"1/72nd Soft plastic vs Hard plastic vs Metal?" Topic

Over the years and I know I'm not alone in this have bought a lot of the 1/72nd scale soft plastic figures.

Be they Airfix,Hat,Revell,Zvezda etc I can't tell you how many boxes of these figures I bought and played with when I was young.

But one problem has always been trying to paint them and when the paint dries the paint just flakes off.

And the paint doesn't flake off from the entire figure but just where the pieces bend a lot.

Now I've heard all the stories of how to clean them and then paint them with no problems whatsoever and people have sworn by these methods.

But the simple fact is that none of these solutions don't work.

Recently Zvezda has made some figures in hard plastic Samurai and some Modern figures.

So why didn't these companies make ALL 1/72nd figures in hard plastic from the very beginning?

And let's say that they did would any of you have bought many boxes of the hard plastic figures to paint up and game with INSTEAD of metal figures?

To give you an example when I started buying and painting 15mm Napoleonic figures for gaming I had several thousand French,Prussian,Russian,Austrian and others now if(at the time)they had made hard plastic 1/72nd scale Napoleonic figures I most likely would've bought the plastic figures instead of the metal ones and would've saved a lot of money in the process.

I have to say that the plastic figures like the Medieval Knights and Napoleonic figures have great detail which rival that of the metal figures.

So what so you?

I don't have any problem with the soft plastic. Paint adheres well if you clean the figures well and use a primer.

I'd also like to see more 1/72 in rigid plastic but as Rich said, doing it rightly you shouldn't have troubles painting soft plastic…
These below are Zvezda's I painted looong ago, and they haven't flaked off.

Use a Krylon plastic bonding primer

Rustoleum Plastic spray primer combined with Plasti-dip clear spray will make them indestructible! This product has been around for at least a decade.I swear by it. Used it for about 8 years or so with excellent results!

The cheapest solution is to paint the figures with NEAT PLA (white GLUE) do check yours dries clear all the ones I have tried do. DON'T PARIS when you paint it white it will dry clear. Do not thin it as the PVA then tends to become brittle. TAMIYA matt acrylic paint sticks without the above. No doubt the other solutions also work so there is no excuse.

blacksmith the paint job looks very good but have you handled them from time to time?

And if you have did you touch various parts like spears,horse tails etc to see if they flake?

Also where might I find the Krylon plastic bonding primer and Rustoleum Plastic spray primer?

And what's this Plasti-dip clear spray?

Back to the original question. The reason that soft plastic was used not hard plastic probably boils down to cost and safety. These were designed as toys, not for wargamers, so they were made in soft plastic so that bits didn't break off. I'm pretty sure that the soft plastic was also cheaper either in materials or moulds or both.

I think polyurethane is cheaper than styrene. It allows for realistic scale on things like guns whithout making them fragile.

I haven't tried plastic primer. I wash, daub with two thinned coats of pva, prime, paint then seal with polyurethane varnish.
The figures stand up to regular handling and certainly don't flake as soon as you touch them.

Another thought.
Vallejo surface primer and their game range are polyurethane.
If I was doing more, I'd probably try airbrush priming then a game colour coat of whatever main colour the figure will be.

Let the primer cure properly for 24+ hours.
Try a sample.

With soft plastic you can do undercuts, so at least from a realism of sculpting perspective is a much better medium. I;d also guess it is cheaper to manufacture.

Uscha is on the button. Prime with neat PVA and then just paint as normal.

The best 1/72 figures for holding paint are HaT's very bendy plastics – you'll never get paint off them, no special priming needed. Zvezda's hard plastic are only in small sets unfortunately, but Pegasus have been using hard plastic recently as well.

The flakey myth again … hey-ho …

I'd rather risk it than suffer the pain of assembling hard plastic figures (which cost more than soft plastic but don't last as long as metal) …

I do wonder about some of the more complex Zvezda sets, however, which require quite a lot of assembly (losing some of the advantage of the material) …

But the simple fact is that none of these solutions don't work.

In your experiance – but not, it seems, for others (including me) …

Nice figures, by the way, blacksmith !

Phil

@ Captain Gideon – I'm guessing by the Airfix mention you are the UK, so….

Rustoleum: link

Plasti-Dip: link

The most reliable, completely matt, matt varnish I have used is Humbrol 49, which can be sprayed on top of the above.

Plastic horses are usually molded with the base attached now but the older Airfix sets were not and you often saw cavalry with paint flaked off the legs. I always used to stick a pin up through the base into the belly of the horse to add some rigidity to the model – and after that never had a problem either. If I had known about washing and priming with pva in the old days it would have been a lot better for sure.

