Painting and mounting.
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Painting and mounting.
How do folk paint their figures? I don't mean in terms of washes, highlights etc., more from the perspective of handling figures when painting. For 25s I have individual 'bases' made from a broom handle. About 1inch in diameter and half an inch thick. Just cut a load from a broom handle. Each figure is lightly superglued on and the bases allow easy handling when painting. Sometimes I use this method with 15s but recently I've taken to using 12 inch long slats of half inch square wood, I glue a load of figures on and this allows me to hold 15-20 figures at once and quickly apply the paint. Quite a good paint job can be done in a very short time. Just recently I painted a read-made-army of WotR Lancastrians in 12 hours, spread over 4-5 days, so an army in a weekend is achievable. I glued the whole army onto several of these slats and spray primed then sprayed black - from then on its all downhill!
Cheers
Mike
Cheers
Mike
I have a load of 4" nails with flat heads and I stick the figures I am painting to these nails with evostik or some similar glue. Once the glue dries I can easily manipulate a figure to get at it to paint and I stick the nails in a big foam block to hold them while I am not painting them.
I have another smaller foam block I use when I prime and varnish the figures to hold them closer together so I can spray them.
I have another smaller foam block I use when I prime and varnish the figures to hold them closer together so I can spray them.
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- Field of Glory 2
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I usually stick them to individual 1.5" deep cardboard tabs.
The best thing I ever used were the back end of Ayre's spatulas. (Wooden spatulas for taking cervical pap smears). Unfortunately cervical smears are now taken using plastic brushes so this is no longer an option. (Unless anyone knows where the world supply of redundant Ayre's spatulas is now held),
The best thing I ever used were the back end of Ayre's spatulas. (Wooden spatulas for taking cervical pap smears). Unfortunately cervical smears are now taken using plastic brushes so this is no longer an option. (Unless anyone knows where the world supply of redundant Ayre's spatulas is now held),
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- Lance Corporal - SdKfz 222
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- Corporal - Strongpoint
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I cut strips of corrugated cardboard about 6-8 inches long - Amazon packing is good - and stick six or eight foot figures or four mounted figures to them using copydex rubber glue. This peels off without damage when the figures are painted. Then I prime them with Halford's aerosol primer and they're ready for painting. I picked up a cheap lazy susan turntable from IKEA which lets you turn the strips around without touching them when priming them. The spacing between the figures lets a brush get to all the bits and having several figures on a strip means you're not picking up and putting down figures a lot. I should point out these are 15s - having several 28mm figures on a strip would probably bring on RSI.
I paint 28mm--Officers and specialty figs go on old 40K rounds or lately get spiked into wine corks. Main line figures of foot got four to a stir stick/Popsicle stick.
For cavalry, every horse goes on an individual plasticard base (I painted a Scythian Army two years back and now I have an infinite number of bases). I drill a 1/16th hole in every rider with a dremmel, and then spike him on 1/16th brass rod set in an old billet of wood--I paint 6 at a time, friction fit, and then use the same hole to pin the riders to the mounts, which makes cavalry a heck of a lot more robust and is worth the evening you'll invest in prepping your cav.
For cavalry, every horse goes on an individual plasticard base (I painted a Scythian Army two years back and now I have an infinite number of bases). I drill a 1/16th hole in every rider with a dremmel, and then spike him on 1/16th brass rod set in an old billet of wood--I paint 6 at a time, friction fit, and then use the same hole to pin the riders to the mounts, which makes cavalry a heck of a lot more robust and is worth the evening you'll invest in prepping your cav.
My answer is to blu-tac the figures onto the bases they will ( ultimately ) be based on. But faced sideways for easy access to the figure. This usually means 2-3 figures to a base, and therefore in-the-hand for painting. My psyche can no longer cope with painting 12-24 figures on a long strip of wood or similar, in batches of flesh then armour then tunic, etc. So I put 3-4 bases ( 6 - 12 figure ) in front of me and focus on painting them to completion, but with the flexibility of completing what I am holding without being intimidated by seeing other unstarted figures
For those, like me, who are subject to near constant distractions .. it feels good to say that at least I've completed a base or two instead of saying I've managed to block colour 20.
Ahhh forgot a stage... all priming is done by spraying the figures on the longest piece of wood I have ( current one is 2 1/2 ft ), with the four long sides festooned with blu-tacked figures. Then retouch the parts the spray didn't reach when mounted on the detail painting bases.
Alan
For those, like me, who are subject to near constant distractions .. it feels good to say that at least I've completed a base or two instead of saying I've managed to block colour 20.
Ahhh forgot a stage... all priming is done by spraying the figures on the longest piece of wood I have ( current one is 2 1/2 ft ), with the four long sides festooned with blu-tacked figures. Then retouch the parts the spray didn't reach when mounted on the detail painting bases.
Alan
I have a trick--not sure how many people do it--in that I prime most figures black (okay, so do most folks). When the paint is dry, I re-prime or hand touch the black so there's NO errors. Then I lightly re-prime in red-brown--rustoleum red brown, in fact. I do it as if air-brushing, with a light touch, so that the black recesses are not filled.
This provides instant colour contrast over the whole figure, makes detail way easier to pick out, and greatly warms flesh tones and reds.
Just my 2 cents.
This provides instant colour contrast over the whole figure, makes detail way easier to pick out, and greatly warms flesh tones and reds.
Just my 2 cents.
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- Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
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I see. Like a 'heavy' dry brushing to lighten part of the black and to give a less dark foundation.Kineas1 wrote:I have a trick--not sure how many people do it--in that I prime most figures black (okay, so do most folks). When the paint is dry, I re-prime or hand touch the black so there's NO errors. Then I lightly re-prime in red-brown--rustoleum red brown, in fact. I do it as if air-brushing, with a light touch, so that the black recesses are not filled.
This provides instant colour contrast over the whole figure, makes detail way easier to pick out, and greatly warms flesh tones and reds.
Just my 2 cents.
I use just plain old white glue, and I can't say I've had any problems getting the figures to stay put. I do file the figure bottoms flat when I'm cleaning up the figure first, and some of the figures tend to be "dished" on the bottom so I put a ring of of glue around the outer edge to make sure the figure, glue, and stick are all in contact with each other.
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- Staff Sergeant - Kavallerie
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I tend to use odd lengths of narrow card (usually off-cuts from other basing jobs), with a small dab of 'Copydex' (PVA type adhesive) to stick the figures down. This pulls off easily once you're done. The downside to this method is that Copydex can take hours to set on non absorbent material, so patience is necessary. So glue up the card before you start to prepare the figures!
Double sided tape would probably be better but I've never remembered to get any so I've never tried it!
Double sided tape would probably be better but I've never remembered to get any so I've never tried it!
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- Staff Sergeant - StuG IIIF
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Its interesting to read the different ways people paint their figures.
15mm figures I also buy "craft sticks" and glue 7-8 figures to a stick with Elmer's glue. I find that it holds strong enough that they don't fall of but I can pop the figures off when they are done without ruining the paint job.
25mm figures a prime first and superglue them individually to an approximately 1" square plastic base. I prime the figure including the bottom of the figure before I glue it to the base so I can easily remove the figure when the painting is done.
15mm figures I also buy "craft sticks" and glue 7-8 figures to a stick with Elmer's glue. I find that it holds strong enough that they don't fall of but I can pop the figures off when they are done without ruining the paint job.
25mm figures a prime first and superglue them individually to an approximately 1" square plastic base. I prime the figure including the bottom of the figure before I glue it to the base so I can easily remove the figure when the painting is done.