Preparing Plastic Figures

Games Workshop produces some really nice plastic figures and figure kits. The assortment of pieces and bits really allows you to customize your figures and give them some personality. However, this flexibility can also lead to nightmares when it's time to paint. There is so much detail and variability to the poses that it's easy to assemble figures that turn out to be very difficult to paint. Sometimes you buy assembled figures on E-Bay and wonder, after you receive them, how you're going to paint all of the nooks and crannies. By way of context, I have a ton of Orks I assembled and painted and then bought some assembled Tyranids and Tau. In all cases, I wish they had been partially assembled because getting my brushes into the spaces behind arms or under carapaces was difficult.

As mentioned above, I painted up 3 sets of Orks. The first set were fully assembled before painting and I found that it was very difficult to get to the belly and chest areas where the arms and weapons cross over. I was also hard to get at the neck and chin area for the same reason. The figures look OK, but I know there are spots I just wasn't able to get to.

The second batch of Orks were completely assembled except for the arms. These guys painted up much easier than the first batch, BUT, when it came time to glue the arms on I found that they didn't always fit in nicely with how the heads had been glued on. If I had to do it again (given Orks, I probably will), I would either a) glue the arms on, but not the head, or b) glue torso with legs, but leave arms and head off.

As it turns out, the third batch of Orks I painted were 77 AOBR Orks. I thought about leaving the heads and/or arms off and in the end, for the sake of expediency, I caved in and assembled everything before painting. Again, I know that there are spots I wasn't able to get at, but that was an acceptable trade off. The AOBR Orks are also a little simpler than the Orks from the regular boxed set as the AOBR Orks don't have arms crossing in front of the chest area, which makes them easier to paint.

As a part of model prep, you definately want to spend some time cleaning up mould lines. If you don't, they will really show up and be apparent once you prime the figure. You can clean up mould lines with a sharp knife and some files.

So what can you do to make painting easier?

Mentally walk through the painting process before you finalize assembly. If you do this, you can see where you might have problems getting access for your brushes and adjust your assembly plan to compensate. In the case of the Orks, I fully assembled my AOBR Orks and wished that I had left the heads off, as getting to the straps and skin under the chin was difficult.

Partial assembly can help. As mentioned above, you'll want to consider your options for assembly. Dry fit a couple of models with blue tack and see how easy or hard it will be to paint. Naturally, assembly is easier if you do everything up front, but then painting might be harder. You'll have to test out each type of figure for yourself.

Once you figure out how to best assemble and paint your figures, you'll need to protect the attachment points so that you can glue the model together after painting. To do this, take some white glue and put a nice little drop on the flat part where you will use model glue. When it dries, you can prime and paint over it really easily. When you're ready to paint, take a sharp scribe and it should pop right off.

Notes

Last updated	1/17/09
Author	Michael Kan
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