DEALING WITH RESIN KITS

It is often discussed on several forums, blogs, magazines and books, how to paint a figure - or, related to armor, how to do weathering - with other words, how to give your model the final touches, which makes it an artistic piece. But what about, if you just started this hobby, and you have still problems with the initial steps?

In this article I want to give a brief guide, how to clean and assemble your figure.

Let's start with a bit of theory.
We usually find kits on the market made from injection moulded plastic, resin or soft-metal. In all cases the fundamentals are the same: manufacturers do a so called negative form, and they fill this form with some kind of material which gets solid and firm later. But there are a few differences between these kits, how to deal with them, and all have their advantages and disadvantages.

Image taken from the internet.
Copyright belongs to original publisher. 

First of all, there are the INJECTION MOULDED PLASTIC kits. Injection moulding is an industrial, high-volume procedure. They create the moulding tools with CNC machines, and with an other machine they press the heated pastic into this form.

Image taken from the internet.
Copyright belongs to original publisher. 

This method requires a lot of investment, and has a lot of limitation. Big manufacturing companies are focusing on the most popular subjects, from which they can sell thousands and thousands. Just think about the usual supply of model shops and webshops: German soldiers in any amount from Dragon, Tamiya, MB, Miniart, etc. Maybe a few Russian or Brittish trooper, or a few crusader from Italeri...

Also it has a few limitation; as it is an industrial procedure, do not really expect deadly sharp details or a moulded head full with life and gesture... But these kits are relatively cheap, and a good point to start with.

What about, if you want a little bit more? An interesting subject out of WW2 german soldiers... An interesting pose, a character full of life, nicely detailed straps and buckles, a head with a special mimic...
Than it is time to get familiarized with RESIN or METAL figures.

Image taken from the internet.
Copyright belongs to original publisher.

My personal reference is resin kits, simply because I find them easier to work with: it is more resistant, easier to repair, and I found the paint easier sticks to the resin than to the metal. I think some bigger companies use soft-metal for their figures only because it is harder to copy them... But it is a matter with taste anyway, like anything else.

Image taken from the internet.
Copyright belongs to original publisher.

The main difference compared to injection moulding is, that the procedure how they make resin mouldings is closer to hand manufacturing. A sculptor makes the master piece. This person is usually an experienced modeler often with artistic background and education. The manufacturer makes a moulding form around these master piece from a flexible, rubber-like material. The resin comes usually as a main component and a hardener/catalyst. After mixing these two liquids you get a honey-like fluid which you pour into the moulding form. A few hours later the material gets dry and firm, and you can release it from the form, and start the whole procedure from the beginning. It might sounds like an easy thing, but beleive me, to achieve a good quality without bubbles and moulding lines is really an art on its own!

So that's about the background. Hope it will help you to understand little bit more the whole procedure.

Let's talk about the next step. The manufacturers did they job, you have your resin kit in your hand... What's next?

CLEANING THE MOULDING MARKS 

On your figure you can find the following features coming from the nature of the moulding procedure:
- BUBBLES: during the drying process of the resin the thousands of micro air-bubbles try to escape and they merge into bigger bubbles. The air moves upwards, and if it sticks to a corner you will see a circular piece missing from you moulding as an end-result. It can be eliminated by using vacuum and well-engineered moulding tools. If you buy from a reliable manufacturer, you shouldn't meet this problem.
- LUG: There is a hole, where they pour the resin into the form. After the resin gets dry and firm, it remains on the figure. You have to cut this excess material off from your figure.
- FLASH: Where the two halves of the moulding tool (let's call them male and female) joins there is always a gap between them. If you are lucky, it is only a few micron, and you can easily cut it away.
- DISPLACEMENT: this occurs if the 2 halves of the moulding tool slip over on eachother making a step on the moulding. This is a very serious failure, very hard to repair. Best you can do if you meet a moulding like this to never buy again from that manufacturer.

On the left you can see some tools required by the cleaning procedure of the figure. A good Dremel or Proxxon tool could be also a useful equipment, but they are expensive and the work with these tools require extra attention. In most of the cases I try to avoid the usage of them. Different size and grade of files and abresive papers (sandpaper) could be also a great help, but my personal preference is to do most of the job with scalpel.

You can cut most of the flash very easily with a scalpel. Just follow the lines of the figure, and try not to drive the scalpel into the body.










It is not necessary to cut all the excess in one run... You can go back later and refine it.

 To remove the lug, first I do small cuts at one end..

 ...and on the other end too.

Than try to break off the excess material. Use moderate force, and try not to damage the rest of the figure. If it is not going easily, do deeper cuts and scrape the material along the line where you want to break it off.

