Painting handles

[CashWiley]

Up until now I've painted human sized minis (and one ogre, but still not massive). I'm eyeing a larger mini and while I think I have come up with the sketch of a notion of a suggestion of how to hold onto the darn thing while I paint it...as always I like to turn to this wondrous hive mind of talent to see how you folks 'handle' larger projects.

 

Bonus points for suggestions that might be appropriate for Bones Ebonwrath. See how subtle I can be?

[Nocturne]

Where possible I leave things in manageable component parts of a similar style, that's rally only suitable for things like warmachines though and not really going to work for something like, oh say Ebobwraith for example. Personally I just go hands on and not worry too much about it just making sure that I leave plenty of drying time for an area before touching it. I'll pick one or two areas that are going to be the holding points and paint around those then touch them up when I've put the figure down. For ebonwraith something like the horns and either the underbelly or under the feet which are flat to the ground are going to be very useful for places to handle as you can leave painting those until you've done the rest of the body. Just make sure you keep your hands clean or use suitable gloves if you're so inclined.

I find it more awkward at the start of the process when you're doing large basecoats, by the time you're onto details it's not really an issue.

[Doug Sundseth]

When I paint that figure, I will be planning to base it. To base it, I'll want to pin through the feet. And I normally do my basing after I finish painting the figure.

 

(Priors noted so that you can understand why I make the suggestions below. If your priors are different, this might not work for you at all.)

 

So, for a painting handle, I will probably use a 1x2 with a piece of MDF attached to the top to make an appropriately sized T. I will put pins through the MDF to hold the figure in place, then use the same pins or pin holes (depending on which works better) to attach the figure to its eventual base.

 

I have no idea what I will do for the really massive figures like Nethyrmaul.

[Last Knight]

I'm probably going to put Ebonwrath on a suitably sized base and work him from there. Of course, that might make doing his underside more difficult...

[zemjw]

One thing I have found useful when painting 54mm figures is to wear a cotton glove on my hand that's holding the model.

 

As well as looking cool it stops fingerprints and oil being transferred to the figure. Granted, I do occasionally have to remove bits of thread, but that's much less work than fixing the damage caused by oil from my hands.

 

I'm not sure how big your figures are, but there are work holders you can get with a handle underneath, that are very useful for bigger figures

[Flow]

I bought one of those universal part holders and unfortunately it didn't seem to work very well with Rauthuros. He was just too darned top heavy. If I tilted the holder, he'd just tumble out (into my hand, because I was smart enough to test it before trying to use it, lol).

 

It's possible I wasn't "doing it right". I'm not certain.

[ZabbyMonky]

I tend to use sticky putty and stick minis on top of shot glasses during the paint process. For massive figures I use a mason jar lid. Bones is light enough for it to hold without needing pins.

[dispatchdave]

It may take a bit more work, but I would probably use a leg or something as my handle, and when I paint that part, clearcoat it (so I can still use it as a handle, but have better color consistency by applying the basecoat/etc at roughly the same time).

 

Edit for spelling

-Dave

Edited July 18, 2013 by dispatchdave

[CashWiley]

I think Doug has hit closest to my original idea. Ebon is bendy as heck on the legs, but I'm thinking of putting him on an irregular base. So if I pin him without a hot bath, I can just glue him into place on the final base. So I could then use the pins to mount him temporarily to a block of wood, like the thin edge of a 2x4 or something. That should allow me to get to the underside without too much problem.

 

Going to be unwieldy because I'm thinking of full assembly before painting. I might have to get everything fit and the pins drilled and do a final fit after painting the body...

 

And then there's the question of the temporary adhesive. I'm guessing PVA glue wouldn't adhere to the vinyl. CA glue?

[Starlight]

I tend to either hold on to the base, leave outlying bits like horns or weapon or whatever and hold there, or use a set of small plastic clamps I got cheap at a hardware store that I can clamp on to the base or whatever works best for the individual mini.

 

So, for a painting handle, I will probably use a 1x2 with a piece of MDF attached to the top to make an appropriately sized T. I will put pins through the MDF to hold the figure in place, then use the same pins or pin holes (depending on which works better) to attach the figure to its eventual base.

 

Ok, you made me curious... what is "MDF"?

[Doug Sundseth]

I use PVA for metal figures, which works pretty well. I don't know how a vinyl-base adhesive will work on a vinyl mini, though. I'd be really careful with CA, just because it works so well on PVC. If PVA doesn't work, either poster tack (or museum tack if you have it) or a flexible adhesive like Gorilla glue (perhaps UHU in Europe?) would be my next things to try.

 

 

* Acronym decryption for lurkers:

 

PVA = Poly-Vinyl Acetate. Commonly called white glue or Elmer's in the US. (Strictly, I understand that Elmer's isn't straight PVA, but they behave almost exactly the same.)

 

PVC = Poly-Vinyl Chloride. Bones, in this case.

 

CA = Cyano-Acrylate. Super-Glue.

[CashWiley]

MDF = medium density fiberboard. It's a cheap building alternative to wood.

 

I'm worried about the poster tack letting go while I'm maneuvering him around. I bought some museum tack, but it must be a bum package because it has almost no hold to it (though to be fair, poster tack wasn't working well with the pooch I'm painting, either, so I just superglued him to the paint pot).

Edited July 18, 2013 by CashWiley

[Doug Sundseth]

MDF = medium density fiberboard. It's a cheap building alternative to wood.

 

Good catch. Common tradename is Masonite.

 

Bummer about the museum tack. I have some that I bought because poster tack fails too regularly, but I haven't used it yet. I might try it myself tonight to see if I get the same result.

[Pingo]

Like zemjw, I wear gloves when painting, but in my case it's nitrile gloves on both hands. I taught myself to after meeting someone who had developed a skin reaction to paint solvents. It works at least as well for protecting whatever I'm painting as it does for protecting me.

[Kang]

For what it's worth, they say poster tack gets a bit stickier if you knead it well to warm it up before using. I know some painters swear by it for attaching painting handles, but to be honest I don't really trust it either.

 

For regular sized minis I usually pin the feet and hold the (long) pins with a pair of locking... I think they 're called hemostats, though they might just be something similar to that. They came out of an old tackle box, probably once used to take barbed hooks out of fish mouths. Mine have the straight ends, not the ones with a bend at the end, though those should work just as well I'd think. I bend the pins if needed so that I can just sit the hemostat things on the table when I'm between sessions and it won't tip over. This leaves most angles such that the handle isn't in the way of the brush, which is nice, and if the pins are glued into the feet (or other appendage of variable tentacularity) well, it's not going to come loose.

 

For minis that are too heavy for that, I'll glue them to a small block of wood, temporarily. Normally I use white glue or carpenter's glue for this (I always keep carpenter's glue around for basing materials instead of white glue - the main difference is, carpenter's glue doesn't melt if it gets wet).

 

For really huge minis, I don't normally use a handle. But I don't touch the mini with my bare hands either - I use a sheet of bubble wrap to hold it. It's non-abrasive, doesn't leave fingerprints, and it leaves the mini somewhat protected while you're not painting if you leave it sort of wrapped up in the stuff. I think I got this idea from one of Anne's posts. That was several years back, so don't quote me on that. Might have been a dragon WiP?

 

 

Kang