Sunfading colored ponies, with pictures! (MD Meet Mildew Ponies)

[Elisto]

Updated with a picture of Baby Surprise


I've seen a lot of concern about sunfading ponies that aren't white or light colors, and decided that since I had a bunch of mildew-stained ponies of different colors that weren't going to get any better without sunfading, I would try it and see what happened. I sunfaded for a few weeks, no peroxide. Overall, I think it was a success and I didn't notice any fading of the body colors.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures of all of them first, so here's the ones I do have to show:
Lickety Split: so far, only her head has been sunfaded:
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BowTie: only her body has been sunfaded (head doesn't appear to need it): visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Before: Baby Surprise: her hair stained her body.
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After: needs a just little longer!
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The ribbon for her balloon looks like it faded despite being covered, but I expected that since the pink pigment seems to have bled into the surrounding plastic (and pink seems to fade fastest anyway)

I've also successfully faded Skyflier and multiple Cotton Candy (pink), Moonstone (light blue), Snuzzle (gray), Peachy in a few shades of peach/pink, Windy and Blossom (lavender, but Blossom seems to have started out lighter than normal), and Dancing Butterflies (yellow). Gingerbread and Starshine are the only G1s that have given me trouble so far.

If anyone else has success (or not!) with sunfading colored ponies, post them here!

[elish2]

I am absolutely terrified of trying sunfading, pretty much because of the concern of messing up....I am terrified of ruining a good pony because of some stray marks tt I am sure I can live with...also I m not sure of how to appropriately sunfade....

[Elisto]

Well, for marks, just wrap/cover all of the pony that you don't want faded, leaving only the spot you want faded exposed, and put it in direct sun for a few days to a few week (sometimes longer). Just check every so often to see how it's doing.

But I usually sunfade for overall discoloration, so I just leave the pony mostly uncovered in the window. Ideally you should cover the hair and paint (eyes, symbols, blush) with tape, paper, foil, or something else opaque, but I'm lazy and don't always do that. For that Lickety Split above, I only covered the hair, and I'll be covering her symbols when I do the body. I mostly worry about pink/red/purple paint pigments.

[mlp4me]

Lickety Split will look marvellous after a good fade! You can always re-pink her...
Poor baby surprise...

Starshine sunburns. I've tried sunfading gingerbread and had no luck at all removing her black/red spots.

[Elisto]

Yeah, the Starshine I had was already sunburnt, so when I tried to fade her, nothing happened. The Gingerbread I had didn't burn, but didn't fade either.

Actually, I've also been able to fade the mildew stains out of the ponies' hair, but I'm not sure what to do with Lickety Split since her hair will fade if I try to do that. But as you can see, it's kind of yellow. I could just fade it and then re-pink it, but I don't really want to because I was so happy to get a pink-haired one in the first place!

[hyenacub]

I've been fine with Baby Surprise, Glory, Moondancer, and Firefly, personally. 

[hathorcat]

Gosh thats quite a change in colour in LSs head! I wouldnt have thought the change would have been as dramatic! Her "head colour" looks much better than her body.

[Itajn]

That Lickety Split is amazing! I'm going to try it as soon as I have good candidate.

[mlp4me]

Her hair does look a little yellow. Re-pinking is so easy and she'd look even more fabulous after it's done. I had to re-pink my lickety split when I got her and I'm glad I did, her hair was very faded.
Ah, here's a pic for motivation...
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[Elisto]

Updated with an "after" picture of Baby Surprise.

mlp4me, that LS looks great! My biggest concern right now is making sure I don't fade her symbol since I seem to have been unfortunately successful at fading pink paint too.

[hathorcat]

Surprise looks great Elisto...how many days has that been for her in the sun?

[Elisto]

I actually don't know unfortunately. I want to say 2 weeks? But it may have been longer. The problem with Surprise is that the yellow bled straight through the plastic to the inside, which is very bright yellow now, but I can't figure out how to sit her so the inside gets sun. I think that would take care of the last of it faster if I could. The surface stains her her face and adult Surprise were fully gone in 2 weeks or less (but we had really high UV warning during that time)

[hyenacub]

My Baby Surprise has a weird orange mark just like the one on that wing.  She is quite improved, though!

[hathorcat]

Thats impressive for a couple of weeks - here that would take months and we would never get sun constant enough! Sun fading in Scotland is a nightmare...if only ponies could be cured by rain water.

So you want to sun fade the inside of her as thats where some of the staining is? Maybe some clever use of tinfoil and mirrors to direct the sunlight inside the pony?

[Argentum-Zeena]

Wow, the sunfading looks to be working quite well! I wish you the best of luck

I'm actually sunfading a pony myself, though it's more of an experiment than anything else. It's a G4 Cheerilee, whom  plan to turn into a custom. Her head's definately starting to show a difference. It's really for her hair, though.