Painting minis?

[jdrakeh]

I don't think so. For one thing, the plastic is a lot stiffer and holds much better detail.

That hasn't been my experience. I just (as recently as last month) had to boil and re-straighten bendy appendages and weapons on many grey Bones minis.

 

[Clint_L]

So far only one person mentioned 3D printed minis. As someone who will have a 3D printer very soon, what - if anything - is different about painting those? Also the local FLGS has a free paint station with paints, 3rd hands, magnifying lenses. Even the paint that's already open there is free. (I assume they are expecting you to shop while the paint dries? or pay for more advanced paints or something?) Tips on painting there (or, let's say, a maker space)? Etiquette? Etc?

There is SO much variety with 3d painted minis, and I have painted quite a lot of them.

1. Get resin printed miniatures. They are kind of brittle so you have to be gentle with them, but they have much finer resolution than plastic printed miniatures, which IMO are not really worth painting due to the obvious print lines and low resolution.

2. Exception: Reaper's new siocast minis use a new plastic and printer that is pretty good. Still not as finely detailed as plastic injected, moulded miniatures, so some print line are visible. They will absorb more paint and are harder to do some techniques with.

3. That's awesome that your local shop does that! Games Workshop also used to also have a free painting - don't know if they still do. Etiquette is to paint miniatures that you bought at the shop, not bring in your Amazon order or whatever. Basically, they are doing it to bring in business and reward their valued customers, and they sound like a pretty cool shop!

These are 3d printed, resin pieces from my collection. They look fine on the tabletop but if you zoom in close you can see a fuzziness that you wouldn't get with moulded plastics:

 

[Marc Radle]

This is from a recent thread on the Reaper Forums and is extremely helpful!

I thought it might be helpful to have a thread detailing the ever-growing number of choices in plastic at Reaper (that i find confusing). One of the artists was kind enough to write it up, so i thought I would post here and also ask for corrections in case something needs more clarification.

1. Bones Classic / original is the flexible plastic cast in a steel mold but it doesn't hold fine detail on the smaller figures (see the infamous "missing noses" of some early human-size figures), and is imported from Reaper's partner-factory in China. The first Bones were white, but later castings are light gray, and I think some figures listed as Bones Classic are cast with translucent plastic or in colors other than white, as you can see in the photos or in the package.
2. Bones Black (not actually black, but a dark gray) is a different material that is less flexible and holds better detail, produced in a steel mold, but is also imported from China.
3. Bones USA / Siocast (gray) is a different plastic, somewhat flexible, holds excellent detail (like pewter), is produced with two-part molds similar to traditional pewter casting, on machines at Reaper's HQ in Texas. If you buy these figures, they're made from this material.
4. "RMPrint" is produced on high-capacity and high-resolution 3D printers at Reaper's HQ in Texas .A substance called "resin" but different from the resin used in typical "resin casting"; usually gray but sometimes with other colors; excellent detail; not limited to flat poses like traditional casting and you don't have to clean a mold line, but you may still have to cut off the remnants of 3D-printing supports.
5. Cast resin is a rigid material, generally gray, also holds excellent detail (like metal or Bones USA), cast in a mold but not necessarily a flat or only 2-part, at Reaper's HQ in Texas (?). (resin-casting requires more labor and therefore the figures are more expensive, so it's for limited-edition or otherwise special figures.?)

 

[KYRON45]

The journey of a 1000 miles etc.
Buy some minis...any minis. Buy some paint...any paint. Critique your outcome but don't compare it to people who have been painting for decades. Than seek out techniques that will help you get better results.

As in all things you get what you pay for so get the best quality supplies that you can afford. How many hobbies are cast off because we all started out with the cheapest thing we could find and got poor results not only because we had no idea what we were doing, but because we were fighting the tools we were using?

There is a reason a Games Workshop mini can go for as high as $80 each (possibly higher). The details are crisp and the plastic is some magical formula (and the FOMO and marketing is world class).

Painting is a skill. Practice, trust the process and learn from anyone willing to teach.

