"How to prep plastic miniatures for painting" Topic

In my latest article on my blog, I discuss how to prep plastic miniatures for painting. This tutorial is meant for those beginning, but maybe seasoned veterans might be able to pick up a tip or two as well.

The article is at… link

Article at… link

While it's a good article, a lot of the "in progress/example" photos did not show up.
I also think you might want to differentiate on the types of plastic minis. The hard "Injection style" such as Warlord and GW, should be washed, and priming is a good thing.
However Reaper Bones, does not recommend rattle can priming, (or actually priming at all), but if you must do it use their brush on primer. Also, Bones figures REALLY need to be washed as many of them, still have residual release agent on them, which actually can interfere with the paint jobs.
Wiz Kids deep cuts come already primed also, but I recommend that you wash these and give them a black base coat wash over their primer before starting actual painting.

I am looking forward to seeing the pics of the wood filler build up for the ground work.

Murphy

You can also use a primer optimized for plastics, such as the Fusion brand.

I disagree with using plastic glue for basing an plastic bases. If you ever want to rebase your models, you notice how terrible it is, when the miniature is "melted" with the old base. Use superglue and you won't have any problems.

Painted Perry, Gripping Beast and Victrix hard plastic figures and have never had a problem with not washing figures before undercoating

Thanks for the post MCM. That was a lot of work.

I don't wash hard plastic figures either.

Thanks for the comments everyone. I edited the article a bit to show that I am looking specifically at hard plastic miniatures.

The Army Painter also wrote me with suggestions on how to use their product better, so I placed that email response in the post too!

Thanks Bill. I used to use the Fusion brand a lot when I used to paint boardgame miniatures. I didn't think to try it on wargame minis. I figured that since the minis were a little more expensive, that I would go with the miniature brand paints.

Also, thank you very much 79thPA.