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Monday, 14 September 2009

Plastic Infantry: I know I have to go there

Now that I've seen so much well painted 20mm plastic infantry on the web, I know I will have to do some of my own. Heck armour needs infantry support. I'll probably start with the German Infantry Revell kits as (a) I have a lot of them and (b) they are well detailed, good poses and are hard plastic. See the "Naked and the Dead" below (I'll also have to work on my small scale figure photography):


Going left to right we have in bare plastic we have two figures of each:
  • German Late War (Ardennes) Infantry
  • Summer Panzer Grenadiers (Stalingrad)
  • German Late War Assault Engineers (Ardennes and on to Berlin)
I'll have to do a little more digging on the web and particularly into other people's blogs to find out the best ways of mass production painting, as we are talking 50+ figures here. My initial thoughts concern preparation, hot soapy (detergent) water then do I take the hardened PVA route but lose some detail or keep teh detail and try and bind it under several coats of varnish (gloss then matt)?.

Any advice or info links appreciated.
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3 comments:

  1. Fraxinus15 September 2009 at 00:44

    water down the pva a little, not too much detail is lost, then mount the figures on strips of cardboard from Cereal packets & spray them with undercoat I use Halfords black or white car primer as cheaper than Humbrol/games Workshop stuff. i'm old fashioned and prefer white primed figures and add a wash later to highlight details. I have found with large plastic 1/32 figures I have a lot of ACW & a few WW2 for skirmishing that a matt DIY store tin of varnish works just as well and very tough & doesn't yellow. I use B&Q Matt or Wilkinsons after I've painted them using acrylics Humbrol/Citadel/Revell /Xtracrylix etc

    there are lots of paint/colour charts out there especially for WW2 just google them. have fun!

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  2. Geordie an Exiled FoG15 September 2009 at 08:29

    Thanks for passing on your experience.

    I always had my suspicions that B&Q was full of wargamers rather than DIY enthusiasts.

    Thanks

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  3. Paul15 September 2009 at 12:05

    Fraxinus has some sound advice, my only difference would be that I use Black Primer.

    I also use watered down PVA as a sealer coat after painting and have in the past added some water based flat earth or olive drab in the mix to tone down any shiny effects.

    As for production chain painting, I line them all up, and paint the same item night by night, such as Monday-skin, Tues-clothing, Weds-webbing equipment,Thurs-weapons,Fri-Headress...etc

    It can get a little repetitive, but you get achievable goals by breaking it down in my experience.

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