Bones: Frequently Asked Questions - Unofficial!

[dsmiles]

I can verify that Liquitex gloss stays tacky, but Liquitex matte does not.

[Pingo]

I can verify that Liquitex gloss stays tacky, but Liquitex matte does not.

I have always found Liquitex Gloss Medium a little unacceptably sticky, even on paintings.

 

Golden has many different gloss mediums, some of which also dry sticky, but I have found Golden's Self-Leveling Clear Gel Medium to dry pretty well on Bones.

[knarthex]

Hey all!

I just got DDS2 the other day, and it will be my first experience with bones, so I am a bit nervous... I have been reading all the tips and tricks everyone has posted with great interest and thanks!

 

Now I use P3 Primer on everything I paint, and as I didn't see it listed, I did my own test.

I sprayed the Bottom of a base to see what, if any results I would get.

 

Now it seems to me that it dried well, certainly no longer than any other mini I have used it on. It is not tacky at all.

No sign that it ate into the plastic at all, no strange fumes, etc.

I dragged my thumb across the dry base, and after 30 seconds or so, the "Reaper Miniatures" text showed up quite clearly.

The base isn't flexible so I can't comment about durability...

 

After I start on the terrain parts of the kit, I will post my results in WIP.

 

George

 

Edit! (14 August 2015)

The bottom of that base got tacky!

 

I picked up the mini to show my wife, as she was looking at the DDS 2 terrain, and getting an explanation about why the bottom was painted, she said, UM-this is tacky. I checked and she was correct! It has been very humid here lately, but it was in a room that gets some AC, so I would do your own test before using P3 Black Primer!

 

George

Edited August 15, 2015 by knarthex

[haldir]

Thought I had a new primer for Bones but alas it failed the test. Adherto by Black Gold (House of Kolor). It's a clear primer made for Lexan R/C bodies. Since the paint for those needs to be flexible to stay on the bodies, thought it'd be perfect!. Alas it fails the stickiness test.

 

(see below)

 

EDIT:

 

Re-checked the mini this afternoon & it doesn't have the stickiness like it did the day I sprayed it. I'll throw a couple coats of paints on it & see later today & report back. Also I sprayed anther Bones mini this morning with Rustoleum Plastic primer white. So far so good. I'll give a report on that one as well.

 

Ok I've had some time with the minis I primed with Adherto & Rustoleum Plastic Primer white. First off when I primed the Bone with Adherto is was really sticky, even to a point I was taking finger & thumb & was tacky touching the blade of the mini just to see if this stickiness would go away. Well this morning that stickiness had gone totally away!

 

As far as the Rustoleum goes, there was a little tackiness but nothing I was concerned about. Granted I'm use to primer going on plastic & then almost instantly drying. I paint car models with either Tamiya primers or Dupicolor brand. I still left that one on my table as I primed & basecoated some model parts today. It was outside most of the day.

 

Paints:

I decided to test paint the mini today. What I used were the following brands with 1 drop of water each.

 

Reaper Viper Green

 

Vallejo Model Color Orange

 

Warpaint Dark Tone (more of a wash then a actual paint)

 

Now I decided not to use one of my good brushes for this + April 2015 was the last time I put paint on a mini so of course I didn't paint like I was in competition. What I did focus on were areas I knew the primer had hit like the base (it's a brocoli style base). The head area or in this case, the lack of a head area. Blades as those are large area. Also I decided to touch a couple areas that thought might offer some primered details like hands or intricate details.

 

Rustoleum Plastic Primer (the one on the craft paint bottle)

 

detail shot

 

Base Shot

 

Adherto Clear primer

 

Base (top) Shot

 

Anther Base (orange) Shot

 

 

Again, not as good as Wren excellent examples but something I wanted to do. Plus it's nice to put a brush with paint on a mini. The minis in question gladly sacrificed their heads for anther project so why they missing those.

 

After painting, I will say both Adherto & Rustoleum Plastic Primer White make great spray primers for Bones minis!!

[Pingo]

Can I ask what sort of time frame you had between spraying and no-longer-sticky?

[haldir]

Can I ask what sort of time frame you had between spraying and no-longer-sticky?

 

I'd say a day. I was outside yesterday spraying around 930 am as I was killing time till 1030 am. I sprayed the goblin first before diving into putting the model parts on my clip & skewer system I have set up.

 

Today I primed those parts around a little before 10 am. I primed the other goblin first & then it was around 300 to 340 when I painted the colors on.

[Coma]

Badger Stynylrez also works out of my airbrush. No thinner.

[HereticKage]

So, I've been a Reaper fan for years. One of my favorite things about Reaper is that they are made not only in the United States, but Just down the road in TX (I'm in Southern OK).

