"Perrys Selling Travel Battle Components" Topic

I noticed Perrys are selling board, buildings, figures and bases as separate items on their website. The board and figure bases are molded in green but the figs are in gray only. I was hoping for figure nationalities; blue for French, white for Austrians, green for Russian. I want to use the figs for my Command and Colors Napoleonics. I guess I will keep waiting and using blocks for now. I am not going to paint 8mm figs. Just too small for my old eyes and low talent.

Couldn't you just paint them a single colour ?

Spray painting would not be too difficult and should meet your needs. Have you considered that approach?

Thank you, yes, I did think of spray painting and I may buy some figs and do that. I was trying to think of the best way but I may just have to invest in a few sprues an experiment. I just thought if they were molded in the color, I would not have to take as much care to keep from getting them scratched and just throw them in a tub when I was done. I will let you know what I do.

Speaking as a fellow old and low-talent person, I find that the smaller the figure, the easier it is to paint. Blobs of colour and dipping is the way to go. And thank-you for the heads-up!

If you take PVA glue, elmers glue in USA, dilute it 50/50 with water after you have spray painted and allowed it to properly dry, use a cheap brush and just paint the pva mix over and let that then dry your figures will hold their paint and not get scratched or peel at all.

Thank you. I have recently learned about the Army Painter system which appeared to be a possibility for the 8mm. Maybe I should try it rather than just reject it out of hand. Stimulate the mind, don't you know.
I usually use Dullcote over my acrylic paint jobs on my 25mm figs. Would using PVA mix be better than that?

I use it on soft plastic figures and then dullcote. The PVA forms a protective layer that works great, you can actually flex the figures and will not lose any paint. The dullcote gets rid of any glossiness and makes a barrier against any accidental moisture.

Painting small scale figure is much, much easier than you think. In my long experience of this sort of thing, the biggest barriers to applying the paint are not age, infirmity, or even eyesight. Nope. They are self belief and attitude. If you tell yourself often enough that you can't do something you end up with a self-fulfulling prophecy.

Bashytubits, Thank you for the information.
Baccus 6mm, Thanks for the reminder that you can do what you decide to do. You are right. I think I would just prefer to have the color in the plastic rather than painting it on. I don't mean to be lazy or bad-attitude. It is just that the game has red versus blue troops and that appeals to me. Just glue them to the bases and play. Since they made the game with colored figs, I thought they would at least make replacements in red and blue. Not knowing plastics or the demand for the figs, I thought it would be simple to just used different colored plastic in the mold:
Red – British (Swiss?)
Blue – French
White – Austrian (Spanish?)
Green – Russian
Dark Blue – Prussian
Cornflower or Sky Blue – Bavarian
Brown – Portugese (Grenz?)
Gray – Austrian light infantry
And maybe they will. They have to see how Travel Battle sells, and now how the gray figs sell. Then maybe they will find they have created a whole new avenue of sales with plastics in nationality colors in 8mm. Or not.

I think Baccus's 6mm show what can be achieved with figures of that height, so I am not really convinced these move the small scale market forward. The pre-coloured idea RM refers to makes sense, so grey does seem odd – generic, maybe, but not in keeping with the original components (unless they are Prussian reserve infantry I guess…)

Marc

"Argue for your limitations and they are yours" – Richard Bach