Sunfading MADNESS! VERY pic heavy

[Snapdragon]

Hey guys! So, last summer I came up with a 'brilliant' plan - I would sunfade some baits all summer (about three months) and make them pure, sparkling white! (Or yellow. Or beige. You see what I'm saying here!) So instead of sunfading one, I decided to sunfade A BUNCH OF THEM AT ONCE! It was a big experiment for me, both in sunfading with painter's tape, sunfading different color plastics, and sunfading cancer, stains, and marker! Some of it worked, some of it didn't work, and some of it backfired, BIGTIME! But most of my girls came out beautifully, and I wanted to share my results!

Be warned - I wanted to try and be as good with 'before and after' photos as possible, so THINGS GOT KIND OF PIC-HEAVY. I'll put them under spoilers, to make it easier on your computers!

All taped up:
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You can see some of their various 'maladies' here, but I'll include detail shots in the spoiler below!

Moondancer, Fifi, and Dainty - assorted stains

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Moondancer had more gunk on her other side-
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Ringlet and Sugarberry - stains, cancer?, symbol-bleed

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Peachy 1 and Peachy 2 - cancer dots, ink spots/stains, highlighter/saddle "burns"

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Peachy 3 and Peachy 4! - cancer spots, head mismatch/weird body marks? pen?

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Gusty and Skydancer - marker/ink, victims of childhood art!

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G3 Blossomforth?, Petal Blossom - ink/staining, and marker (this was an experiment on sunfading on purple plastic, which is usually not recommended!)

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I set them all up in their little storage bin, and put them outside. But one night, it RAINED! (In the middle of June! What the heck, summer!) So I found out the hard way that painter's tape will leave blue marks if it gets wet and remains on a pony body!! Also, painter's tape is not as protective as tin foil; I had some fading on hair/cutie marks when I only used painter's tape to protect them. So when in doubt, tin foil it out! But also - tin foil will apparently rust?! So uh, now one of my ponies has rust stains. :I

And now, for the AFTERS! Woo hoo!

Moondancer! Not as white as I would like, she could probably do with another fading session, but definitely improved!
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http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a255/Bumblesweet/Pony%20Photos/Sunfading%20experiments/IMG_0401.jpg[/img]
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Fifi! She's much improved, but the stains have not completely faded-out.
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Good side:
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Stained side:
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Dainty! ... went missing!? Yeah, she's buried somewhere in another box, I'll have to find her and photograph her! Sorry!!
 
Ringlet! Ohh, her one side turned out PERFECT, but sadly it would seem you cannot fade all ink marks. But since she's a bait with beautiful hair, I decided to give her a fancy new hairdo to compensate! Here's her good side...
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... and her bad side. The other side is creamy white, but this side is the same, sadly.
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Under her hair:
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Sugarberry - gorgeous! I'd say one of the better sunfading successes in this batch! I was able to save most of the blush, but I think one cheek got more faded than the other.
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Peachy 1 - the blue staining is almost gone! Woo hoo!
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Peachy 2 - sadly, not much change for Peachy2. You cannot sunfade cancer, and you cannot sunfade highlighter/saddlesore.
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Peachy 3 - almost worse than she started, because she's one of the ponies that got stained by the painter's tape! Gah!! Not exactly a success story! However - I think some of her brown spots may have lightened somewhat?
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Peachy 4 - DEFINITELY worse off, now she has weird stains?! Possibly rust stains from getting caught in the rain?! Augh!! That's the last time I sunfade outdoors...
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Gusty - GORGEOUS! I'm super proud of how she came out!! I was extremely careful with trying to protect her glittery symbols, and I think it paid off! There's still a little staining, but overall it's a vast improvement!
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Skydancer - not much improvement, sadly. She'll just have to be little miss 1-2-3 forever, perhaps!
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G3 Blossomforth - vastly improved! Still some minor staining, but under the dust, she looks much better!
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G3 Petal Blossom - good proof of why you shouldn't sunfade purple ponies. Sadly, there is now a discolored spot where the marker used to be. The marker came off, but now it's sort of a bluish-gray instead!
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Closeup of the spot - it's hard to see, but IRL it's a little more defined, and more grey.
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Thanks for reading! I always enjoy seeing people's before-and-afters, restorations and sunfading successes, so feel free to share pics of yours here too!!

[Jinxxy]

You have definitely made me want to try sunfading!
I have a TAF sundance with GORGEOUS pink hair coming to me, but she has ballpoint pen all over her face :<
I never thought to use tinfoil though, that is a smart sun blocking idea!

*hugs*
Thanks for all the pics! It was really really cool to see them!!

[Snapdragon]

You have definitely made me want to try sunfading!
I have a TAF sundance with GORGEOUS pink hair coming to me, but she has ballpoint pen all over her face :<
I never thought to use tinfoil though, that is a smart sun blocking idea!

*hugs*
Thanks for all the pics! It was really really cool to see them!!

