Dying caucasian Mego heads-anyone try it?

[shellhead]

The vinyl heads will dye well, BUT, only within the warmer color range.
The vinyl pigment has an orangey/pink base to make the flesh color.
Any dye you add to the orange base will still have to work well within that range...
Bright orange, red, brown, rust and Black, and Sinestro hot pink.

Cooler colors..( blue, green, and blueish purple) fall within the range of color opposits, to the flesh tone pigments.
The dye is transparent, so it won't cover the host color, only lay a film of the new color over it.
If you dye a flesh head with a cooler color, (Green or Blue) the color opposition of the base tone will create a brownish, slime green, or a blackish dark blue.
The new color will be to dark to register the new tint effectively.
Purple will work only if it falls into the redder color range.

The classic Mego zombie heads turned bluish gray because the orange pigment used wasn't UV stable over time, so the orange bleached out leaving the trace elements of blue pigment used to brown the orange into a proper flesh tone.
If you have a Zombie head like Megocrazy said, it WILL go to Blue or Green, because the orange has faded out.
You can also turn zombie heads back to normal really quickly and easily by giving them quick dips into orang RIT dye and rinsing between dips to check against a flesh head.
Keep dipping and rinsing till the color is back to normal.
Hope this helps.
Just as a side note, I'm a senior artist at Walt Disney and we use pigmented products for animatronic figures, and character Icon sculpts that I do there.
We use a substantial database as to pigment systems, including vinyl tinting systems.
Thats where I learned about the UV unstable vinyl pigments used in the late 70s.
We had a lot of things turning funky colors from the same time period.

[Type Two]

Thanks for the detailed reply, Shellhead. That information really should be a "sticky" post somewhere for future customizers.

[cjefferys]

That's really interesting info, Shellhead. So in your opinion, the Mego "zombie heads" were due to a bad batch of pigment rather than a bad batch of vinyl, which is what I always thought? Based on personal experience, UV is definitely the culprit, but I always assumed it was causing a reaction with the vinyl, not the dye, so this is very interesting to learn. I'll have to try that orange RIT dye trick you mention. That sounds much easier than the plasti dip method. Is there a certain shade of orange that is best to use?

[Type Two]

UPDATE: I bought a pack of navy blue Rit and boiled it on the stove. I then used a "trial victim," namely an old, beat-up Mego Spock head. The results were not impressive: Spock is now a purplish-black, not navy blue. Oh well. Guess I'll have to use the vinyl car-paint that others have recommended. Regardless, thanks once again for all the help, folks!

[rche]

I have done a number of dye jobs to zombied out heads, along with other toys and customs.
I would note that I have had heads return to a zombie state, and have also had other vinyl die jobs fade or go back to their original color. I would suspect that RIT may not be all that UV stable, or that it continues to 'soak in' well after the dip job. Also worth noting that harder plastics like the pvc used for classic stormtrooper bodies seem to hold the color just fine.

I may try to find a UV coating and see if that effects a RIT dip fix for a zombie head and helps the color to stay.

That's really interesting info, Shellhead. So in your opinion, the Mego "zombie heads" were due to a bad batch of pigment rather than a bad batch of vinyl, which is what I always thought? Based on personal experience, UV is definitely the culprit, but I always assumed it was causing a reaction with the vinyl, not the dye, so this is very interesting to learn. I'll have to try that orange RIT dye trick you mention. That sounds much easier than the plasti dip method. Is there a certain shade of orange that is best to use?

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

You MIGHT have some luck with automotive interior vinyl paint. It'll still suffer from a chromatic reaction.... that is, mixing with the colour of the flesh.... but it's a stronger pigment and will at least partially cover the original. You might be able to use white as a base. It'll bleed into whatever you put over it, even dry.... but if you're using iot for a solid colour that might not be a big deal.

Don C.

[shellhead]

Your right rche, the Rit isn't UV stable in the long run.
It doesn't "soak in" over time, because the dye is carried in a water medium. The vinyl is water resistant, but has a tiny bit of surface porousity, so it takes the color on the surface only.
The RIT will fade over time, usualy not completely, but it will lighten in color.

Type Two, Navy blue is a tough one, because it can be difficult to tell appart from black at times. If you dyed a Spock head that still had the fleshtone intact, that would make it purplish black, like what you wound up with.

One thing I want to try, though it is very dangerous ( chemicaly speaking, so don't try this at home,)
is to try to pull color out of a vinyl head with a concentrated peroxide based bleach.
If the vinyl could be lightened sufficiently, it might take cooler range colors.
There are plenty of dangers with this type of bleach, as it is super caustic, like an acid. I also don't know what ( if any) reactions could occur chemicaly between the vinyl and peroxide.
So let me try this out with plenty of safety equipment and we'll see what happens.

[Boywonder0]

Wow! Thanks for the lessons, Shellhead! See you at Disney! Going there the end of July!