Some questions about customs

[MoongazerThePony]

I have a cute baby fakie, and I want to customize her. I have a few questions.

1. Can you re-hair a pony without a re-hairing tool?

2. How do I take off her head?

3. To paint her, should I use acrylic or oil?

4. How do I get rid of pink "Highlighter" marks?? (She's purple)

[Griffin]

1. Can you re-hair a pony without a re-hairing tool?
Sure! There are some tutorials in the sticky thread on the top of the customs forum. Here's the method that I use, although I use strong cotton thread instead of dental floss. You can also do the same with thin wire that can be inserted without a needle, just fold it in half and push the loop from the outside in. I like thread because pulling it hurts less, and it's also stronger than the wire I used...

2. How do I take off her head?
I think there are some beheading tutorials, too? Anyway, fakie heads are rarely glued so you can probably just pull it out. If that doesn't work or if it's glued, carefully cut around the neck seam with an x-acto knife. Be careful with the neck plug, you only want to cut through the glue. Alternatively, you may try to loosen it with hot water or acetone. And if everything else fails, just cut it off and glue it back on when finished.

3. To paint her, should I use acrylic or oil?
Acrylic paints for ponies. Acrylics are plastic, so they're pretty flexible when they dry and they go well together with the soft pony vinyl.

4. How do I get rid of pink "Highlighter" marks?? (She's purple)
As far as I know, highlighter only fades in sunlight. That might take weeks, though, and some marks are pretty much impossible to get rid of... Also, some ponies get pink spots that are not highlighter but caused the plastic breaking down. In that case there's nothing to be done, unfortunately. Full body repaint is probably the way to go.

/ edit to fix formatting

[Lavender_Lace]

I'd like to add

2. To take off her head, you can try what Griffin said, or dunking her in some boiling water for a few minutes will soften the glue and you should be able to pull her apart without having to bust out the xacto knife.  You can also let her sit in a hot car for a few hours and then try.

3. Acrylic always!!  Oil based paints of any kind will either never dry or dry tacky and you'll end up with everything stuck to your custom.

[CrystalCrown]

1. Can you re-hair a pony without a re-hairing tool?

yes, here's a good tutorial http://www.cloverflowers.com/custom/TutPage003.html

How do I take off her head?

if the head is glued on, you can cut around the neck seam with an exacto knife and pull the head off from there. you could also run the neck seam under hot water and pull the head off, but that may take longer, especially if there doesnt seem to be a weak spot in the glue. if it has a turning head, you can just twist and pull and it should come off fine

To paint her, should I use acrylic or oil?

i use acrylics. i've never used oil paint on a custom so i dont know how well it would work.

How do I get rid of pink "Highlighter" marks?

if the stail doesnt seem to be absorbed into the plastic, you can try using a magic erases, acetone, or goof off (be careful with this stuff, it works well with removing ink marks and stuff but if you leave it on the pony too long or dont clean it off well enough it can deteriorate the plastic). If that doesnt work, try sunfading. but if you plan on giving the pony a full body repaint, remiving ink marks isn't necessary.
 
Good luck!