Mr. Super Clear rubbing off?

I’ve given up on doing hand blushing, because I always seem to rub it off as I try to pose my doll’s arms. It hasn’t been as bad on my doll’s face, but I wonder if the faceup would also rub off if I handled it as much as the hands.

The thing is, I’ve always sealed the hands with Mr. Super Clear — sprayed about 15-ish times over the course of an hour. I’m not sure if I just need more layers, or to wait more between spraying. Or maybe MSC isn’t the right tool for the job? What does everyone else do?

I’m also wondering if it’s because Imomodoll’s vinyl hands do something weird with MSC that makes it never completely set…

Ah, this is one of the issues I've seen people have with body blushing a lot. Sealants aren't perfect and typically will not hold up very well on areas of the doll that get a lot of touch/movement (I've seen resin collectors warn that body blushing on the joints/hands will inevitably start to come off at some point if you're posing/playing with the doll often). With that said, I have noticed that the faceup on my Imomo head started getting small chips in the sealant pretty quickly (more around the edges of the face where I grab to change the wigs) so I wonder if there's something about the Imomo plastic that has less "grip" than other vinyl/plastic dolls?

You might want to try a liquid sealant that you brush/sponge on instead? I know Liquitex Matte Varnish is a pretty popular option for doll body customizations, and some use it for faceups as well (often with an airbrush)

12 hours ago, blisseycake said:

The thing is, I’ve always sealed the hands with Mr. Super Clear — sprayed about 15-ish times over the course of an hour. I’m not sure if I just need more layers, or to wait more between spraying. Or maybe MSC isn’t the right tool for the job? What does everyone else do?

15 times in an hour🤯? Mr. Super Clear is lacquer-based. If you spray lacquer (or alcohol-) based paint layers in too quick succession, the new layer will dissolve the older layers, causing them to separate from the surface below. Either allow for enough time to dry between layers (typically 15-30 minutes minimum), or use some accelerated means of air drying using a fan or hair dryer (if hair dryer, don't put the heat up, that might cause the paint vapours to ignite).

Definitely seconding Kemonomimicry, you should really only be spraying 1-2 times MAX in an hour. I'm kind of hoping that was maybe a typo, since that would mean spraying roughly every 4 minutes and that sounds awful. 😵

Generally in my experience fewer layers is better, especially for vinyl dolls. Vinyl dolls can easily squish and warp, and a thinner layer of MSC is more likely to bend with the surface while a thicker layer will snap, resulting in cracks and chipping. I usually try to use 6-8 layers of MSC, but that's for a comparatively complicated faceup. For simple body blushing I'd only use 4-5.

Personally I don't think the imomodoll vinyl is different from any of the other vinyls I've painted on... I've painted 4 heads so far and none of them are giving me any trouble.

Edited April 29 by 0bsequi0us

17 hours ago, Roserolls said:

Sealants aren't perfect and typically will not hold up very well on areas of the doll that get a lot of touch/movement.

That makes a lot of sense...maybe it will help to try holding the hands a little closer to the base where there's usually less blush when removing them to dress the doll then...

7 hours ago, Kemonomimicry said:

15 times in an hour🤯? Mr. Super Clear is lacquer-based. If you spray lacquer (or alcohol-) based paint layers in too quick succession, the new layer will dissolve the older layers, causing them to separate from the surface below.

 

6 hours ago, 0bsequi0us said:

Definitely seconding Kemonomimicry, you should really only be spraying 1-2 times MAX in an hour. I'm kind of hoping that was maybe a typo, since that would mean spraying roughly every 4 minutes and that sounds awful. 😵

Ohh, that's actually really good to know. Now that I do the math, the 15 times an hour was definitely exaggerated (probably more like 8 or 9), but also partially out of desparation -- I did 3 coats, a coat every 30 minutes, at first, and after that rubbing off a few times I kind of just went for it hoping more layers would make it stay on more. It's good to know now why that definitely would not have helped.

Volks have a demonstration on this once. They held the doll maybe 18 inches from the MSC, and they sprayed left to right several times while holding it steady. Part of the idea was consistent motion, don't spray left to right, then up and down, then diagonal, etc... Just do consistent left to right motions, then move the part to cover the next area and repeat. 

Reading the 15 times really shocked me, haha.

But I can second was had been said here, when it comes to simple body blushing (and I did blush Imomo hands before with no problem at all), I am very simplistic, usually just one layer of MSC, do the blush, then seal with another layer. So far it has never rubbed off.

I had it with some resin hands the other day that I had to do another layer, because the fingertips didn't catch enough spray, but that's about it. And resin is a lot more slippery compared to vinyl anyway.

8 hours ago, MoiBakaDesu said:

I had it with some resin hands the other day that I had to do another layer, because the fingertips didn't catch enough spray, but that's about it. And resin is a lot more slippery compared to vinyl anyway.

I wonder if the problem was that I hadn't gotten enough sealant on the fingers then? That's the part I blushed the most, but also the part that rubbed off the most, and afterwards it didn't feel like the same matte, toothy texture as I would have gotten on the doll's face. At the time I chalked it up to the fingers being a smaller surface or different kind of vinyl, but I'll pay more attention to it in the future.