Well, white ponies sunfade really well!! She sounds like she'd make a great project! I'd recommend being really careful to wrap her hair up with tinfoil; I did a combo of tinfoil for the main 'body' of hair, then taped the roots (since it's easier to get a close fit to the scalp with tape), and the roots faded and the rest was fine! >.< Augh! Painter's tape is not as protective as I thought, unfortunately.

[invaderhorizongreen]

I am sunfading a BBE right now and she looks much better.

[Prince Primbrose]

Yay, sunfading! I wish I had a big open spot to fade ponies in; I can only fade what I can fit in my bedroom window. Thanks for sharing your pictures and experience! I had never thought about painters tape or tinfoil causing problems during fading... It's probably a good thing I'm not brave enough to fade ponies outside, because Montana's weather would just ruin them.

I'm glad you were able to get some ponies faded back to beauty!

[Jinxxy]

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This is the girl who will be here soon.
As you can see, the ballpoint is ALL over but it's pretty faint already. I am guessing the faintness isn't from the pony being in the sun because her hair is so pink and unfaded.
TAF Sundance is funny anyways. FADING pink hair with SUNCHANGING strands.. hahahaha. Silly hasbro :p

Do you think taping the tinfoil closer to her body would work? I want to preserve that yummy pink.

[Snapdragon]

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This is the girl who will be here soon.
As you can see, the ballpoint is ALL over but it's pretty faint already. I am guessing the faintness isn't from the pony being in the sun because her hair is so pink and unfaded.
TAF Sundance is funny anyways. FADING pink hair with SUNCHANGING strands.. hahahaha. Silly hasbro :p

Do you think taping the tinfoil closer to her body would work? I want to preserve that yummy pink.

Ooh, she IS crazy pink!! Love it!!

My suggestion (as someone who messed up the fading-pink stripe in poor Ringlet's mane!) is, if you can, remove the tail from her body before you sunfade? Or if you can just sunfade the head, that might be a good idea too. Since there's nothing on her neck (from what I can see at least?) you might just be able to wrap the whole head in tin-foil, mane and all, and gently cut out a little 'peep-hole' for the marked-on forehead! And maybe tape a little bit of foil to her eye, too, to protect that from fading. c:

[Frenzy]

This thread is awesome! I love that you did such a great job taking pictures of the ponies pre-sunfading so that we can really see the improvement. I gotta say that Bouquet got me especially excited because she is one of my most beloved childhood ponies and I have been too nervous to sunfade her penmarks (dunno how those could have got there...*cough , cough*) because I thought I read somewhere that she can burn, but I might just be able to work up the courage to do it now. At least she's got that great long hair to cover up any bad spots or cover the pen marks if I chicken out!

[Snapdragon]

This thread is awesome! I love that you did such a great job taking pictures of the ponies pre-sunfading so that we can really see the improvement. I gotta say that Bouquet got me especially excited because she is one of my most beloved childhood ponies and I have been too nervous to sunfade her penmarks (dunno how those could have got there...*cough , cough*) because I thought I read somewhere that she can burn, but I might just be able to work up the courage to do it now. At least she's got that great long hair to cover up any bad spots or cover the pen marks if I chicken out!

... oops, that IS Bouquet, isn't it?! Oh man, now I feel silly! Thanks for the clarification!

You can always check in on her daily to make sure she's not burning, or 'test' her plastic by sunfading the bottom of a hoof first? My Bouquet didn't seem to burn, to me, but she also only had some of her marks faded. But she sat in the son for, gosh, months? And she seems okay! (On one side anyway! )

[hathorcat]

Wow! I love pony experiments - looks like you had some great and some interesting results

[Frenzy]

... oops, that IS Bouquet, isn't it?! Oh man, now I feel silly! Thanks for the clarification!

You can always check in on her daily to make sure she's not burning, or 'test' her plastic by sunfading the bottom of a hoof first? My Bouquet didn't seem to burn, to me, but she also only had some of her marks faded. But she sat in the son for, gosh, months? And she seems okay! (On one side anyway! )

Hehe, I typed it w/o even rechecking to see what you had called her! I actually just saw a sales thread that called her by a different BnG's name a second ago. It's Hasbro's fault, really- who equates a hat with flowers? C'mon Hasbro! That's a good idea to go in small increments! Also, if she didn't burn in your California sun, I can imagine the Minnesota sun is gonna do too much damage! 

[himmie]

Wow, lots of interesting results. Thank you for sharing!

[Jinxxy]

Peep hole method it is! I will fade her as soon as she gets here. IF her head comes off I'll remove her tail too *crosses fingers* I'm excited to try this

[achab1984]

Boy I wish that I could do this with some of mine.  I do not have anywere to put them in the sun.

[Pickenprod]

Aw cool! I had a similar idea to try and get done this summer. I want to do a more controlled experiment though - seeing the effect of sun, sun + water, and sun + peroxide on several batches of ponies. It was really cool seeing your results, now I know what I can reasonably expect. Thanks for posting this!!