Help me get this tiny dog off his sprue

[Nunae]

Right now I'm preparing to paint 1:72 figures from Andrea miniatures, and the set I chose has a little dog with them. The human figures had a bit of thin metal under their feet (as is usual from what I can tell), so I was able to clip them off with nail scissors, but the dog got casted right on the thick metal sprue thing.

 

As one could guess from the scale, this dog is tiny (like the size of my thumb nail). I'm hopeful for suggestions to get working on him.

[BLZeebub]

Cut the majority of the sprue off carefully--maybe a nip in front of the front foot and one right behind the tail first.  If you have side cutters (sometimes called nippers) you can safely hack bits of the spure off until it's close enough to scrape (eg:  with a hobby knife) or file/sand flush to the feet and tail.

[Cyradis]

BLZeebub's tips are good. A jeweler's saw may also be useful for you. 

[Jordan Peacock]

What are you going to base it on?  Sometimes when I have a mini that is just a little too much trouble to separate from the sprue (or a tab) that I'm planning on mounting on a decorative resin base, I just go ahead and leave part of the tab/sprue on, and bury it in putty, then incorporate it with the base.

 

For instance, if I were putting the dog on an outdoorsy base, I might sculpt a bit of putty into a shale-style rock/boulder, trim down the sprue under the dog into a sort of wedge/spike shape, and then embed the "spike" into the putty boulder just enough to leave an indentation, then remove it to let the putty cure.  Then, when the putty is solidified and painted (and the dog mini primed with basic colors at least), I can go back and glue the figure in place later.  A piece of tab or sprue can serve as an anchor and spare me some fine pin-drilling.

[Nunae]

I'm not sure about the basing, I think my dad is gonna put them on one of his submarines. So the feet will sadly be free and visible.

 

Thanks for your suggestions, a friend of mine will bring a pair of small side cutters with her tomorrow, maybe they will be the right size and I'll get that dog paint ready.

[Bruunwald]

Going along with what Jordan said, you could always leave most of the sprue and base on a slotta base.

 

If that is not in the cards, what I usually do in these cases, is take the sprue down bit by bit. Using strong clippers, I would first clip it away from the rest of the sprue behind the tail, then clip off the part in front of the paw.

Then, I would start to clip parallel to the length, to thin the overall remainder out. That's important for the next part, which is to take a hobby knife with a brand new blade, and begin to carve away at the rest of the sprue. This might require a few blades, since you want them sharp so that you do not have to apply too much pressure.

 

This takes longer than just trying to cut the figure away straight out, but it allows you to control the process, cutting away from beneath until you reach a point that you are comfortable working with.