Is this a good Idea?

this is something I have experiance with.  Some have mold release on them which keeps paint from adhering.  I have quite a few of army men I have painted up, me and my dad used to do it all the time.  Just wash them in grease cutting dish detergent before painting, prime, and you will be fine.

In all seriousness, its a VERY good idea.  I have done it on multiple pieces testing things.

grease cutting dish detergent, check.  the reason I am using the army men is basically because they wear WWII clothing and weapons and you can get 100 of them for $1 so i dont really have to worry about stripping the paint, if one looks like ****** I can just toss it in the trash. 

 Now when painting figures, do you typically paint the face or the uniform first?  

Byrne0ut wrote:

Now when painting figures, do you typically paint the face or the uniform first?

Here is a good thread on figure painting.

/forums/950807/ShowPost.aspx

The face makes the figure. Most figure painters that I know, paint the face first and then move on to the rest. It sets the tone for painting the rest of the figure and will likely be the area that you will spend the most time and effort on.

I personaly find that the better the detail and sculpting of the figures face the easier and the better the paint job. You'll have facial expression and features to work from and it will delineate the shadow and highlight areas better. As has been suggested if you use a good metal figure or some of the resin figures to practice on you'll get further, faster than if you try and do it from soft featured, poorly molded army men. Its not so much the cost of the figure that you should be worried about but what you have to work with. You can always strip the work and start over. A good practice by the way, not every figure painted is a masterpiece and if you can strip a figure and re do your paint job, having a good technique will not be so depressing in the long run. The better the training field, the better the result.

Good luck

but resin figures can be expensive to get, also it takes time and effort to strip and repaint and all of that, as opposed to just grabbing another figure.

I really suggest you do the toy soldier rout.

i jump in and say do what you are comfortable with. Perhaps you are not in a position now to order a set of resin figs, and dont have a local show where you can pick up a set of figs on the dollar raffle. That being the case, use what you have at hand.

the real kicker here will be the paint you use. I would put my investment in Andrea or Vallejo paints applied in very thin layers unless you would prefer to go the oil paint route. I started with oils and have completely switched to acrylics.

choose the figures you are comfortable working with and practice, practice, practice!

oh, and i start at the face and work out. sometimes I will paint one of my less-clad figures clothing first and cover that in tape to protect it while I paint the rest of her.

smeagol the vile wrote:

I am going to say for a third time that not all plastic army men are junk.

Easy Smeagol, its cool, no one is busting your chops. And actually in the 3 posts you made prior to this one, you only mention the quality of figures and their detail once. Not 3 times. In fact you don't say "that not all plastic army men are junk" at all prior to this post.

I don't think anyone thinks your idea is a bad one, they just offer what they may consider a better opportunity or solution to learning a skill. In the 35 years of figure painting I've done, I've never tried your method of practicing painting plastic army men and I do know there are some very nicely detailed figures. I did it the ol' fashion way, one after another. In time I have gone back and stripped and repainted figures. I admit I have never seen any plastic army-men that rival the detail of sculpt on resin or metal figures, and in all honesty, I would rather spend the $20 once and learn on that than on something that is not nearly comparable in detail or sculpt. Seriously, you have to ask yourself, how may times is anyone really going to practice on a set of plastic soldiers before they try it on a money fig. And frankly, even when I was young my time was worth more than that so I tried the best I could, when I could.

What it comes down to, is what anyone feels comfortable doing. Be it on green plastic army men or verlindedn figures.  THere is no wrong or right way of honing ones skills other than to try, learn from mistakes and considered failures and keep on trying.

I'm a believer in painting a figure as if I'm dressing it.  I don't do separate heads and such, since I Frankenstein my figures and usually have to do some putty work in the neck and back of the head, so I start with the flesh areas, then the next layer, shirts, and such, then the jacket/trousers, and finally the footgear.  If the headgear is molded separately, I'll do it separately, otherwise it's part of the face/head/hair...

As for detail painting, I "went" to the "Shepard Paine School of Figure Painting", meaning that I use the techniques outlined in his books and diorama tip-sheets... I also refrain from painting details that wouldn't be visible in ordinary viewing situations, like looking at a diorama that's sitting on the shelf or table.  Instead of painting detail that is only necessary for photographing a 2-inch figure and showing it 8 or 12 inches in height (like in here), I figure the viewer won't be able to see the missing detail(s)... This removes a lot of headaches and contributes to a better blood-pressure rate. 

Since the average person can't focus on anything closer than about 5 " to his/her eyes before the object becomes blurry, I paint accordingly.  5 inches, in 1/35th scale, translates to 14 1/2 scale feet, so I don't do anything that wouldn't be visible on a real person that's standing 15 feet away from me in the real world.  I don't do the whites of the eyes, really don't do the eyes at all, since my scenes are general outdoors, and people squint outdoors.  So, the eyes don't need to be anything more than a couple of black slits.  Positioning them equally is answer, and then moving on to the shadows/highlights.  This is where technique comes into play... 

Regardless of the scale of the figure, blending is key to face-painting.  Stabbing/stippling the demarkation line between the colors is the method I use with oils, enamels, and acryillics... I haven't tried the Vallejo paints yet, so I won't talk about them...

I paint the face and hair's base colors in acryilcs ordinarily, and highlights & shadows in oils/enamels.  This is so the shadow/highlight colors don't attack the underlying paint.  I usually squirt a bit of clear acrilyc varnish over the base colors as well, to give me another layer between the paints.  Then it's just a matter blending...

As for using "Army Men" to practice on, that's fine as far as I'm concerned... Whether you're painting those, or a 25.00 resin figure, the technique's the same.  You're using shadow and highlight to depict the shapes found, to show by variations in base color the way light falls on the face.  Whether those facial features are molded in or not is moot.  Finely molded features just make them esaier to see and allow for a variety of expressions of emotion or environment.  On a 2-cent "Army Man", those features are still there as well as on the high-dollar figure, you just have to paint them before you can find them.. It's all about light and shadow, in my humble opinion.  Otherwise, it'd be impossible to make a 2D drawing look like it has 3 dimensions, no?

So... After all is said and done, what will matter most is the end result, and how fast you reach your desired level of detail is dependant on how much experience you have in painting faces/figures, right?  The more you do, the better you will get, plain and simple.  Therefore, if you practice on GAMs (Green Army Men) you'll gain experience faster with less expenditure of money, although you'll go through more paint.  But who cares about that? 

Frankly, I think that the low-quality of the faces on GAMs will do more for you in finding out what works for you and what doesn't work with much less aggrevation.  They also have the added bonus of allowing you to practice repositioning and swapping body parts with no loss or damage to your "real" figures, which in turn will allow you to use the "good" figures on dioramas with any story-line you can imagine, making the figures fit the story, rather than getting stuck with the figures dictating what story you can tell...

Byrne0ut wrote:

Now when painting figures, do you typically paint the face or the uniform first?

I prefer to paint the uniform/clothing first, then paint the face/hands/skin and finish with the footgear.  This is because I usually hold the feet or head while painting the rest of the figure, so it keeps me from destroying my time and effort I put into the face by rubbing the paint off with my fingers.  However, I've found that I do things differently than what most others do or recommend when it comes to figure painting.  Basically, try it and do what works for you!