Gemini Instructions
How to use Gemini paints!
Our Bountiful Baby BabySkin™ vinyl reborn kits are ready to go! There is no need to remove any factory paint, factory body, or factory hair. So let's begin!
Our preferred paint for our BabySkin™ vinyl is our Pratt Paints Gemini Heat Set paint, which comes in custom colors that match our vinyl perfectly. Pratt Paints Gemini Heat Set paint allows you to achieve permanent and amazingly realistic results.
Here are some tips and important notes before you get started.
You can use the Gemini Thinning Medium, but we prefer to use Gemini Heat Set Odorless Thinner to achieve the flowing characteristics that we desire.
With numbered steps, we will tell you the pre-mixed paint color and brushes/applicators to use for each step. This simplified process is what we call "Reborn Paint by Number".
Key points to success with Gemini paints:
- Less is best. Use only a tiny amount of very thin paint. Too much paint can cause the doll to have a chalky over-done look.
- Do not overload your brush
- Use the right brush for each step.
Important!
- Use an accurate oven thermometer and a timer when baking the doll. Do not trust your regular oven thermometer, as they are often very inaccurate!
- Have your oven be exclusively for the use of Gemini paints. Do not also bake food in the oven, or otherwise use it for any other purposes.
- We recommend that you use a special type of oven called a "convection oven" for heat setting Gemini paints, because it heats more uniformly and without "hot spots". At Bountiful Baby, we use a convection oven that we bought at Walmart for $200. If you use some other type of oven, it could result in overheated "hot spots" in/on your vinyl parts, with the associated fuming risks of overheated vinyl. This applies to toaster ovens, roaster ovens, or any other electric or gas oven. We recommend that you do not use them-- that you use a dedicated convection oven instead.
- Put your convection oven in a well-ventilated place. If you "overbake" vinyl, it will emit fumes, as any overheated vinyl will do. So be careful not to set the temperature too high, or to let it bake too long. And take suitable ventilation precautions. Even if it doesn’t burn, hot vinyl fumes have the potential to be toxic.
- We recommend that you use "test parts" to initially set your oven temperature and baking time. Test parts are available from Bountiful Baby at a very nominal cost.
- Remember, you only want to heat the vinyl sufficiently to cure the Gemini paint, and nothing more! It is your responsibility to reach that point, and not exceed it.
Now you're ready to get started!
You can use these Genesis instructions for Gemini paint. You can find the Paint-By-Number instructions on pages 3-17.