also, if it is not pounced out thin enough then yes you do get the powdery look or even crusty looking spots. Denise at D3 Creations told me to dust the Just Matte on. They sell an Atomizer spray for this that I have but never got the hang of it. I need to try it again I guess.

[RosieCait]

Oh I bought two stipple brushes and was wondering what I got them for… NOW I know!! I’m going to try that for sure. I don’t know if I could work on the super soft babies, these eco 20 give me enough of a challenge

[RosieCait]

Angie! I think it worked! I’m letting the matting layer cure overnight instead of curing it with my heat gun so it’s a little early to tell but I’ll know for sure tomorrow. But it looks much different than when I did it last time! I had to work REAL fast, you weren’t joking about it tacking up quick!!!

[anjsmiles]

Oh goodie, I am so happy for you! If you get any spots that look a bit too crusty you can wipe over them with a little NOVOCS to lift some of the powder. However, be very careful in doing this because NOVOCS does open up the pores of the silicone and if you scrub it too much/hard with the NOVOCS you can start lifting paint underneath. This is how I ended up pulling paint down to the casting on Benny’s hand when I discovered the matting was peeling off.

NOVOCS is a great product and Smooth-On recommends only using it to clean and thin paint with but it along with friction can strip paint. These softer kits now days are even more prone to this happening. In all my recent research and asking questions I have learned this info which I have also added to my care sheets now:
Silicone babies are painted in layers that laminate one paint layer over the other. The Psycho Paints used to paint the baby do not have the same squishiness that the casting of the soft blend baby does. For this reason, even though your doll may be poured in a nice soft squishy blend of silicone, it is not a good idea to be rubbing and squishing on it a lot. To do so can cause delamination of these layers. You may notice a powdery look appear when you really squish your baby’s hand or body part and then it goes away when you let it go. The reason you see the look of powder is because you are actually delaminating that bond between the silicone casting and the outer layer. It goes powdery looking like a rubber band being stretched does. This can contribute to peeling areas of the silicone paint.

On a side note, Ecoflex20 is my favorite blend for partials and mini babies. I have my Dawson by Rachelle Ferrall that was painted by myself in 2013. He is still so soft and silky. Not one bit of sheen or peeling on him. He is a little 1/4 limb baby and I mostly display him but every now and then I like to cuddle him. He gets redressed 2 or 3 times a year with my other babies.

[Peachtree]

Thank you for all of your tips and tricks! I am just getting started gathering supplies. As for the NOVOCS, should it be gloss or matte? Thanks again!

[anjsmiles]

Gloss. That way you can clean/prep with it and thin with it when needed.

[RosieCait]

Thanks Angie! I’m about to give her a wash and see what we got…

I like that bit on the care sheets! It explains it simply but with the science. Do you have a PDF or Google doc file of your silicone care sheet? I haven’t gotten that far yet but it would be nice to see what all instructions you include!

Your little Dawson is so cute and in great shape!!!

[anjsmiles]

Yes, I have a doc I created using information I got from those in the industry and then put my own comments into it as well.

I am still struggling with my poor Benny. I got some crusty spots on his hands where I did not pounce out the silicone well enough. UGH! What a challenge he has become!

[hellbunny33]

@anjsmiles, have you ever done a tutorial on painting silicone? No, I probably don’t want to go down that rabbit hole, yet I do…

[anjsmiles]

No, I have not. I took a break from painting silicone and came back to it a couple years ago with the advent of new softer pours. I am having to amend some of my techniques and learn new things about the chemistry of silicone to be successful with this media. As you all have witnessed, I still make mistakes and have to fix things as best I can. Thus I do not know that I am qualified to be writing tutorials on how to do it as much as how not to! LMBO!

[hellbunny33]

I am petrified of even thinking I should try to learn so I will just watch from afar.

[anjsmiles]

It’s not so hard til something goes wrong. Then I panic!

[RosieCait]

Okay Angie! I think I got my clear layer too thick on her face because I was scared of not covering it. But her hands turned out well with the matting so now I know not to over do it! Still way better than poor Steven turned out thank you thank you thank you!!!

[Vanniek]

Wow! Look at you go! I hope to do as well.

[RosieCait]

You will!!! I know it’s different but having a good grasp on painting vinyl will still help you a lot!!!

[anjsmiles]

You did good! Some of the more flakey areas will wear off and some will look better with time as the matting powder will absorb oils from handling etc. I wish I could say Benny’s hands looked as good right now but they are very flakey. I have just been thrown off my game with him since I discovered he had issues. His back side matting is curing now and I have set him aside to try to forget him the rest of today as my grand baby is coming over at 5.

[RosieCait]

Oh grand baby time will do you some good!! Hopefully you get back to Benny refreshed! It’s hard to get into painting when you know a baby is giving you trouble!

[anjsmiles]

He is saved I think. Just has some flakey over matted hands. I touched up a couple missed spots on his leg and left him. Even with flaky hands he is ok and I may work on that at another date. I consider him to be fragile right now so he will be more of a crib baby. Will see how he holds over some time. I will go back and gloss his nails later.
The grand baby has wore me out!