tips and ideas apprecited

thank you!

Venom is one of those Marvel 12 inch titan series and the storm troopers are the 12 inch Force Awakens figures. Both types have minimal ..aka crappy...articulation at hips, shoulders and head only. Seem to be made of same type of hard plastic. After my second coat of acrylic paint on black Venom, he is looking smoother from a distance, but up close it's emebrassing. I followed tutorial and scrubbed him well first, but paint seems to scratch off fairly easy. It seems lik diff. plastic type than the softer 3 inch figures. I gotta figure out how to paint well on these and how to articulate, at least minimally. I'm sure I'll be dremmling a bit. I thin I'm just going to/sew together the Ghostbuster coveralls though. Has to look better than this paint....

If they're hollow and hard then you probably do have to crack the figures to swap shoulders.

I just saw the titan Venom figure, that thing looks slick and glossy, you're going to have to sand the figure if that's the case to give the paint some grip. Or use Primer. Or use white spray paint. All will work, just keep in mind the paint will get damaged if you scratch it, no matter what, but at least spray paint is more durable than hobby acrylics.

Would be cool to see a sewn outfit, we rarely get to see those.

It's hard to help when we don't know specifics because figures are built differently across different lines.

•What specific Stormtrooper fig is it? Black Series? 6 inch or 3.75 inch? etc.

•What specific Marvel Venom? There are lots of Venom figures. What problems are you having exactly.

•I find figures with less articulation are way easier to work with, less moving parts means less places for paint to rub off.

•White is generally a pain to work with when brushing it on. In general, when painting a lighter color over a darker base, you'll need a lot of coats to cover the base. Try spraying some grey or white primer first.

•Apoxie Sculpt is for sculpting smaller stuff, simply because of the cost. In general, dioramas makers use things like insulation foam sheets to create the bulk of a diorama, then they add details on top. For example, if you wanted to make an 8 inch tall boulder, you would make the rough shape out of foam, then wrap it in a thin layer of Apoxie Sculpt, on which you would sculpt all the rocky detail.

If you were to make the boulder purely out of the AS, it would cost you like $60. But with a foam core you use drastically less of it.

•Color doesn't matter, most people use grey (I think they call it "Natural" because it's easier to see detail when sculpting.

•Process for removing body parts depends on the figure. Arms usually come off easy after heating them with a hairdryer or whatever. To remove the shoulders you usually have to crack the figure open. Some figures are made entirely of the softer plastic, like Clonetroopers from the 6 inch line, on those you can heat the body and the shoulder will pop out just like an arm.

sorry. Wasn't done. My first coat of acrylic paint (on black Venom) shows every brush stroke with white acrylic paint. Is that common for first coats on color changes? Also, looking at getting Aves Apoxy, but is that good for building a lg diarama for these figures, and is there a specific color I should look for even though paintable? For examble, the elbow pads will need to be be made and are black, but should I invest in a 1 pound Apoxy for that? And joint articulation....oh, boy. I heated up and removed one Venom arm, but difficult. looks like it needs to have body split open and don't want to ruin figures. Any advice seriously appreciated. Thank you!