WW 2 Figures For the first time

I'd recomend temporarily gluing your figures and items down on a paint can lid to paint them once they are constructed.

It saves your work from finger prints and allows you to not touch it and leave oils on it.  Also, it garuntees that the figure wont be messed with in the painting process, so when everything is dry, all you have to do is gently snap it off and mount it on the diorama.  Just use a little super glue, just enough to hold it on and fight gravity and the strokes of the paint brush.

Also, you might want to make your figures more realistic by scraping or sanding off the mold seam line that comes on every part.  That way it doesn't look like it came from a mold, the figure actually looks real.

Look into washes and drybrushing and highlighting.  Check this out:

Without wash, highlights, and drybrushing:

With a wash, highlights, and drybrushing:

A wash gives the "wartorn" and abused look.  The highlishts and drybrushing give a light illusion, so even if a light was pointed directly in the shadows, it'd still look the same.

Happy modeling!  Hope it helps!

Andrea or Vallejo paints are the best figure paints. They were developed for figures. Go to http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com , choose English the "model color" from the drop down menu. Scroll to the bottom for a downlaodable and printable tutorial on their use.

Most fugure painters ahve moved away from drybrushing fior highlights and use the method described inthe tutorial. You get a smoother transiton of shading. A real wash is not easy to accomplish with acrylics due to the natural surface tension of water.

While glueing to a surface is okay, a better method is to drill a hole in the foot and up the leg then adding a length of brass or aluminum tubing. You have something to hold while painting and something to attach the figure to the base.

There is a type of glue called Tenax; http://michael.casavant.us/Minis/tools_supplies.htm#tenax   that tends to close seams up you might want to try. You use it sparingly though; too much will actually melt the plastic, but in the right ammount, it can actually help with gaps. I apply it with a syringe, a 10-CC syringe to be exact, but an insulin needle is better, you get more control. I found out about Tenax after a 20 year hiatus in modeling; "Model glue is only good for sniffing" I was told, "Try Tenax". I have tried both, and while I like the control of a more conventional glue, I really like the job Tenax does right off the bat.

ArmorMaster wrote:

I'd recomend temporarily gluing your figures and items down on a paint can lid to paint them once they are constructed.

Good idea! I'll have to try that with my current project!