Just recently I started working with the Bones line, and frankly I like them a lot. My only concern is, though contrary to the FAQ thread about the Process being moved to USA, I've never once received a Bones Miniature, that does not say "Made in China".

That being said, I still love the product, I just prefer local produce.

[Crowley]

5 hours ago, HereticKage said:

So, I've been a Reaper fan for years. One of my favorite things about Reaper is that they are made not only in the United States, but Just down the road in TX (I'm in Southern OK).

Just recently I started working with the Bones line, and frankly I like them a lot. My only concern is, though contrary to the FAQ thread about the Process being moved to USA, I've never once received a Bones Miniature, that does not say "Made in China".

That being said, I still love the product, I just prefer local produce.

From the FAQ

Quote

 

Are Bones made in China or the United States?

 

All Bones figures made prior to March 2013 were produced in China. In March 2013, Reaper installed the machine necessary to produce Bones in its factory in Texas, and began the process of transferring production in-house.

 

 

Mostly at the moment I believe that their machine (named Thomas) is mostly being used to make bases, but that some minis were being transferred over to the US for production, but that demand is so high that they don't have the production capacity to bring more over right now. 

[SarahH]

I bought a Nethyrmaul the Undying mini a few years ago and after painting, discovered that if the two left legs are set in their spots on the base, the back right leg is almost a full inch above its spot.

I didn't think much of it at first because the plastic was strong enough to hold the dragon mostly upright but after a few years on the shelf he's leaned further and further to the right and now the front leg has a very noticeable curve.  I'm wondering what would be the best way to build up the back of the base and stop the lean.  Thanks.

[Wren]

SarahH - I don't have a lot of experience with the large Bones, or with doing a lot of basing and building. I think you might get more eyes on your question and thus more suggestions if you repost it as a separate topic in this subforum.

 

One option would be to build up the back with two part putty. Greenstuff is the one most people know, but I find Milliput and Apoxie Sculp to be easier to use, particularly for basing projects. You could probably build an internal structure with cheaper materials (styrene sheets, maybe even cork) and then surround that with putty that you can texture to look like rock or something else that might fit on the base.

[Wardenstein]

As far as priming Bones models goes: has anyone besides me tried the Mission Models brand of primer?

 

It is fast becoming my go-to primer for a bunch of things, lately. After reading the company's FAQ on the product and using it on some other things, including some resin garage kit pieces, and on some random charity-shop kid's toys (and thus, of unknown-to-me plastic types) and really liking the results, I wanted to do more torture tests on it, as a product, related to gaming minis.

 

I mixed up a small amount (you HAVE to use their specific "thinner" which is that, plus an "activator") and then I hand-brushed it on a Were-armadillo Bones model. I hand-brushed on some wash products by Games Workshop (mostly to have something on top of the primer) and then I waited about two hours; and tossed it into what car modelers call the "Purple Pond". That is, a small vat (plastic container) of industrial degreaser -- in my case, I used a fresh batch of the "Purple Power" brand of degreaser. It was a torture test because the stuff is strong enough to (among other things, like doing harm to one's unprotected skin!) sort of "melt" or chemically "erase" the "chrome" coating on injected plastic car model kit's sprues (chrome wheels and/or engine parts, bumper parts, etc.) ... and I'd only given the Mission Models brand of primer a couple of hours to cure. (I had read somewhere that half an hour was sufficient, but I couldn't wrap my head around that idea, so I shrugged and gave it a "worst case scenario" situation, to see how well it might survive.)

 

The primer survived just fine -- somewhat to my glee, and mildly to my shock -- but of course the wash products did not. Those were starting to "melt" within moment of initial immersion, into that harsh paint-stripping chemical. I gave the Bones model a "bath" for about, I think it was, three hours -- but the primer coating stayed intact.

 

I'm a new person here, and I only tested one product on one Bones mini, and other's mileage might vary, so I'm not saying anyone who habitually uses primer products on things should automatically take my word for any of this. I do hope some other people give that primer (and the associated "thinner") a try, and report on their results. Oh, and one last thought: I had also used some Magic Sculpt product, to fill any gaps. Since it was more of a test piece than a "real" project, I made some modifications to the Bones mini's base, too. My intent with that was to see how well Magic Sculp or Sculpt (it's sometimes spelled either way) stuck to the plastic used on Bones minis; and also, how well that seam-filling and modification product "survived" the dunking in the Purple Pond. (Which it did, quite nicely, as well.) As a side benefit: the color and "value" (the relative lightness or darkness, visually) of Magic Sculpt is a pretty close match to white Bones plastic.

 

For what it's worth, I learned about the Mission Models brands of paint in book three (about a Gundam model) of the "single model" series by Rinaldi Studio Press ... 

