"Plastic Clones - Green vs. Tan" Topic

I'm fond of browsing eBay and grocery/discount store toy racks for plastic army men. You know the type, "Combat Force !" or the like, around 45mm and generally knock-offs of more distinctive 54mm originals

They run the gamut from wretched to "not bad". Anyhow, I wondered how they'd look if I painted and based them.

Green. Diecast LeClerc from a ToysRUs set "Elite Operations: in front, cardstock one behind.

And evil Tan. The armor is built from motorized 1/48 kits. It's a mixed bag of guys here, including a Rambo set from eBay on which I did a couple of head swaps. MG figure comes from a bag of dayglo birthday cake decorations at Walmart.

Steve

Good stuff Steve!

I have some generic army men that I occasionally mess around with: Yours look very good, the camo is excellent!

Thanks, Ace. Here's a couple more pics.

Steve

Those look great, thanks for posting.

very nice…looks better then some lead i've seen…

Great idea for people with limited cash to buy and play with.
Although yours look too good to use much.
How does the paint stand constant handling?

Amazing what a good paint job can do.

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Those look good.

In my experience, painting Army Men figures works very well. If you clear coat them with Future Floor Polish (aka, Magic Wash), they will do quite well being handled. If you use The Dip (Minwax Polyshades Urethane Stain), they will take quite a bit of handling, also, without losing their paint -- just make sure not to 'rub' them hard when you pick them up, or the paint will separate from the plastic, but this usually takes a bit of effort. After applying either shading method, hit them with a matte clear coat: when the matte wears off, they will start to look shiny… Time for another matte coat.

As a related point, if you only paint the parts of the figures which are not the plastic's color (weapons, flesh, boots, etc.), they have less paint to rub off. Camo can be done with this approach, as well: dab the colors that differ from the plastic's color, over the uniform areas. Works surprisingly well, and, again, requires less paint, which means less to rub off.

Using either Magic Wash, or The Dip, really can bring out the details on Army Men figures. You can build a decent looking army, for very little cash.

If you Hot Glue them onto bases (plastic, cardboard, MDF, whatever), they can be gripped by their bases, so that the paint jobs get much less abuse, wear, and tear. The figures will also stand up, and never fall down, even with crooked molded bases on them.

There are decals available for 1/32 figures, so if you want rank patches (German, American, British, and a few others), eyes, or even tattoos, it can be done. If you really want eye candy, 1/32 is the scale to choose [there are metal figures, with better quality, and detail, available in this scale, but they cost quite a bit more than a bag of plastic Army Men, ;-)] Cheers!

Thanks again, guys. :)

I base coat with Rustoleum Plastic Primer. I've found it to hold the paint well and is readily available in hardware stores. In the US that is, not sure what would be the UK equivalent.

Steve

Black plastic car bumper spray, which is designed to stay on flexible car bumpers works quite nicely.

very nice!

Heck, man, unless you had said something, I wouldn't have even made the connection. Excellent stuff!

Best,
Evin

those rock!!

I like 54mm army men for my AK47 – esque African Wars.
I did some conversions of the police to make irregular Liberian troops.

Your stuff is really cool.