Action Figure Painting Project: Everything Prior to Actually Priming

Ok! Well, finals were over this week, and this weekend, I've had a chance to get back to work on my hobby.  How To Pain Citadel Miniatures says that you can go with either a black or white primer. According to the book, black is good for making the painting process go faster, while while is good for master painters and makes bright colors show better.  The black makes shadows look better.

I went with a black primer base primer. I could be wrong, but I think it'll be easier to get the shadow effects I would like on the finished product if I start with the black, instead of painting it white, than doing a dark second coat and THEN painting the real colors I want on top of that dark coat on top of the primer.  According to the book, I can also get a good shadow effect using dark washes over the final layer of color, but I am trying to keep this first figure relatively simple.   I'm ruling out washes for this project.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Lets step back.

Before you can put on the primer, you need to disassemble the figure into its component pieces.

Check.

Next you need to sand down potential rub spots so that once you put your paint on the figure, the paint won't run itself off.

Done.

Note.  According to the book I should have also performed a check of all the mold seams on the figure pieces.  If I found anything that I could detect by running a fingernail over it, I needed to sand it down.  I did not actually end up doing this step thoroughly, and yes, after I sprayed on my first layer of primer, I did notice several huge plastic seams.

Agh!

Oh well.  But what I want to get to is the painting phase.  Looking forward to actually painting has been what has got me thought all the pages and pages of papers I have had to write for my finals last week.  Its my first figure that I'll be painting since getting a clue as to how to do it.  I'll let the seam thing slide.

The clean water burns!  It BURNS!

After you check for seams (should you decide to check for seams) you need to wash your prices off to get rid of any oil or other substances on them that could keep the primer from adhering smoothly

Ah-ha!

Best get cracking on that one!

So I did.  With the use of standard hand colander, I got the figures good and rinsed in the kitchen sink.  I didn't want to risk the joint pegs getting lost down the drain, so I didn't bounce the pieces up and down in the water- I just smoothly moved them around under the water to get everything nice and soaked.  I couldn't see any residue on the pieces to begin with, so I wasn't worried about very aggressive washing.  Next I put the pieces on a towel to dry on the porch.  We have a door between the porch and the rest of the house, so I didn't need to worry about our two cats, Boots and Dora, getting to the pieces, deciding to knock them around as they do everything that isn't bolted down, and making sure my dream project ends up a nightmare.

So close to the painting step I can barely stand it.

I should talk about the spray painting situation a little bit here.  Right now, it is winter in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I live.  It is about 29 degrees Fahrenheit outside (about -2 for everyone else in the world that goes by Celsius).  We have 4 inches of snow on the ground.

According to the spray paint instructions, you need to paint in a place that is well ventilated and where the temperature is at least 50 degrees Fahrenheit/10 degrees Celsius.

What I did over the summer is spray paint stuff out in the garage, where there was plenty of fresh air and air flow when I had the doors open.  We live in a house built in 1947 or so, and the garage is detached.  Thus, there are no problems with fumes getting into the house.

Now that winter is here, I want to use the porch as my spray paint studio.  Its a good 3 season space.  One of our home's previous owners installed a nice heater there, and there are windows that open to let in the air from outside. My plan was to spay paint the work pieces using the cardboard spay paint enclosure I built for previous projects while I had the heater on, and after 75 minutes or so (the amount of time it takes for the primer to dry) open up the window and get the fumes out.  This seemed to be a great idea until my wife looked at the warning label for the primer.

The new mask.
::hooooo-pah:: ::hooooo-pah::
What is thy bidding, my masta?

It turns out, the fumes from this stuff is really, really, really, really, really, really bad for you.  I think I have mentioned on my blog that my wife is a family practice doctor just about done with her final year of residency, and among other things she said after seeing the paint instructions is that she wasn't interested in spending her hard earned dollars after years and years of intense education education on chemo meds for her husband anytime soon.   She *ahem* encouraged me *ahem* to buy a really serious painting mask AND that I do not use the door between the house and the porch, that I go out the back door, walk around to the front of the house and use the front door to the porch there.

Because I am a smart effing husband, I said "Yes Dear" and ran to the hardware shop, where I bought a really, really hard core, professional grade painting mask. I put it on and looked in the mirror. I look like something out of a Hollywood movie with this thing on.  I need to incorporate it into a Halloween costume at some point.  Anyway, I grabbed the mask and sealed the door between the house and the porch.  I turned on the heater to get the porch warm enough to paint the pieces and waited for the porch to warm up.