@Captain Gideon, I always try to grab them by their bases and don't do experimenting with their lances to see if they may flake.
Must say when a metal figure drops to the floor the paint flakes, but most of the times this not happen with plastics.

@Phil, thanks for your compliments! Those minis were painted with one coat of Vallejo and dipped with wood varnish.

4th Cuirassier I live in the US but I'm not familier with some of the places that carries this stuff.

I do have a few hard plastic figures from the early 70s, they are very brittle and most are missing the ends of their rifles.

Otoh, my old Airfix figures are as good as the day I first painted them, despite being jumbled up in a big box for over 40 years.

They were done in soft plastic then because it was more durable and easier to cast.

For more modern figures, I just slather them in undiluted PVa first, which stiffens them up and aids paint adhesion.

I think the flaking problem was to do with enamel paint, which was all that was freely available to kids From the 60s to the early 80s.
I use a sheet of plastic as a pallet for my Vallajo paints; when it gets covered I just scrape a corner and peel it all off in one go. The resulting multi-coloured blob can be flexed in any way imaginable and it does not crack. If you paint plastics with acrylic paint it should form a complete cover that flexes in the same way.

Captain Gideon -- Get a can of the Krylon (I think available from Lowes and probably some hardware stores) paint that says it is plastic compatible. I haven't bought any in a while, but it used to have a picture of one of those cheap outdoor plastic chairs on it.
Wash the figures and use the plastic-compatible spray paint as your primer (I prime black), then paint as normal. I have hundreds of AWI plastic figures that have received lots of handling with no chipping. I've also used plain grey automotive primer with similar results.
As someone said, the flaking back in the day was often a result of the enamel paints. The figures I have that were painted with the old Testors mini bottles all flaked. I now use a primer and acrylic craft paints with no issues.

tshryock when you say wash them how do I do that and what do I use to wash them with/in?

"But the simple fact is that none of these solutions don't work."

That is double negative and thus what you say actually is a true statement.

The paints will adhere to soft plastic, you just need to use right methods. Bear in mind that you can't paint with enamels, use acrylics instead since they're flexible.

I gather soft plastic was initially also chosen because these are TOYS. Hard plastic tends to break not bend which would be a bummer for little Timmy!

As most of my Uruk Hai pikemen will testify to, along with the rohan horses and their broken ankles.

Soft plastic wears well

All plastic.
Army Painter Necrotic Flesh Spray Can Primer.
(Though I often use Valeyo White Primer)
No flaking if priming + 2 layers of gloss laquer + 1 layer of matt.

Walmart carries the Rust-Oleum plastic primer. They also have spray paints that are in camouflage paint colors. The dip method works well as a sealer, I don't use it much, but then I don't paint much.

Soft plastic figures were first made for kids, like the larger size plastic army men. Later men used the soft plastic figures too. It is cheaper to make molds for soft plastic and there is very little mold wear. Look at Airfix kits that are 30+ years old and still for sale.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

@ Captain, you wash them in washing-up liquid in about the same concentration as you'd use for your dishes.

Thanks 4th Cuirassier for that info.

Bunkermeister since I'm not near any Walmart would Target do?

My painting tutorial here. link

I use a lot of soft plastic figures. I do not have an issue with paint flaking off.

Artist's Acrylic straight from the tube works well as a primer for soft plastic figures.

It's all alchemy

I have recently been using Vallejo's white primer, which is described on the bottle as an acrylic-polyurethane. Sticks really well to Airfix, not so well to early HaT. Go figure

But i use Army Painter dip (painted on) and matte spray to finish. Previously I used Liquitex acrylic matte medium as a varnish – which works really well. I have a LOT of plastic figures in use and have no problem with flaking or wear and tear.

I've not had too many issues with Citadel Corax White, which isn't too far off in terms of price and produces a pretty nice result. It's just grainy enough that the first coat really hooks on, and then it's smooth sailing from then on. Admittedly, I've only used it on metals and the earlier sort-of-hard-ish HäTs so far, having been on an Ancients binge, so I don't know whether it'll work as well for the later soft ones as much. I'd imagine the effect would be pretty similar, considering how well the more recent softer ones take paint without a primer at all.

From the 70s……with Airfix.

Whatever else you did, wash them in your Mom's washing up liquid first. Get the oil off the surface.

Mom got to 92 and has gone to her reward for over a decade, but I do remember how mad she got at finding a sink full of WWI Poilus………now they were real casting. Them and the WWI Germans……..Other than US Paras of WWII, the rest were midgets (which may now be non PC………) OK, vertically challenged then.

I used Minwax tinted wood varnish to finish some cavalry horses; not only was the finish really impressive, it's as hard as armor plate!

Plastidip spray is my jazz.

Cartoon Colors Cel-Vinyl as this is what the use on acetate for animation and is quite flexible paint.