Since I rediscovered my simple priming technique for soft plastic figures, I've been looking for stuff to paint. I've done most of the FFG monsters I wanted to do, and I was looking at some of the D&D prepainted stuff online when I realized I have a large collection of vinyl dinosaurs.
I'm not going to paint them all -- at least not all at once. Here I've painted a styracosaurus and a sinraptor. They're both the same scale (1:40 scale), so most of the dinos I have will be a touch too large for my 28-33mm stuff. They'll also be a touch small for my 54mm Waiteri tribe (but they seem to match almost perfectly my 40mm Old West figures- Oh boy!) But when you're mixing dinos with old west, cavemen or gangsters, who's worried about scale?
What's your priming technique for soft plastic? I have a couple of dollar store dinos, and I may want to try repainting them.
ReplyDeleteI just do a couple layers of black acrylic paint (the cheap craft stuff will do just fine.) The acrylic paint dries with a flexible finish which helps compensate for the "bendiness" of the soft plastic.
ReplyDeleteThe acrylic isn't indestructable, but it provides a decent enough base coat as long as you take care of your figures (ie, don't throw them into a toy box.)
I had tried spray-on primers, but they always dried with a strong tacky finish (that actually never seemed to fully dry.)
Might be interesting to give the new non-spray Citadel Imperial Primer a test run on the vinyl. It's supposed to be designed as a priming surface after all...
ReplyDeleteLooks great! nice tip about the acrylic craft paint. Tackiness of spray primer after on soft plastic is beyond annoying.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the spray primer solvent attacks the plastic... hence the "never-dry" problem. I'd use good quality (eg. "Schleich") plastic dinos for this, they'll still be way cheaper for their size than buying castings. God knows how the dollar store ones will react over time.
ReplyDeleteThese look great, anyway. I like the colorful approach you took to the Styracosaurus, but they both look really lifelike and lively.
Interesting--I generally use an acrylic gesso for priming soft plastic.
ReplyDeleteI hear good things about acrylic gesso; I'm just not ready to drop $15 for a small(ish) bottle. (Not until it's on sale, at least :)
ReplyDeleteThis is true of me and so many neat art supplies... they look promising but I could really use a "sample size".
Delete