"trouble with sticky minis?" Topic

I need help and wondered if any one else has ahd the same problem.

I have a lot of the common wizards of the coast plastic star wars figures and am re-painting them to use in sci fi skirmish games.

about 25% of them become tacky and sticky after a couple of weeks. the rest seem to stay fine. the minis are a flexible almost vinyl like plastic ( for those of you who don't already know.)

i wash them first. spray undercoat with an acrylic primer. paint them with workshop and reaper acrylics. then give them 2 coats of an oil based varnish. ( humbrol mattcote in the uk.)

why does this happen?
why only to about 1/4 of the minis and not all?

any help greatly appreciated.

regards

jim

It has been a long time since I used any Humbrol products, but IIRC, their materials are a solvent for water-based acrylics. I think your varnish is attacking the acrylic color coats.

No it isn't.

Sticky? Could it be the manufacturers fault?

midichlorians?

hi caml1420,

i use the same paint/varnish combo on all my figures, none of the metal or resin figures ever go sticky, so i can rule that out 8-(

regards

jim

Maybe you're not getting good coverage with the acrylic, and so the varnish is able to penetrate to the plastic? Sorry, it's the only thing I can think of…

i'm currently trying a black gesso undercoat brushed on first, in case it needs a thicker barrier between the varnish and the plastic.

i won't know if that cures it though for at least 2 weeks 8-(

jim

I've had similar problems with artists oils and oil based varnishes over acrylic and latex when I was an art student. Is it possible that;

a. The paint is not completely dry before varnishing?
b. The varnish is contacting _any_ part of the vinyl plastic, even the bottom of the base?

Also, It may be that some figures are made out of slightly different plastics. This could have some effect.

I've had similar issues with Star Wars miniatures I've touched up or repainted. Some are fine, others have large sticky areas.

In the case where it's a base you can paint a thin layer of black over the sticky black and that seems to help. I was thinking of trying a coat of Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement to see if that would help, or provide an alternate way of sealing these.

Personally I never paint oil based over water based. Use an arylic varnish like the Windsor & Newton.

I remember an old art teacher telling me that cellulose goes under oil goes under acrylic and never in the reverse order. It's to do with the strength of the solvent attacking the pigment and/or binding agents in the paints.

Okay, I've been playing with this problem some more and I have some progress to share.

Woodland Scenics Scenic Cementis not the best idea, forget it.

I normally use a spray matte finish from Krylon and sometimes have the forementioned sticky problem. Switching to a Krylon *Acrylic* spray solved the issue. The one I used to test it has a Gloss finish, so I tried spraying over that and the sticky problem appeared again, but only around the base.

I actually have a spray Acrylic with a Matte finish that I plan to try next, that may solve things completely for me, but honestly the Krylon Acrylic Gloss worked well enough for me.