This cardboard once package a toy.  Soon, it will find a new
use as a platform for items to be painted to be place upon.

Another thing I learned from the book is to not just put the pieces down in your painting enclosure, but to put the work piece(s) on a section of cardboard that you can rotate without touching the pieces themselves.  This may be a 'duh!' suggestion to people with more experience in this area, but this was useful advice for me.  I still had the box from the Bravo Team M3A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle in a pile of boxes to be put in the recycling, and cut the box into a bunch of cards. 

At this point someone could accuse me of ceding all decision making authority on this project to Rick Priestley, author of How to Paint Citadel Miniatures.  Those people would be right.  I absolutely have.  I am not just my wife's bitch, or as I like to think of it, a smart effing husband, I'm game workshop's bitch as well.  But I am cool with that.  When it comes to painting figures, I want lots and lots of instruction until I know what I am doing.  At that point, I'll start doing my own thing.

The spray enclosure.  Don't spray paint anything without one.

I am not at that point yet.  Sometime soon I am going to write a more in-depth blog post about my feelings on using a book which is absolutely a $30 advertisement for Game Workshop products. I think its a topic worthy of a write up.  But I want to get done with this post first.

In about 10 minutes, the porch heater got the porch warm enough to paint.  I got the paint enclosure set up, put down one of my newly cut cards in the enclosure, and put the pieces on the card. I spray painted two light coats of black primer on the figures, and things look good so far.  Moving the card to adjust the angle at which I could spray the work pieces worked out fantastically.  I took a few pictures, but it is dark at this point and the lighting on the porch is bad, so no pictures of that is going up yet.  I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them then.  I'm happy with how things are going so far.

That's the logical conclusion of this update, so I'll call it quits here.

Until next time,

David Draper

Desks up and How to Cut Styrene.

So far, so good.  Glad the painting stage is over.

Well, the painting adventure is over.  Cotton balls + mineral spirits got rid of the non plastic paint with no problems at all.  The next coat of paint went on and everything looks great.  ::phew:: that's nice.  I was worried the surfaces were going to look like crap forever.  One problem solved. So that was cool.  After the paint situation was resolved, I went on to add the desks, both in the tac ops center in the back and in the lobby.  The desks themselves are made from black styrene, the same stuff used to make everything else. 

Except this stuff is black, not white. 

I have some little piece work left to do: print out the decals from the website on some sticker project paper, and making the chairs and computers.  That will involve a great deal of cutting styrene sheets but I'm not too worried.  During this project, I have become a master at cutting styrene sheets.  I have wanted to do a 'how to cut styrene for beginners' tutorial for a while, and I may as well do one now since I have some time and I'm on the subject.  Here we go.

How to Cut Styrene

You will need: 

1. A  sheet of styrene

2. A pencil

3. A ruler/Straight edge

4. An Xacto knife/Razor/cutting blade of some sort.

5. Sandpaper (if you screw up.)

Recommended:

6. A desk/work bench makes things much easier.

1. Use a ruler to measure out the length of styrene you want on one side of the styrene sheet.  Mark point for length you using a pencil with a little dash mark on the styrene. (this works on white and black styrene.)  So if you have an 21x8 sheet of styrene and want a 6x8 panel, go 6 inches up from one end on the 21 inch side and mark a dash at 6 inches.

2. go to the other side of the sheet, and do the same thing.  So now you should have two dashes, both 6 inches away from the end.

3. Now flip the styrene over so the flat surface that was on top is now on bottom.  Do steps 1 and 2 again on the other side. 

4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 again to make sure you measured correctly from the ends (measure twice, cut once isn't a joke, and it will save you time if you screw up.) 

5. After you confirm (or remark) your dash marks with a pencil, use a straight edge, such as your ruler, to draw a line between the two dash marks.

6. Repeat step 3, which is to say, flip the styrene sheet over, double check your measurements.

7. Now repeat step 5 on the other side of the styrene sheet.  Use your straight edge to draw a line with your pencil to connect the two dash marks.