Good luck.

 

[Staffan]

I know at least bones V was still grey. That was the batch I ruined with spray primer. And yes, what I heard is that it’s the areosol propellant and not the primer itself that causes the issue.

The thing is that Bones Black isn't actually, well, black. It's grey. So it can be hard to tell the difference between Bones Black and what I think they're calling Bonesium 2.0. But both are still PVC-based (as opposed to many other plastic minis which are polystyrene-based) and thus, I believe, possible victims to rattlecans.

Thus, depending on how far away you held the can could cause a different result.

I have seen lots of people say lots of things about how to avoid tackiness when using rattlecans on Bones. I've also seen other people talk about how they used those methods and still got tackiness. So my conclusion is that there are enough variables involved to make it a crapshoot, and thus recommend against it in general. Use brush-on primer or, if you have one, an airbrush. I believe you can get fairly cheap airbrushes + tankless compressors fairly cheaply these days – I wouldn't perhaps use them for fancy stuff like trying to get subtle color shifts, but they'd be fine for priming. But if you're going down that road, make sure you also get a mask with a particle filter (and probably some kind of painting booth to protect the surrounding area from overspraying – you don't need to get fancy, I use a cardboard box with the top and one of the long sides cut off).

 

[Sacrosanct]

The thing is that Bones Black isn't actually, well, black. It's grey. So it can be hard to tell the difference between Bones Black and what I think they're calling Bonesium 2.0. But both are still PVC-based (as opposed to many other plastic minis which are polystyrene-based) and thus, I believe, possible victims to rattlecans.

I have seen lots of people say lots of things about how to avoid tackiness when using rattlecans on Bones. I've also seen other people talk about how they used those methods and still got tackiness. So my conclusion is that there are enough variables involved to make it a crapshoot, and thus recommend against it in general. Use brush-on primer or, if you have one, an airbrush.

100% That was in fact, my entire point I was trying to make upthread

I believe you can get fairly cheap airbrushes + tankless compressors fairly cheaply these days – I wouldn't perhaps use them for fancy stuff like trying to get subtle color shifts, but they'd be fine for priming. But if you're going down that road, make sure you also get a mask with a particle filter (and probably some kind of painting booth to protect the surrounding area from overspraying – you don't need to get fancy, I use a cardboard box with the top and one of the long sides cut off).

This is the airbrush I use. And it works just fine, especially for priming. But I've also used it for gradients and painting and it's fine. $20 is cheap.

 

[wicked cool]

Looking for A good paint magnifier with light?

 

[Staffan]

Looking for A good paint magnifier with light?

I have magnifying glasses with illumination that I got from Green Stuff World (via Alphaspel, probably) and it's good for magnification, not so good for light. But I have a lot of other lighting at my painting station so it works out fine. A cheaper option would be getting a pair of reasonably strong reading glasses.

At one time I tried using a desk lamp with a built-in magnification lens, but I did not care for it since it meant I had the lens and light between my eyes and whatever I was working on, and needed to keep that thing in a particular spot. Using head-mounted magnifying glasses means they're always magnifying whatever is in my field of vision, and if I want an unmagnified view (e.g. when I'm getting a new bottle of paint) I can tilt my head and look under the lenses (or just flip them up).

 

[djotaku]

If it's resin, just make sure you cure and wash them first. Well, you should be washing every mini before painting, but especially true for resin 3d printed ones.

wash like soap and water?

 

[Staffan]

wash like soap and water?

For regular minis: yeah. When I'm prepping a new batch of minis, I usually put them in a small bowl of lukewarm water with a bit of dish soap in it. I then clean them with a firm toothbrush, to make sure any mold release stuff gets cleaned off. Then they get to air dry until the next day.

I'm no expert on resin printing but my understanding is that you need to clean them pretty thoroughly to get any remaining resin off of them, probably using harsher materials than regular dish soap (e.g. IPA, and not the foamy type), and I think you need to take care of the remainder in particular ways because that stuff NASTY.