"Reaper "Bones" Initial Reaction" Topic

So I received my first order of Reaper "Bones" today. Initial impressions are that these are pretty bendy, and are of a soft, vinyl like material. Although I don't have any of these figures in metal, just with general knowledge of metal casting, it looks like these were taken directly from the metal masters, but cast in a soft plastic-like material. I have no idea how exactly it was done, as I cannot see any injection scars or casting marks. Some of the figures have very faint mold lines. I tried cleaning up the mold lines with a needle file (flat, semi triangular) and they can be filed, though it seems like you have to put a bit more work into it. I didn't get any "tendrils" of material you sometimes get with soft plastics.

I did some simple preliminary tests with the material. As I was working on a model at the time, I tried to glue 2 figures together by the bases with MEK. The MEK seems to have little to no effect, so not conducive to conversions or assembly. Incidentally, one of the figures I got was the Werewolf model, and it looks like the tail was cast separately, but glued on at the point of sale. So multi-part figures are definitely a possibility.

In terms of painting, I did not have any brushes with me when I did the preliminary tests, but as usual Reaper supplies a bottle of MSP sampler, and I simply scraped some on the bottom of a base. Results look encouraging so far!

Tonight I'm going to try some primer on the figures, and paint one with GW acrylics, to test the claim they can be painted directly.

Damon.

I had a chance to play with a couple at the Paint and Take at Cold Wars. They can be painted directly with Reaper paints with no problem. One of the instructors even airbrushed one of the purple worms and the paint had no issues. One of the skeletons was done in just a wash of GW Devlan Mud and the ink/wash failed to adhere to the smooth flat shield surface but it worked well in the recesses of the rest of the figure.

I'm not familiar with using MEK- what do you usually stick together with it?

There must be something to stick these figures together, they are just the same plastic many prepainted plastics are made from. do you think the solvent mix used to put together PVC pipe would work?

The dwarf is a multipart model I think. I haven't tried cutting and gluing on them.

MEK is Methyl Ethyl Ketone. It's a plastic solvent usually used for plastic models made of Styrene. I believe it also works on ABS. So the Reaper "Bones" are neither! :)

I picked up the Werewolf, and that is definitely multipart. The reaper guys say superglue will work, and the tail on that fellow appears to be superglued in. I'm going to base them tonight with both epoxy and superglue and see how they hold up…

Damon.

Careful using MEK. It is known as Methyl Ethyl Death for good reasons.

Farstar, I've been building plastic models for 30 years. Well acquainted with MEK… :)

Damon.

I think I read they can be glued with regular CA glue with no problems.

So last night I experimented with a couple different priming methods:

1. Human warrior primed with Testors Flat Black. As of this morning, it was still slightly tacky, but nothing that I would say was out of the ordinary. Testors takes a few days to cure completely, so we'll see how it does.

2. Purple Worm & Ghost primed with Wal-mart Valu-cheapo flat white. Normal expectations of drying.

3. Werewolf in Home Depot valu-cheapo flat black. This spray is pretty mediocre to begin with. The figure was still slightly tacky after allowing it to dry overnight. This is unusual, since one of the (few) good qualities of this spray is that it dries very fast. We'll have to keep an eye on it.

One nice thing: for those remembering Airfix and other soft plastic figures, I did an experimental bending of the Human Warrior's sword, and no paint flaked off! That's a good thing…

Damon.

Thanks for the review Garand.

Anybody tried Gesso on these figs? It works great on metal plastic and prepainted vinyl figs, so I'm pretty sure it would be fine for this, but it'd be nice to hear for certain.

On the other hand, Now that I dip, I prime almost everything in white, so I might just paint right on the plastic as reaper advises!

thanks for the reports – can't wait to see how these finish painting up. Price looked good to me, but I'm hesitant to buy until I see more reviews……

Totally helpful.

Glad to hear that the details were still there!

So it's been a couple of days, and my priming experiment hasn't gone as well as I would have liked. The figure sprayed in Testors Flat Black is still a little tacky, and the figures sprayed with Wal-mart Flat White are also slightly tacky. I'm going to give them a few more days, and see what happens. If no result, into the simple green!

Damon.

Any updates??

Yes, gesso works fine on them. I washed mine with dish soap & water like I do with all my figures and then brushed on white acrylic gesso. No different than any other miniature.

52minis.blogspot.com

I painted a few with no primer, a few with Army Painter color spray primer, a few with Vallejo Brush on Primer and used Army Painter, Vallejo, Games Workshop and Reaper Heavy Gear Blitz paints of them with no problems.

I tried some of The Army Painter colored primers on them (brown and necrotic flesh).

Worked with no problems.

I also tried some of the Duplicolor sandable primer (black) with the same positive results.

Army Painter, Vallejo, and Reaper paints stuck fine, both with and without primer coats.

I did some modding, adding tentacles around the mouth of the purple worm – CA worked just fine, as did epoxy putty.

Over all, not bad and a nice price!

The Auld Grump