I'v been highly impressed by this site and the customizers are phenomenal! awesome work guys! anyway...I figured this would be the best place to ask for advice. So, here goes-
I have a moviemasters dark knight batman whose wrist joints are stuck. I was ok with it until I came across the whole hair dryer trick and tried it out on the figure after doing it on a non precious figure which actually worked. What happened was, I heated the wrist and in turn made the thumb ,which was stuck to the fingers held back( probably manufacturing fault) causing the fingers and thumb to separate, which is fine but then what happened was that the little thin layer of plastic between the thumb and the index finger tore and got separated but did not come off. What I did was, used superglue to fix the small thing back into place. The superglue caused a small white mark( not too small) and I wasn't happy with that obviously, so I painted that small bit of superglue using reeves acrylic black paint since you don't get tamiya or testors here and I had no other option! my questions are- the paint's been fine for so long..but I'm scared it might wear off eventually..do I seal it with a matte sealer or gloss sealer or something or should I not bother about it? will the paint wear off of the superglue?
For areas around the hands, if you're worried about paint wear I've found using a combination of Krazy-glue (the runny liquid type of super glue) in very, very small amounts applied with a paper-clip or pin to the painted/dried area works well. The final surface is glossy, but if you go over *that* area with a matte varnish (sometimes called a sealant), it looks great. I seal all my figures using either Citadel Glossy Varnish (warhammer shops usually carry this) on glossy areas (Armor, etc.), or Vallejo matte finish varnish. This stuff was so good, I bought 7 bottles of it. From what I remember, Kyle Robinson uses Vallejo paints - but I can't recal if he uses the varnishes.
In any case, for your batman's hand - I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you like putting lots of accessories in and out of the hand. For future projects though - painting a hand (or knee, or other area that recieves a lot of scuffing/action) then doing that 2-part sealing trick works great for me.
Never done anything from molding, only taking pieces from different figures and putting them together. 2D makes really awesome figures, all of his stuff is made from scratch.
oh crap :P that's a lot of unwanted stuff to deal with man...lol..
Have you ever done a figure right from scratch? if yes..how do you make a mould for it? any ideas you could give me? I want to construct the batman arkham asylum game costume figure which was done by this guy under the name 2dtoys. It was simply brilliant and he said he'd done that one right from scratch....so how does one go about doing that?
Well, enamels, "eat" certain plastics, I think it's soft plastic mostly, and it will leave the figure sticky and tacky and it will be that way forever...when I first started customizing, got black enamel, painted the figure and after a few days kept asking myself why isn't it drying. Now you can do something like a repaint or something else, but I'm not sure. Other than that, it's really messy to clean up on the brushes unless you have a thinner.
Yep, it's pretty hard to find a paint that won't scratch unless you use enamels which no one would recommend. If you really wanna stop scratches I think sealing the figure has to be the way to go. Oh and I usually leave figures for 24 hours to fully dry or cure.
Well I think it has something to do with what paint you use. When I used Testors, the paint took a couple hours to dry, but I always waited a day to "fully" dry, and there were no problems with scratches. Using Applebarrel, it dried pretty quickly, 1 hour or so, but it isn't that scratch resistant.
thanks a lot for the views on that...you guys are right! it shouldn't come off if I'm not playing with it hehe. Now I have another question. Sometime ago, I tried painting the unpainted leg of a batman I picked up somewhere. The figure seemed like a cheap variant of a zip line batman. The problem is, after I had painted it,I had washed the paint after it had dried or say dried almost fully I guess coz it was too thick and I wasn't really happy with it. What is the time period one should keep the figure out to dry for to such an extent that the paint doesn't come off even after scratcihing? or does it have something to do with the paints you're using?
I don't seal my figures, it's just laziness really and fear that the sealant will ruin the paintwork. I've sealed one repaint I did and it seemed to make the silver wear off. As for the glue issue I'd just paint over it and as long as it isn't moved too much it should be fine.
Well my custom was banged up after it fell off the shelf, the whole backpack assembly came off, so I reglued it, on and then glued the outer edges to secure it, and it got all white and crusty. Repainted the edges then realized how bad the figure was, and now I am in the process of remaking it, almost done too , lol
Well first off, welcome to the Realm. For the paint question, it shouldn't wear off unless it's going to be played with. I have a custom that I had to fix with superglue and the superglue left white marks, so I just painted it with black Applebarrel paint, and it isn't chipping off or anything at all, stays on just fine. I don't seal my figures, so I don't know much about that...
Please wait...
For areas around the hands, if you're worried about paint wear I've found using a combination of Krazy-glue (the runny liquid type of super glue) in very, very small amounts applied with a paper-clip or pin to the painted/dried area works well. The final surface is glossy, but if you go over *that* area with a matte varnish (sometimes called a sealant), it looks great. I seal all my figures using either Citadel Glossy Varnish (warhammer shops usually carry this) on glossy areas (Armor, etc.), or Vallejo matte finish varnish. This stuff was so good, I bought 7 bottles of it.
In any case, for your batman's hand - I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you like putting lots of accessories in and out of the hand. For future projects though - painting a hand (or knee, or other area that recieves a lot of scuffing/action) then doing that 2-part sealing trick works great for me.
Best of luck with your projects.
Have you ever done a figure right from scratch? if yes..how do you make a mould for it? any ideas you could give me? I want to construct the batman arkham asylum game costume figure which was done by this guy under the name 2dtoys. It was simply brilliant and he said he'd done that one right from scratch....so how does one go about doing that?
oh ok....I see...could you please tell me why enamels aren't recommended?
thanks a lot for the views on that...you guys are right! it shouldn't come off if I'm not playing with it hehe