 

Any other commenters out there want to give those two products a try, and report back on their findings?

Edited November 23, 2021 by Guindyloo
removed retail link

[WhiteWulfe]

2 minutes ago, Wardenstein said:

As far as priming Bones models goes: has anyone besides me tried the Mission Models brand of primer?

I live in the same city as the Canadian distributor as Mission Models, so naturally I had to stop in over at Maple Airbrush Supplies.  Donna's awesome, and she has nice maple candies too.  She has an insane amount of knowledge on various things too. 

 

I have Mission Models' tan, grey, and black primers, and they've pretty much become my default primer for everything.  I brush it on without any issue, and I rather like how it readily flows, as well as evens itself out.  About the only thing I don't like is how the 4 Oz thinner bottle kind of leaks down the side of the lid, instead of cleanly dropping from the dropper tip. 

 

Just don't add poly into your mix with the primer.  No idea what happens, but Mission Models specifically makes mention of this - I'm guessing it causes issues for the primer. 

 

One neat thing about Mission Models - the agitators in their bottles are glass marbles. 

[shadefoundry]

Hey Hey People, shadefoundry here to report the outcomes from me experimenting with spray primers.

Its been pretty well documented how Bones minis work well with Vallejo Brush-On primer, so I've been using that pretty much exclusively for them, but I only have a bottle of it in white, and that stuff is not opaque whatsoever. Since I'm slowly getting through painting my first dragon (Blightfang) I decided I'd paint up a few smaller bones minis so that I could see how they react to different things, so that I'm not experimenting on my nice dragon.

Before I get into my findings, a quick disclaimer, I did these tests with two of the light greyish colored bones, I'm not sure if things are different for the white ones, but I'll be testing with them in the near future since I have a few I'd like to get painted up for a campaign.

So, while painting my Dragoth's throne, I decided I was going to use this opportunity to play with contrast paints. Out of laziness I decided to see what would happen if I sprayed over the brush-on primer with Vallejo White Spray primer, since I didn't feel like painting on a white base coat. Now for those of you who've used that stuff before, you may have noticed that it's already a bit stickier than citadel spray primers by default, and on a Bones mini with brush-on primer it was no different. I would say that it got a bit stickier than normal, but paint adhered very well to it, and has yet to go tacky over the 2 weeks or so it's been since I finished painting it. Every day I've applied pressure with fingers to different areas to see if tackiness has come through, and so far I have yet to feel any.

My next test was with spray varnishes. This is something I've seen people talk a bit about but since I tend to use a couple of different ones in layers, I figured I'd report regardless. So I painted up an Anirion to test with, and sprayed him down with Testors Glosscote, which nobody seems to talk about. Nothing went sticky and the glossy finish didn't crack or tarnish when I bent parts of the mini. After that dried I gave it a coat of Testors Dullcote, as is my tradition with varnishing. Once again nothing's gone sticky and bending parts don't have any negative effects that I can see. This was a few days ago now, and I've been running my fingers on it and applying pressure at different parts pretty much daily to make sure nothing's gone wrong.

I'll be doing more tests this weekend once I've had a chance to pick up more Dullcote, as I've run out, but so far everything seems to be going alright.

 

Edit1: I had some time to test out spray priming with another mini. This time Jana, Female Dragon Slayer. Since the initial result of spray priming was a tiny bit stickier than I'd like, this time I opted to brush-on prime, followed by a very quick base coat of Scale75 Scale Color White, finished off with a spray coat of Vallejo White Spray Primer. The result was absolutely zero tack, and a very solid white coating for more Contrast Paint testing. So far this method requires the most work, but it's got pretty good results for smaller scale minis. I'll be looking into refining this process as I paint more bones minis.

 

Edit2: It's been like a month since I sprayed that second mini, and Jana has gone very, very tacky. I'm not sure what the difference is considering I sprayed her and Dragoth's throne with the same can of primer, and the throne is doing well. Speaking of the throne, I sprayed it down with a coat of Testor's Glosscote followed by Dullcote as I do with all my minis. Looks like Bones minis take Testors varnish no problem.

 

TL;DR, Vallejo White Spray Primer works pretty well if you spray a mini that's already been primed with their brush on variant, and Testors Gloss/Dullcotes have no negative effects on painted Bones from what I can tell.

Edited June 30, 2020 by shadefoundry
Even MORE test results in!

[Crusoe the Painter]

Duplicolor / Krylon sandable has been my primer for years. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

I find UNLESS I clean the bones figs in super hot and soapy water, or with windex/simple green, paints almost always tend to bead up. Mold release can migrate out of the plastics over time and onto the surface.