Need help from people who know about priming?
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Need help from people who know about priming?

Posted in Custom Workstation

Hi, I bought myself some citadal chaos black aerosol can primer. I have a 3 questions regarding how to prime. 1. When you prime a figure, where do you hold the figure so you can rotate it to prime it all around? 2. And my second question is, how much primer do you put on? Do you put on enough primer so that the original color of the figure doesn't show? 3. And 3, my figure that i recently primed smells pretty strong, is it bad to have the drying figure around in the house since it smells? I primed outside , but the fig still smells, what do I do with it? Thanks!!!

Posted by elliott
on Monday, January 8, 2018 - Updated on Monday, January 8, 2018
User Comments
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elliott -
Friday, January 19, 2018
Thanks! But why did you bring up wooden dowels?
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antithetical -
Friday, January 19, 2018
Dr. Nightmare mentioned using "sticks" and I just wanted to give a specific example of what I use, you can get long pieces for relatively cheap and cut them to whatever length you need. They can also make a good foundation if you're into fashioning weapons from scratch for your figures, or replacing some of those limp handles on others (the hammer on the Ragnarok Hulk BAF for example).
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Henchmen4Hire -
Saturday, February 10, 2018
tape the clips to the sticks
stick the sticks into foam to hold them upright
use the clip on the tip to clamp onto the body part's peg or whatever so you can spray paint all around and without getting your hands dirty

if the sticks fit into the arm swivel holes for example, then you don't even need the clip to hold that part, just stuff them into the hole
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elliott -
Friday, January 12, 2018
Oh ok, so do you recommend I just push the joint to one side all the way, and prime one side of the body part and joint, then turn the body part around, push the joint to the other side and prime the other side? This way, I could prime the visible part of the joint and the entire body part, I think, correct me if im wrong.
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antithetical -
Saturday, January 13, 2018
That would work if you're worried about getting extra primer on an already primed surface. It's what I did prior to discovering the usefulness of thin wooden dowels. Just lie the part on your painting surface, spray one side, wait for it to dry, flip it over and repeat with the other side.
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Henchmen4Hire -
Monday, January 8, 2018
I disassemble figures to paint them, then reassemble when they're done, it makes painting and protecting joints with super glue easier.

Buy a bunch of clips and sticks to hold the parts, a block of foam or whatever is good for holding the sticks by just staking them in there.

Primer is just supposed to help the paint stick, don't put it on thick, especially not around joints. The only time I use enough primer to cover the figure's original colors is when I need to paint light colors and the figure itself is really dark.
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elliott -
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Ok cool, but how would I prime joints (to match with the rest of the fig) all the way around? Do I just prime on one side of the joint by pushing it all the way to one side, and then push it to the other and prime it? But since I can't isolate the joints because the aerosol cans spray radius is too large, wouldn't I also be re-priming already primed areas by trying to prime all around to the joint? Do you get what I mean?
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antithetical -
Friday, January 12, 2018
Yeah, pretty much unavoidable unless you cut the joint disc out, sand and paint it separately and reassemble. There's a piece on how to do that in the tutorial section, but unless you have the small drill bits and screws, and the time and patience to do it right, I wouldn't recommend going that route. I've had a couple of shoulder discs rip out while removing the arms from female figures before, and just getting the shaft back through the center of the disc is enough of a hassle not to ever want to do that again unless I had no other options.
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marz161 -
Saturday, February 10, 2018
hey DrNightmare! you said you disassemble figures to paint/protect them and reassemble when you're done...but how do you reassemble it after that? by boiling/heating it up too...? I didn't tried that till now and I'm a little bit scared of ruining the paint
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Henchmen4Hire -
Saturday, February 10, 2018
@marz
I've been meaning to do a fast tutorial on that

I boil water in a little cup in the microwave and use a pipette to add water into the swivel holes. I keep filling it and sucking the water out so the part keeps getting hot and softer. After a few times, the hole area gets soft enough to pop the peg in. It's the same idea as boil n pop, you're just keeping the water exactly where you need it, not dunking the whole part.

I also like to narrow the pegs to make popping them in easier.

If the paint is durable enough though, you can just dunk the hole area into the hot water to soften it faster, as usual.
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marz161 -
Sunday, February 11, 2018
oh,ok^^ thanks very much!
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