Hints about painting/management metal minis

[CommissarTigh]

Hi comrades,

the Made to Order ravaged my wallet in terms of many-many Kasrkin... 
I need hints how to treat with so much metal, especially avoiding chips and damaged alike.
Pretty desperate I must confess.

Thanks :)

[Major_Gilbear]

I have a ridiculous number of metal models, and have never ever had any issues with them. My process is as follows:

 

After you clean up the mouldlines and such, wash the models in warm water with dish soap and an old toothbrush.

 

Rinse them thoroughly with cold water and place them on a lint-free surface somewhere warm  to air dry.

 

Once they are washed, try to avoid handling them - oils from your skin will be transferred to the model. If you need to handle them, perhaps use some latex/nitrile gloves. I pin all my models to their bases, and use the pins in the feet as a way of handling the models without touching them.

 

Prime with a good-quality automotive primer. Here in the UK, I use Halfords grey primer. This is designed to stick to bare metal, be forgiving of ambient spraying conditions, and has a very small amount of filler to help smooth out any surface irregularities. Keep the application thin, and put the models somewhere warm and dry for 24hours after priming. The solvent takes at least this time to fully evaporate (as opposed to just being "touch-dry"), and the paint will "shrink" fully onto the model by then too.

 

Still avoiding handling them with your bare hands, paint as you would normally. I use the same hemostat clamps that I prime with to hold them for painting - again, by gripping the pins in their feet.

 

When you've painted them, give them two slightly thinned coats of water-based non-yellowing UV-resistant diamond-hard PU varnish. I apply these with an old bush, and thin the varnish on a palette with a little clean water - just like you would with paint. Any sticky-outy-bits that will likely get caught quite often like sword tips and such get a third coat of varnish.

 

Finally, I spray them with a matt sealer - Testor's Dullcote. This is again allowed to dry for 24hours, and then I touch up any recesses where the spray missed the model with a little thinned matte medium. As this is typically in places that will never get touched/scuffed, the matte medium is sufficient here - it's just for the clear matte finish afterall.

 

That might seem like a lot of work, but I do this with all my models anyway. I also know that lots of people don't bother with washing models, or with being careful about not handling them whilst painting. However, I have noticed a significant improvement in the quality and durability of my output all those years ago when I adopted these methods, and so I maintain that they are worthwhile. It should also be noted that I pin all the joints in metal models with brass rod as well. My models are all used for gaming, and even occasionally get knocked over - and none have ever scuffed or been damaged.

 

Examples of the hemostats I use to hold the models:

 

http://i407.photobucket.com/albums/pp154/MajorGilbear/Dark%20Angels%20Plog/WIP2%20Tac%20Squad%201_zpsortzrkuc.jpg

 

Further examples of finished metal figures here, here and here. (Please excuse the links, but as these are not all GW or even SM models, I don't want to fall foul of the B&C's rules/moderation team).

 

 

 

 

Edit: spelling (or rather typing), my old nemesis.

[CommissarTigh]

That was an awesome reply.
One question: would the varnish and sealer make the paint darker?

[Major_Gilbear]

That has more to do with the finished surface, and how that surface refracts light.

 

The gloss coats fill in and smooth that surface, and it can appear darker (a bit like some materials do when they are wet - like stone for example) because more of the light is both reaching and being reflected back from that surface. The appearance of the colours is therefore more saturated rather than darker as such.

 

The matte spray afterwards is the opposite; it has a very very fine "roughness" that scatters light, and so colours can appear to be lighter and even "dusty".

 

When you have a matte finish applied over a matte finish, it's hard to tell the difference. When you apply that gloss coat over the matte paint (and then the matte sealer over the gloss varnish) you see that transition more clearly, but it doesn't mean that the finished paintjob is either darker, or appears darker, than when you painted it.

 

Finally, after you have glosses and then matte-sprayed the models, you will likely notice that the overall finish is smoother and more even - because the varnish and sealant has effectively done exactly that - filled in and smoothed out tiny irregularities. :)

[CommissarTigh]

I ll do it. Thanks a lot mate!