"How Thick is Paint in 1/72nd Scale?" Topic

So I was painting a few civilians the other day and noticed one was wearing, shirt, tie, vest, jacket. And I wondered if the paint I was using was actually thicker than the shirt or tie would be if you could measure it's thickness and determine how thick that is in 1/72nd scale.

Could you really just take a rather generic looking clothed figure and paint on tie, vest, jacket and the paint would be as thick as the real clothing would be in that tiny size? Assuming you could paint that well.

Thanks.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Well, you need the clothing sculpted on, because nekkid features would be noticable through the paint. ;-)
Any paint thickness would soften sharp clothing lines (i.e. add "puffiness" to the detail) However, from having stripped paint from 1/72 figures, a figure leaves enough paint flakes to make a small pile of folded clothes, so assuming a figure wasn't painted with gunky enamels, yes, most clothes would be about a layer of paint thick… ;-)

I just measured the thickness of the lapel of a sportcoat. This is a lightweight jacket. It measured 7mm thick. So in 1/72 scale, that is 0.09mm or the thickness of a sheet of paper.

Testors enamel paints should certainly be thick enough.

If you really want raised details such as clothing, cut a paper tie to size, and decoupage it onto the 1/72 scale figure. Personally, I would just paint on the tie, if necessary. Note that by using paper, and decoupage, you could lift the tie off the surface of the figure, as if the man was moving and his tie was lifting away from his chest, to show action -- if you want to see that detail, when you hold the figure a few inches away from your orbits. ;-)

I view my figures (1/72 scale to 54mm size, or 1/32-1/35 scale) at arm's length, 98% of the time I use them. I paint for the 98%, not the 2%. I realize that most people tend to paint for the 2%. I prefer to swim against that particular current. LOL! Cheers!

This is an interesting thread! you have no choice but to paint it on! Assuming it's a well detailed figure, the thinner the layer the better.

Sgt Slag I paint for arms reach away, about 3 feet for me. It just occurred to me that the paint would be about as thick as the clothing when I was painting a few figures a couple days ago. Most of my figures serve unpainted in plastic the correct uniform color. Green for US, etc.

But recently doing spies and super heroes some painting seems more necessary to determine who is who.

Thanks for all the comments.

Bunkermeister