Metallic bears - Part One.

Admit it, we all love shiny things; we all have an inner magpie that seems to be attracted by all things metallic and sparkly, (My fiancé more than any I think!).

On receiving some broken bears I realised I had got a golden shower Boo Boo. It was ‘damaged’ in the respect that some paint had been chipped away exposing the gold paint underneath. ‘Shit’ I thought, I never knew the golden shower bears were completely dipped!! That was it I was really excited and could not wait to strip the paint and reveal Boo Boo’s inner beauty, lol.

Now I did a little research and heard via the grapevine that all kinds of liquids and toxic potions would remove the paint but protect the metallic coat underneath. Let me just say one thing, almost all of these things did nothing other than make a nasty smell.

I tried all sorts of crazy things, oven cleaner, vinegar, white spirit, (I gave the urine a miss), pixie dust… you get the idea.

Eventually I decided to try my cellulose paint thinners and this did the job nicely. If you leave the bear dipped for too long then the thin gold coat goes silver. (The gold is a film over the silver base coat). I made this mistake and so decided to make a silver bear rather than a gold one. The flat surfaces lift really well but the fine details and indents can be fairly stubborn.

The unfortunate thing with using cellulose thinners is that if you spend too long brushing at the detail then the more exposed areas will be eaten away right down to the resin. You need to know when to stop and when to attack certain areas, getting the balance right is really hard.

About 10 minutes later I washed my bear and gave it a little polish. It was not perfect, and had some gold tints here and there but it did look good none the less.

Obviously the problem with this process is you need a golden shower bear to begin with, and in most cases it would be a shame to ruin that bear. Arnold’s work very well and normal bears can be turned into ‘white-ware’ bears using the same process. (I have not tried any white-ware’ yet, but I may in the near future).


I began to wonder how to create metallic bears from normal standard painted bears, that’s what I’ll dip into tomorrow.