Hopefully the manufacturer did all efforts to keep the connection point between the figure and the lug as small as possible, and after a few trials you will easily break the excess off.

With the help of the scalpel you can carve off any excess material.

On visible areas you have to be more careful. However you just have to follow the lines of the body, and try not to cut too deep. Repeat the cutting movement several times rather than trying to cut all at once.
If the engineer of the manufacturer company did a good job, the moulding lines should drive along clear areas where you can't damage fine details during the cleaning process.

If you are working on folds or other recessed areas; try to do a cut from one direction till the deepest area of the fold, following the form of the body, than another cut from the opposite direction the same way. In the deep of the folds you can clean any flash with slightly twisting the knife, allowing its blade to follow the curve of the fold.






The most important thing is to realize, what features are coming only from the moulding procedure (so we don't need them) and which features are belonging actually to the figure. You have to be careful with straight line along a trouser for example, it can be either a moulding line, or the sculptors intention to represent the stitching line what you can see on the original cloths too. So always think first and do a cut after that!

Next time I will continue with the assembly and other preparations.

Painting Bono II.

Just to recap: last time I prepared the figure, basecoated it, and started to paint the main blocks with acrylics. Till this step the process is more or less always the same. You always need a solid first layer with some kind of acrylics; these paints are covering well and giving a good starter point for the further work. I also like to paint the small deatails (like the eyes in this case or the earrrings) with acrylics; these are drying fast, and you don't risk mixing the fine details. I painted some basic highlights and shadows too, but continued the work with oils. To achieve nice, subtle blended highlights and shadows (especially in bigger scales) I always prefer this method.

Some thoughts on the different paints: 

Acrylics are drying fast, after a few minutes they give a perfect, solid and matt surface of paint. They are perfect for the first layer and also to paint the smaller details. In smaller scales (like 30 mm) they are the only real options in my opinion. In fact, you can paint the whole figure with only acrylics, but I think it's not the easiest option. You extremely need to thin the paint and apply every layer with a lot of care, if you want to achieve nice fadings and subtle transition between the different tones. It can be even 20 or more layers on a big scale figure like this to achive the effect you want. This requires a lot of experience and patient as well. Althaugh acrylics are drying fast, to apply this high number of extra diluted layers can take a lot of time. If you rush and don't dilute the paint enough, you will see ugly paint marks at the end. Which is everything but not what we want.

What about Oils? (I never use enamels for figure painting, so can't say anything about them.) In my opinion artistic oils are not good for a first layer, as their layers are too translucent and covering not well. You can really make the most of their advantages at the shading phase. Because of their long drying time, you can apply the appropriate highlight or shadow colours to the desired area and then blend it to the surface. After 10-30 mins gently touch the area with a soft, dry brush. Always start at the area, where you want the effect to be the less strong. Use a medium size brush (like flat2) and blend the paint gradually. If you find the paint not enough homogeneous, or too thick, you can touch the whole area with a bigger soft brush. But try not to overdo this and especially not to cover over other areas with the excess paint.

There is no exact recipe, where you need to apply the highlights and shadows and what colour you need to use - every painter is using slightly different mixtures and methods. However there are some tricks, which can help you if you are uncertain.

I always try to observe the work of experienced figure painters, where they apply the different shades, what colours they use. The experience gained from this is sometimes even more useful than checking real photographs. Studio pics are made with artificial lights, often coming from different directions. The light-effects are therefore not enough strong for our purpose, and they can be misleading. This doesn't mean, that you should never check real things before painting...But there are so many good references nowadays, even on the internet. Figure painters these days are often using techniques observed on paintings from classical painters. These are based on experiences of hundred years, what looks good IN-SCALE. So do not hesitate to check the works of different painters and figure painters, and try to copy the effect they achieved. Yes, copying in this case is means no shame. You can develop your own style later, when you gained enough experience.

An other useful trick is to observe the actual figure. Put it under a direct light source, and
check, where you can see the shadows, and where are the most light areas. If it's necessary, take a picture of it, and use it as a reference later on, when you're applying the paint. If you have an airbrush, you can achieve the same result with it. Paint your figure black, than apply a light coat of grey from a 45 degree angle upwards, while turning your figure around its axis. Than mix a bit more white into the paint, and spray it from an even smaller angle, almost vertically. This way, the paint will work similar as the light, and you will have a figure which is already pre-shaded.

Now about the actual painting process. I placed some artistic oil paint on a piece if cardboard. This will take of the most of the oil component, which would make the surface too glossy and would make the drying process extremely slow. After a couple of minutes I toke over the paint to a piece of aluminium foil. I'm using black, different brownish colours (like umber and sienna), skintone and white. Place the black to the left, than the darkest brown a bit further to the right, than the lighter brown, skintone, and finally the white. Gently mix the closest colours, with care to have a gradual, continuous palette. I also mix a small amount of violet to the corner of a dark brown section, and some red to an other, lighter section.