8. Now take out your knife.  You can use an Xacto knife, a razor, whatever.  I also use the straight edge, and score the styrene along the pencil line you just drew.  On one side of the styrene.  You can use the straight edge to guide your knife, making sure the score is straight.  Repeat this at least three times in one direction.

9. Important Note: you do not need to cut all the way through the styrene.  You just need to score it.  I spent a LONG time on the first few cuts of this project because I carved all the way through the styrene with my xacto knife.  I don't recommend it.  Learn from my mistakes!

10.  Now, score the line in the opposite direction at least 3 times.  If you were going right to left the first time (in step 8), now score the styrene from left to right.

11. Flip over the styrene.  There should be an unscored surface with a pencil mark facing up, and the scored surface should be facing down.  Repeat steps 8-10 on the other side.

12. Now you are done with your knife.  To be safe, first put the xacto cover back on your xacto knife or adjust your razor so it slides back into the tool's handle.  Stage 13 is going to be a little violent, and you do not want sharp objects around where sudden motions take place.

13. For best results, place the styrene on a flat surface, such as a desk or work bench, with the scored line right at the edge of the table or desk and the part you want to break off hanging over the table or desk.  Apply steady pressure to the styrene, with one hand on the part you cut to use in your project and one hand holding the part you want to have left over.  You do not have to do this quickly.  The first few times you try this you may not feel exactly how much pressure you need to place on the styrene to get it to break.  The styrene will bend.  Do not worry, it will snap back straight again when the piece breaks off.

14.  Very suddenly, the styrene will snap apart.  If you scored the styrene well, the line will be a very nice flat line.  If it was less well done, you may need to do some minor sanding to make the break line clean.

The key to this entire process is scoring the styrene well.  If you do good straight cuts, the break lines will be pristine.  Yes, you can just do one side of the styrene, but when I have tried going fast, in my experience it does not goes nearly as well.  Score both sides of the sheet.  The lines are much finer and need zero sanding to get what you want. 

Congrats!  You have cut your styrene!

I'll update this post soon with pictures for the styrene cutting steps.  Until then, enjoy the words.

That's all I have for now.  Until next time.

David D.

Painting the HQ, or, Another Fine Mess I've Gotten Myself Into

Ok then.  The styrene is all cemented together and looking good.  All I need to do now is paint the thing.  I did exactly what the instructions said: wash everything down first to get rid of dirt or oil or whatever, let dry, and go nuts.

I went nuts, all right.

After spending a bit of time at the local hardware store, I picked Krylon Fusion for Plastic Satin River Rock spray paint.  I wanted to go with a kind of light gray look, because the original GI Joe Headquarters was grey.  Grey seems more like a military base color than BLINDING WHITE STYRENE I had going on here.  So I started painting with the River Rock.

And it looked pink.  Even after 3 good coats applied well after the the previous coat had dried, the BLINDING WHITE STYRENE under the River Rock kept the paint from looking dark at all.  At the end, it was looking kind of like a weak cream color.  Not at all the kind of bad ass look I wanted for my headquarters.  I wanted to find a good grey.  And what luck!  The store had this paint called Grey Metal for plastic.  The cap looked just right.  So I grabbed that and came home.

What we have here is River Rock in front, and Grey Metal in
back.  If the River Rock looked as nice as thisin real life, I probably
would have kept it.  But it was severalshades lighter than it shows up
on camera, and it didn't work at all.  Obviously, Grey Metal wasn't
what I was looking for either.

 Except, I was thinking kind of a gun metal color, and the paint was thinking metal metal color.  The stuff was shiny and not at all what I was looking for.  Maybe in a computer room or if I ever make a robot costume out of cardboard or something, but not want I wanted in my model.  It looked horrible.

I still have that Krylon Fusion for Plastic Grey primer that I have used for a few of my other painting projects.  Sure, it would leave that chalky consistency on top, but the color is exactly what I wanted and I didn't see any good grey paint at the hardware store.  So I went with that for the back, in what the directions call the tac ops center itself.  And it looked great.  Ok.  One room down, one to go.

And here is where the wheels kind of came off the wagon.

See, I couldn't find any white Krylon for plastic at the store, so I just grabbed some white spray paint for wood or metal.  Hey!  It couldn't be *that* bad, right?  After all, the plastic already had a good coat of paint on it.  What could go wrong?

