"The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly." Topic

For years I have looked at the 1/72 plastic figures and have even bought one or two sets. My impressions:
THE GOOD: They are inexpensive.
THE BAD: They do not hold paint well.
THE UGLY: Warped everything (spears, swords, etc.) and poses which tend to be awful.

Will those who game with these figures tell me how you overcome THE BAD and THE UGLY? I would like to build some HoTT armies.

TIA, Al

Dip them in cold water…straighten them…dip them in cold water. BAM. Solved.

Prime them with a plastic friendly spraypaint like Krylon fusion or use thinned down white glue as a primer.

And then seal them with Dip, or various Matt varnish solutions. No flaking .

Cloudcaptain: "Dip them in cold water…straighten them…dip them in cold water."

I think he means hot water first.

Dan

Yes, hot water first!

boiling water for 15 minutes then into an ice water bath

Wash figures in warm soapy water before you paint them.
Many of the new figures by Zvezda, HaT, Pegasus and others will take paint easily and can often be glued with either regular model glue or superglue.
The hot then cold water technique works well too.
Check out Plastic Soldier Review and look at the figures made by Pegasus, Zvezda, and Caesar Miniatures and tell me they are not light years beyond what plastic figures were 10, 20 years ago.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Some of the stuff being made in Germany is quite stunning. Have a look at Franznap, for example…

franznap.jigsy.com

Some poses are indeed pretty stupid, but for the price you pay you can toss them or use them for conversion fodder.

Cerdic They do have nice figures

I haven't tried this but have read that if you coat the plastic figures with PVA before you paint them, the paint doesn't flake off. This may, of course, be total rubbish.

Thanks Dan…Yep! Was multitasking sorry :)

I find that sealing them with urethane-stain works quite well for keeping the paint from flaking off. It works better on smaller scale figures (30mm and under) than it does on larger figures (54mm-60mm), but even on the larger figures, it works well enough. I am, of course, referring to The Dip, or Minwax Polyshades Urethane Stain.

Pledge FloorCare works rather well, also. It is even less expensive than Minwax Polyshades Urethane Stain! If these are too shiny for you, a matte clear coat is a simple fix.

I also like using artist's Gesso as a primer: inexpensive; comes in Black, Gray, and White; water-based clean-up; dries close to the figure's surface, so it doesn't really hide sculpting details; flexes without coming off, for quite some time of normal usage of mini's in gaming. Look for it in the painting supplies at art stores, such as Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc.

The best method, IMO, is to use both Gesso primer, and Minwax Polyshades Urethane Stain. They work together, quite well. Cheers!