Blue Cavern

In my latest lot I received an Emperor Smurf made of white pvc. As I already had a yellow pvc one I thought I'd put them together in my cabinet. It was then that I noticed how dark the gold paint has become on my new figure. It's like metallic chocolate The paint on the yellow pvc figure is still very shiny. I know that the gold paint can change colour with time but I've never seen it darken this much. Here are some piccys...

I've seen a few emperor smurfs on ebay that dark colours nad I've got one too. I prefer the lighter gold colour of my original white hatted one. Interesting to see the variations side by side though.

That is a big change, I never noticed before but I see my emperor changed like that too and that is one I still had from when I was a little one. Makes you wonder if they actually used metal flaking in the paint because it really looks like it is tarnishing.

gerda

that's a great observation..I have never noticed that before

Well this is confusing. I had two as a kid (eg; 20 years ago!) and they were both different colours and one was like that! So maybe its a variation and not a paint fade?
Al

I was wondering about the Gold smurf. I would assume they used the same color/material for that smurf, so if the emporer changes color over time, wouldn't the Gold smurf not also do the same?

I checked mine, and neither of them have...they are still gold.

My brother has this smurf, and it turned dark. I've noticed in paintings and projects that sometimes the gold does "tarnish"...wondering if it's the quality of the paint they happened to use?

Yea Lead Paint! LOL I don't really know that. Bill

I think I have the same two kings as you Tojo, is one with yellow base (same colour as crown) and one white base (painted crown) ? but the gold on mine are identical

One of the worst smurfs for gold paint tarnishing is the magician ? I have seen lots of these with green stars on the back of their head

The Alchemist and Jester are similar too. (stars turning green)

Its almost as if the gold is oxidising like copper does.

Telephone Smurf comes in different shades of gold too,maybe it`s just different batch numbers of the same paint...although that doesn`t account for the darkening of the paint over time.

I've seen this effect to varying degrees on my other smurfs but never this extreme.

I mentioned in another post a while back that gold paint is a problem. I paint wargames figures & of all the paints, gold gives the biggest headache. The only way to get a good 'crisp' gold is to first prime the figures, then to paint the area which will be golden with brown paint & then to paint a coat of gold paint, leave it to dry & then give it a second coat. If the second coat is left out, the gold is patchy, dull & has that greenish tinge to it which we see on the smurfs....