Apply the colours straight from the palette, without thinner. Always with small amount, just a bit of paint at the tip of the brush. Dark brown to the temporal, under the chin and the cheeks. Some violet brown around the eyes. Lighter tones on the forehead, nose, over the cheek bones, on the chin. A reddish skintone on the lips, to the end of the nose, and some on the cheek-area. This is more complicated in written...Just look at the pictures. Work always on one area at the same time, blend it, and then go to the next area. You can always go back later to further strengthen an effect, so you don't need to do everything in one step.

The last stage on the face was the 5 o'clock shadow. The sculptor made a very nice effect to depict this. So if you are lazy, you can do just a dark wash on the surface, and wipe the area a bit later. I chose to paint the area with nicely blended grayish oils - this won't take too long either. I mixed some black and skintone to get a relatively dark grey tone. With adding white you can mix the lighter shades too. I applied the darker and lighter tones following the already existing shadow and highlight areas. Always just some little dot with the paint, then blend it to the surrounding area. The grayish tone needs to remain quite translucent to show some from the under-laying skintone. We want to show some stubble not a thick beard. I followed the same process on the chest, and also painted some hair with a good 0000 brush.

Finishing the hair and the clothes from this point is pretty straight-forward. I used again acrylics for the base and oils for the shade-effects.

The last stage was to prepare the sun-glasses. As this was moulded from a translucent pinkish resin, needs to be handled very carefully. First I sanded off the remaining of the moulding marks, starting with a 400 grade, then 1000, 2000 and finally 3000, all with some water.

If the surface gets matte
and dim, you can apply this
easy trick: dip the translucent
part into some floor polishing
fluid, like Future polish shine. Wait till it gets dry, and your part is again shiny and clear. I made some dry-fit to the bust. If it is not fitting perfectly, you can gently heat the piece with hair dryer, and form it to the desired shape. With resin it is a much easier procedure than with plastic, and it is quite impossible to ruin the part. However you need to do it slowly and gradually.

I hope you enjoyed to read this article. Next time we're coming with the painting of the beautiful Braveheart bust from Nocturna Modells.

If you are interested for our products, please visit the official Shamrock Miniatures website.

Painting Bono I.

Hello Folks,

I started this bust a couple of weeks ago. I undertook to make a short demo about figure painting at the Dublin IMSS show, and this bust was my choice. First of all, it is easier to show the painting of face, and especially the painting of eyes on a larger scale figure. Secondly, this is a very easy to paint figure, you can progress quickly (which is not a disadvantage when you're making a demo...)

Unfortunately there was no chance to make sbs pics, but hopefully you will find some useful tips though ;)
So, let's get it started.

 In first step I gave a basecoat to the figure with my favourite Mr Surfacer 1200. There was no need for sanding or other preparation, the figure had no remarkable moulding lines or bubbles.




I always wait at least 24 hours before start to paint the figure to give enough time to the primer to get completely dry.






Usually I start with the eyes. Why? Because it is relatively easy to make a mistake with this tiny little feature. And in that case, if it happens, it is always easier to restart from this point, than ruin all your efforts you placed in the painting of the face, isn't it?

 A small white dot in the iris and a light pinkish wash around the eyeball brings even more life to the eye of your figure.

After the eyes were ready I started to paint the face. My favourite base colour is brown sand from Vallejo. I thin the paint at this stage in a 50-50 ratio, and cover the whole surface in 3-4 steps.

I mixed a lighter shade with adding some basic skintone to the base colour, and diluted the mixture with adding more water (around 5-8 times more water). In first step I covered about the half of the face, the most highlighted areas.



I added more basic skintone to the mixture, and even more water. Covered with this a relatively smaller area than previously. Than added even more basic skintone, and covered even smaller area.

I mixed a darker colour with adding some burnt cadmium red to the base colour. Followed the same method as with the highlights, just to the opposite direction.

In 4-5 steps you need to see the base tones on the face. Look at your figure from a further distance (half meter or so) and check the general impression. At this stage it's still easy to correct the contrast between the highlighted and shadow areas. You can still add more highlight or shadow to an area, or go back with very diluted base colour to soften an effect.

I added some red to the basecolour and covered lightly the lips. Be careful with the amount of red you add: again, you can make it too feminine.
I painted the hair and eyebrow with a light black colour. This helps to see the whole impression of the face better.

Next time I will continue with adding more shades with artistic oils.