Thanks for the phicen suggestion. I haven't bought any female bodies, so idk which models are any good. The bust sizes are definitely egregiously frightening on some models. I also looked at the Pop Toys small bust super flexible model, but painting a harder plastic body doesn't look fantastic and the paint rubs on the hands, which is why i was hoping to use an already colored body with matching hands. Would the Triad body hands work (the connectors) with a Phicen? At the least, it would solve the hands problem.
If you search for dying phicen bodies, there was a pretty good thread on doing it recently. You use Rit Dye (synthetic i think but you'd have to check the thread), widely available. It would be a mix of the chocolate and red for African American, and you submerge the body multiple times. Some of the results are quite good. Also, Jacob Rahmeier posted a tutorial on his patron last year for dying a phicen body blue for Mr. Freeze using that Rit Dye, so same process but different color.
I have a custom head I bought, as yet unpainted. I'm just going to use the playmate's dress for now as I have a million other custom projects I'm working on ahead of this one unfortunately. Once you get your Scotty, if you are planning on that, it shouldn't be too hard to find a fabric near its color range at your local fabric store because they usually have a pretty good range of red hues. In this photo, the barbie dress looks like it isn't too far off, but as you say, with internet photos and different monitors, its hard to say.
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