"Assembling Frostgrave/Mantic Games plastic miniatures" Topic

A couple of years back, I asked here about how to get cheap 28mm figures for my D&D games, as I was starting off DMing for the family and was needing NPC/monster figures of my own.

I've picked up various prepainted D&D figures in small group lots at sensible prices since then, and have quite a menagerie to hand now.

Recently, I picked up a couple of Frostgrave sprues, plus a couple from Mantic Games as well. My question is, will standard modelling cement be ok for assembling these minis? I've never had 28mm miniatures needing assembly, let alone plastic minis.

Plus, can I paint these as I would my pewter figures, basecoat from a rattle can, and acrylics on top?

Thanks in advance! 😀

For the HIPS plastic sprues (large rectangular "trees" with lots of parts like a model airplane), yes. For others, maybe.

What did you buy?

Mantic skeleton sprues of 10, should be fine, for example.

If the parts are loose and very shiny, they would be resin and may require superglue or other.

If metal use superglue.

HIPS plastic should be fine being painted as per metal. Maybe a wash and rinse to remove mould release agents. Do this for sure with resins before any work, and don't breath any dust from using resin.

For painting, I find plastics inferior to metal. While they don't chip, they don't have all the details either. Often with hair and fur, in particular, your expected to paint such texture on the sides, where the steel mould can't have undercuts. The flexible moulds used for metal casting does not have this issue. A personal gripe I'm vocal about.

Plastic cement or super glue work fine.

Also fine to spray them with undercoat, and paint as normal with acrylics.

@The H Man

Yes, in both cases, they were the rectangular "tree" like model aircraft parts come in. I don't want to say what they were, in case any of my players read this! 😁

I've painted a few of the one piece EM4 figures for dwarves, and I know what you mean about softer detail. I'm ok with that for the NPC figures, any PC minis will be pewter.

Thanks for your advice, same for @Giles the Zog as well! 👍 😎😎

I bought two boxes of their Gnolls, for my mass fantasy battles games, as well as my D&D games. They glued together, nicely, with the clear liquid model cement. The glue bonded the pieces within 30 seconds, or so. I had to glue on heads, arms, and torsos. It all went very well. Have not primed them yet, as this was done just before we moved to a new house, and everything is in boxes still!

They will take spray primer, or Artist's Gesso (acrylic, brush-on primer -- gray white, or black, but avoid the clear!). The different heads, and weapons, made for very nicely customizable figures. I tilted the heads, just a bit, in different directions, to give them true character, and personality. It was a lot of fun, to be honest.

I'm hoping that they produce more figures sets I can add to my collection. Their Gnoll sets are, IMO, some of the very best Gnolls on the market. Cheers!

Good painting job here…

Amicalement
Armand

I assembled my figures with good old Testors Model cement (in the orange tube). It worked just fine.