This is why you should never use non plastic spray paint
on plastic surfaces.  Let this be a lesson to all.

The metal/wood white paint looked like shit almost instantly.  As I did my quick spray motions, I watched the stuff curl up into horrible looking spider webs of cracks and fissures.  To make matters worse, I sprayed a few more times over the cracks in the doomed hope that it would fix itself.  No such luck.  I did some looking on the internet, and yeah, non plastic paint should never be used on plastic.  It ends up looking like crap said pretty much every site on the internet.

If only I had checked it out before I started spraying.

So now I had options.  I could: a) accept the fact that the lobby looked like crap, decide this was my first project and give myself a pass.  b) try to fix it, knowing I had no idea of how to fix it.

Because I am optimistic and dumb, I went with option b.

At first I tried sanding the paint off.  Didn't work.  Then I went to the internet and did a google search on "how to I get spray paint off of plastic?"  It turns out there is a fantastic product in England that comes in a spray bottle that can be used to do this, but nope, that stuff isn't for sale in the US.  Which is probably good, because the fumes in my workshop at this point, between the paint and the plastic bonding compound, are pretty intense.

Out out, damned paint!  ...or maybe that should be
off off, damned paint.  eh, whatever.

Some websites recommended trying rubbing alcohol.  I have some rubbing alcohol on one side of my workshop that I use to clean out the contacts of my old NES game cartridges.  I grabbed the Q-tips I use for NES game repair, and started rubbing the rubbing alcohol on the paint with the Q-tips.  I started working on just the desk itself, as I figured that if it damaged the desk, at least I was not screwing up the entire room.  I didn't screw up the desk.

Didn't make much progress getting rid of the paint through, either.

My wife suggested I try using her nail polish remover.  Hmm.  I could give that a shot.  I put some on a rag and rubbed it into the paint.  Again, I tried it on the desk, but on the other side this time.  The nail polish remover worked slightly better than the rubbing alcohol, but not by much.  Then I thought of the mineral spirits.

"Don't use turpentine!" called our forum upon forum of internet discussion boards dealing with the topic of how to get spray paint off of plastic.  I can warp the plastic!

But Curious David was Curious.  And he was learning how not to do things, so he figured, why not try that?  He put some mineral spirits from his work bench on a rag...

...and the paint came off like MOTHERFUCKING MAGIC.

AND THE PLASTIC DIDN'T WARP.

(cue Indiana Jones music) 

So after getting the paint off, he washed all the pieces in the sink and put them on the table to dry over night.  Tomorrow, hopefully they would not be warped and he would be able to spray paint the lobby room with white plastic paint.

Until next time.

Please don't warp over night, styrene.

David D.

Clipper rides again...

Thank you for over sized card board boxes that make
excellent spray paint enclosures.

Some of you may be wondering what about all the other little projects I have going on.  Did I forget about them?  Well, some of 'em are on the back burner.  And there are projects I haven't even posted about yet.  But besides the Build-A-HQ project, I've also made some progress on the clipper front.

 Here are a few pictures of some of the pieces that I spray painted yesterday and are sitting in the garage until the fumes wear off. My goal is to paint them in an urban camo pattern.  I did some research online about the best way to do this, and I decided to go apply a grey base with spray paint and then do some black and while tiger stripes by hand using a brush.  We'll see how it turns out.  Hopefully it won't look like utter crap.

If only I was as good with paint brushes
as I am with spray cans.

As I stated in my last post about this project, I removed the two front attack-trak treads as well as the front grill.  I will replace the treads with wheels and the front grill with a beard trimmer attachment (heh heh... get it? "clipper"? get it? because the attachment goes on a hair clipper? get it?  oh, you got it?  good deal.  Moving on).  So yeah, here is where I am at the moment.

I used a cutting wheel dremel attachment to cut the extra pieces off of the trimmer attachment so it looks more like a set of vicious cutting blades instead of a plastic shaving guard.  It was my first time using a cutting wheel on a dremel, and man, I gotta say using it was fun.  The dremel ate right threw the plastic like it was play doh.  A step that I thought could be a pain in the rear turned out to not be an issue in the least.

I am not sure what the ETA will be on the next steps of this project.  I'm really excited about the Build-A-HQ effort at the moment, and I think my energy is going to mostly go to that.  I also have a lot of work to do for school, so my hobby time is at a premium.  But as I get things done I will take photos and update here.  Hope you are well.

