Ah, the joys of ARK: Survival Evolved. Exploring the island, building structures, and perhaps most expressive of all, dying your clothing! While it’s possible to get a few dyes from quest rewards or as drops from certain creatures, if you want to create a truly unique look, you’re going to need to learn how to make dye yourself.
Creating dyes in ARK can be a bit tricky. You’ll need to know where and how to collect the ingredients for each dye and what sort of equipment you’ll need for crafting them. Don’t worry though—for this comprehensive guide on making your own dyes in the game, we’ve got all the details covered! Read on for an incredibly colorful look at how to make dyes in ARK: Survival Evolved.

Introduction to Dye Crafting in ARK
Have you ever been playing ARK and wished to make your character look a bit more unique? Well, now you can do just that with dye crafting! With the right know-how, you’ll be able to create all kinds of custom colors to paint your clothes and armor.
When it comes to dye crafting in ARK, the basics are pretty straightforward. To begin, you’ll need to collect some basic materials such as berries, wood, or plants. You’ll then combine them in a cooking pot or forge and voila – you’ve got your dye! Once you have the right ingredients, it’s easy to mix up a wide variety of hues. You could make red and yellow dyes for some fiery tones or mix blueberries with charcoal for a subtle sky blue shade.
Essential Materials for Crafting Dye
Crafting dye in ARK can be a pretty tricky process—but it’s worth the time and effort to get the beautiful colors you can create. Before you create dye, you’ll need four essential materials:
- Salt – You’ll need to gather salt for your dye. It can be found in the ocean or near any brackish water source.
- Charcoal – Charcoal is essential for crafting dye and can be found around most campfires and torches.
- Berries – Berries are where you get your pigment from in ARK, and come in a variety of different colors like red, blue, green and purple.
- Water – You’ll need to add a few drops of water to make sure all your other ingredients combine properly and make the perfect color of dye.
Once you’ve got these four materials, you’re ready to start making your own dyes! Just combine them in the correct proportions, apply them to what you want dipped in color, and voila–you’ve made yourself some wonderfully vibrant dye!
Crafting and Filling Your Dye Container
Creating and filling your own dye container is a crucial step to making dye in ARK. The first thing you’ll need to do is craft a dye container. This is done by simply using the “crafting menu” on your inventory screen and selecting the “dye container” option. Then, you need to fill the dye container with three separate ingredients: black pigment, yellow pigment, and red pigment.
These ingredients each have their own unique recipes that must be followed in order to craft them correctly. For example, black pigment requires oil, charcoal, and rare mushrooms, while yellow pigment requires oil, rare flowers and rare mushrooms. Once you have all of these ingredients (and all other necessary items such as an empty jar or bottle), you can begin filling your dye container with them.
Once the dye container is full of all three colors of pigments, it is ready to be used for crafting dyes. Just remember that it is important to check that the dyes are mixed correctly in order to create the desired color!
What Colors Can You Make?
Now that you know the basics of crafting dye in ARK, let’s talk about what colors you can make! You can create a range of hues that are perfect for adding a splash of color to your environment.
Crafting Process
The crafting process begins by gathering the right materials and resources needed to craft a dye. You’ll need items like Charcoal, Salt, Fungal Wood, Plant Species Y and Preserving Salt. Depending on the color you’re trying to create, the processes will vary slightly.
Color Options
You can create a variety of colors by mixing together different components. Here are just a few possibilities to get you started:
- Blue: Charcoal + Salt + Fungal Wood
- Red: Charcoal + Salt + Plant Species Y
- Orange: Charcoal + Fungal Wood + Plant Species Y
- Purple: Charcoal + Salt + Fungal Wood + Plant Species Y
- White & Black: Charcoal and Preserving Salt respectively.
With the right materials and some creativity, you can make all kinds of colors for your environment! So now that you know how to make dye in ARK—start crafting your own colorful world today!
Applying Dyes to Structures, Creatures, and Clothing
Now that you know how to make dye in ARK, it’s time to put that knowledge to use. Applying dyes to structures, creatures, and clothing is a breeze — all you have to do is select the item you want to apply a dye to and select the “paint” option.
Making sure your structures, creatures, and clothing look their best is easy with dyes — here’s what you need to know:
Structures
When applying dyes to structures in ARK, keep in mind that certain building elements can’t be painted like floors or ceilings. You’ll also need some chisels of varying quality depending on the structure pieces you want to paint — just make sure you have plenty of resources available as they do take up an inventory slot.
Creatures
Applying dyes to tamed creatures requires the same chisels used for painting structures. It’s important to note that tamed creatures will remove any applied dye after five minutes in the wild. You’ll also need a good supply of Dodo Kibble or Stimberries if the creature resists being painted!
Clothing
Dyeing clothing can be done by simply putting on the clothing first (or by equipping it from your inventory) and then selecting the “dye” option from your inventory menu. This won’t require any extra resources as long as you have some dyes handy! The resulting color may not always be what you expected, so make sure you check it out before putting it on!
Finishing Touches: Adding Other Decorations
The last step in creating dye in ARK is to add the finishing touches. You can get creative with this and add decorations like feathers, flowers, or shells. It can even be natural elements like stones or wood pieces. It all depends on what you want the final product to look like.
Once you have the decorations you need, you’ll have to find the right mix of ingredients to create a dye that will bind to whatever you are adding it to. This can be tricky but luckily there are plenty of tutorials online so you can get an idea of what combinations work best.
You’ll also need salt as an activator for most dyes so that they stick and hold pigment. When you’ve chosen your decorations and added the right mix of ingredients, simply stir it all together and your dye should be ready! Now all that’s left is to apply it to whatever surface you’re hoping to colorize with your masterpiece!