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Now for the last touches.
Usually the only thing left of your pony by now is
1. A pony with a lot of ingrained
dirt, a lot of pony cancer that just couldn't be removed , or bleach spots because you messed up accidently when cleaning. At
this point it is time to salvage the parts that are worth while (the head, the body, the tail) and put the rest off as a pile
for true bait.
2. A pony in which some improvments could be done but it's to much work for you (such
as re-rooting the hair) in which point you should keep it 'as is' if you are connected to it, or sell or give it to someone
who will restore the pony. Sometimes you can even pay people to restore your favorite pony for you.
3. or A sparkly
pony that is in pretty good condition and would make a lovely addition to someones collection and bring continued joy.
If
you have number 3 you might want to finish your pony off.
by this point there probably isn't much left to work on
(or that you could actually improve) but the paint of your pony.
When painting your pony you have a few choices but here are my recommendations.
1. Choose your paint wisely. Most
people reccomend Acrylic paint (which is water based) thats great but not all acrylic paint is the same. Spend some money
and get the more proffesional type. From my experience cheap acrylic paint will remain tacky and never fully dry. Down
the road it will just attrack dirt and dust, and be nasty.
It is also hard to get the right consistancy. Be sure to water
it down a little but not to much.
You can also use a model paint (enamel based and a bit stinky) these work as well
and last long. Testors is the most common brand.
2. get a very fine tiped brush. Your dollar paintbrush the kids use
won't cut it here.
3. Make sure your colors match, exactly.
We will start with the
cheeks.
This is the most commonly faded and scratched off part. Honestly I don't think repainting the cheeks is a good idea. The cheek
paint of ponies as thin, light, and perfectly positioned. Most re-paints cannot recreate this accurately. They end up looking
too circle shaped, to thick, to pink, to red, or not in the right spot on the cheek. Thus it is pretty easy to notice when
the blush is redone.
I suppose perhaps if you had an airbrush and taped/covered the rest of the pony up and positioned
it right you could possibly repaint the blush but unless you are good I wouldn't put the effort into it.
Though a pony
without blush wouldn't be considered mint, it is so common for the blush to get faded and worn that it certainly would still
be near mint and wouldn't detract much from a beautiful pony.
If you are going to repaint the blush water down your paint a bit more then usual and apply it lightly.
Something else I see sometimes also is people try and use real blush on the ponies cheeks. Again this is usually the
wrong color and applied to the wrong place. As well it washes off the very first time when the new owner decides to give it
a bath to "clean it up" a bit. Using human blush is probably the silliest idea of all to me so if you really feel a need to
fix the blush get out some paint.
Eyes: eyes are the second most common thing to have problems, and usually
one of the easiest to fix when it comes to painting.
Usually the problem is on the black outline of the eyes, and the
black eyelashes.
If this is the case get a ultra fine tipped sharpie marker (permanent black marker) and draw over the
places that need fixing. Don't do this if you are horrible at art or your hands shake please lol.
Also, please only use
this if your ponies outlines are dark black. Some ponies have more of a greyish charcoal color or brownish outline, in which
you using deep black would not match.
The rest of the eyes are a bit harder. First you will need to find a very small
paintbrush and the correct type of paint (check out customization pages) and paint the eyes back. If you need only the white
part, white should be easy, but the color you need to match up exactly.
Symbol: This is the hardest part to
repaint. You have to know what the symbol looks like, where it is positioned, what exact color you need, and a fine brush
to do it with. If you are just filling in a few holes and get the right color it probably won't be noticed. If you have
to repaint the whole thing it may be spotted, even if you are good.
I have seen a few repainted sparkly symbols (such as
sun beam, glory, and moon dancer) but you can spot the repaint because the ponies loose a bit of their glitter
at least over time and any repainted ones will most likely be very thick glitter. Thicker then a mint non-painted one.
Finding
the right paint will take a bit of digging, reading of customization pages, and a bit of experimenting. From my experience
I will say getting the right paint for any painting on a pony is important, even with acrylics, if you get a cheap one your
pony will be forever sticky, collecting dust, and just not good.
When repainting glitter symbols (which are usually the ones that need the most help) do NOT use glitter glue, this usually
will wash off in water and doesnt have much "glitter" in comparison to the glue. The best thing will be some ultra fine craft
gliter, using a small paintbrush lightly paint a thin layer of some clear glue over the existing symbol and sprinkle the glitter
on.
If you have dared to venture this far, and put all this effort into your pony it should look at least better, if
you followed every step needed and even dug up the paint needed then it most likely looks significantly better. I would love
for a few people to give my suggestions a try and let me know the results. Anyone who is going to try my guide, I will be
posting an email shortly. PLease take before pictures of your pony, including close ups of the dirtiest spots, and then also
after pictures with close ups of the same spots and I will post your pictures on here so we can show off how your pony
turned out.
Thanks
Mismatched head/body color: This strangly happens to a lot of ponies.
There is really only 3 choices here.
1 is to leave it alone, if it is not to noticable this would be a good idea.
2. Is to fade the body slightly, to match
the head. (this is recommended if the difference is enough to notice and detract from the pony but the head isn't severly
faded)
Please keep in minde this does not work on G3 ponies.
Detach the head (or cover it up) and lay the pony on it's
side in the sun. Be sure to cover up the ponies tail and symbol as well with something dark. Flip the pony over and upside
down when the one side is done. How often you check it should depend. keep the head around to match coloring, check every
30 minutes to one hour I'd suggest (depending on your sun and the time of the year.)
The 3rd option is, if the head
is severly faded, to find a new head that matches closer and sellt he faded one. This can be hard and no two ponies age alike
but if the body is pretty close to original color then it can be easier.
Fulfilling the Flocking!
This is a bit difficult but there is a product called fun flock, it is do it yourself
flocking. It is typically used for stamping and comes in 12 colors so finding the right color can be difficult.
Though
typically most so soft ponies flocking is white, and you see their body color through this, most ponies flocking is no longer
brand new bright white so matching up a flock can be hard but usually isn't to noticable when you are touching them up.
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