Until next time.

David D.

Lame, I know.

Hey folks.  Sorry for the lack of posts in the past week.  School started on Wednesday at I got really busy, really fast.  I finally got around to adding the pictures I meant to include with the last post.  I apologize in advance for the photo quality, or more accurately, the lack there of. I had to use my phone, since my wife is gone for the month being a doctor in Alaska and she took the digital camera I normally use for blog images with her.  I do have some other pictures from a project I am working on ready to go as well as the blog posting set in my head.  Hopefully I will have that up in the next few days- I just really need to deal with a bunch of reading first.  Hope you are all well.

In the mean time, if you don't know about the following weekly online comic, you should check it out:

Ages 25 and Up

I will say this- this is a pretty PG-13, and sometimes rated R comic (for those of you outside the US, this is a reference the film ratings system we have here in the US of A.  These refer to films that have adult content (ie, lots of explicit sex and drug talk, as well as violence)  Adult situations abound in this comic, and its also funny as hell.  It is a weekly serial staring GI Joe action figures vs. Cobra action figures, with guests stars from Transformers, Duke Nukem, Legos, Marvel and DC heroes, and all kinds of other stuff.  If your sense of humor is anything like mine, you will *love* this site.  So until my next post, check out  Ages 25 and Up. Start from the beginning and read forward.  There are plenty of ongoing gags over there that are much funnier if you have the background.

Until next time!

David D

Spray Nozzle Surprise!

Yes!

I have to say this for fail:  its good that we have it.  If it wasn't for fail, we'd never try new things.  We'd do everything the same we we did it the first time, because why change what works?  Without fail, there would be no pride in achievement. .  There would be no savoring of accomplishment.  If we didn't have fail, how would we laugh at ourselves?

Because if you can't laugh at yourself, you are missing out on one of life's best comedies.  Today's fail tale: David's spray nozzle fiasco.

When I first worked on the Coyote a few months back, I used Krylon spray paint.  When the paint came out of the can, it really splattered all over the place.  I didn't know if it was the temperature, (it had been in the 90's,) or my technique, or maybe that's just how spray paint worked, and in the few cases where I had used spray paint in the past, I hadn't really noticed.  Maybe I was just anxious because I wanted the project to turn out well, and really, it was was fine and that's the way its suppose to be.

Uh-huh.

No!

Well, I was at Walmart today to pick up some spray on primer.  I was in the paint aisle, and I was looking at the different colors of primer- I found some white and gray and black and red brown ("burnt sienna") and I was reading the cans to see how long it took to try and how long it took before the objects I was painting were safe to handle.  And I noticed a little diagram on one of the containers.

According to the diagram, on the nozzle of this particular spray paint can is a removeable, little plastic plug.  It is set into the opening where the paint rushes out of the spray can.  It is actually suppose to be there, and in the diagram, I was shown how it is suppose to be used to control the flow of the paint.  You can twist it up and down to get a more vertical spray, twist it to the side to get a more horizontal spray, or diagonal to get a horiz-tical spray.   

In my first project, I assumed that the little plug was a cap meant to make sure the paint doesn't get out of the can during transit, or something, and pulled the thing out.

SMOOTH MOVE, EX-LAX.

The hero of the hour!

Way to check those directions.  (To be fair, not all of the cans of paint have the diagram showing how to twist the nozzle on them).  When I got home and tried the spray primer without pulling the little tip off, check it out, the spray was very easy to control and not spotty or splattery AT ALL.

So I figured something out!  Don't pull out that little cap from the spray paint, because it is suppose to be there, and because it makes your paint application work much better!

So from the initial fail came renewed interest in how to do things right, which led to me investigate painting further, which led to me figuring out NOT to take out the plug, which lead to

LEARNING

and now, satisfaction that I got the thing right.

Because in the end, what we are really about in our hobbies is satisfaction, right?  Well, if it wasn't for fail, if it wasn't for the fact I was not satisfied with how the spray job went before, I would not feel the satisfaction I feel right now.  So, thanks Fail.  I think.

Next time: David discovers amazing cheap action figures to use for practicing his painting and modding techniques!   I need more time for that post, but it'll be good.  I promise.


Until then,


David D.