Imperial Creative Engineering > Custom Figures

Custom Battle Droid 00M-9

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Wookie-Balls:
Hi again!

Some great work you've got going in here! I used the Gree forearms as I made my Luke from leftovers! The original clone arms were on a Jedi figure that I had made earlier!

Looking at it now though I do prefer the Gree hands on the Luke!

BTW I'm flattered that you've used the same recipe, and I can't wait to see more of your work!

Cheers again,

Ray

krztfr:
My only problem is painting...my brush work isnt that great. Any tips before I begin would be great

spudafett:
Go slow with your paintwork.  Don't rush it.  Try not to touch the figure too soon after painting it, that's always my mistake.  I try to rush it, start painting the next layer or color before the first application is dry and wind up covering it in fingerprints!

Make sure you are using Acrylic paint and NOT enamels.  Enamel paints are ok for plastic models, but will not cure correctly on action figures.

ActionFigEmpire:
Good tips Spuda! Yes model paints like Testor's are known to have a "never dry" effect on the plastics Hasbro uses. They can remain tacky or even sticky, and are instantly full of finger prints. Acrylics are the way to go. Get some good versatile brushes. Use the finer tipped brushes with soft bristles for detailing, use large brush heads for general coating or large flat surfaces like on vehicles. I highly highly recommend using Citadel Paints. They're water based acrylics, very forgiving and come in the most unique colors. They do amazing metallic pigments too. They're what I prefer. One of their jars gets me through about 20-30 figures and some small vehicles or dioramas.

Another great thing to remember is addition and reduction work.

Addition= apply paint in coats/colors. i.e. your figure has a black jump suit, so you start by painting all the jump suit surfaces black. It doesn't matter if you get some black on other parts like his armor because those are going to be silver. After the black has dried you go in and add the silver to his armor pieces: chest, shoulders, knees, etc. Then it's time for

Subtraction= so you got some silver on the jump suit areas. No big deal. You take your finest (smallest head) detail brush, and subtract the silver out with some black. This is known as the "touch up" phase of your paint applications. Addition and subtraction work great for detailed figures or vehicles. It's a technique used by most model makers and table top gamers. From my Warhammer days we used to paint figures in batches. Start by priming them all black. Then painting the armor pieces red. Then the do the trim in blue. Etc. Etc. Until each piece is finished.

With Citadel paints you can even pop your figure appart, paint each piece individually to get a very meticulous and even paint job. Then boil the pieces (see Spuda's tutorial on the Boil-and-pop method) and pop them back together. This gives you a flawless coverage of paint. Citadel paints are water solluable (they wash off your hands, clothes, etc.) but once they're dry on a hard surface they are water proof, so you can boil them and not have your paint wash away.

Another handy trick is to sand certain pieces to get a porous surface to really grab the paint. This makes it that much harder for your paint to chip or flake.

One last tip comes from my days in the 501st Legion, and that's what they call the "50 foot rule". Essentially, how will your piece look from the standard viewing distance? As for the 501st 50 feet is what they consider event/parade distance. For action figures I'd say 2 feet is how people will normally see them on your shelves. For photos it'll be much closer. Ask yourself, "Will people see any unpainted surfaces? Will my weathering look as good from 2 feet as it will from 5 inches away?" and other things like that. I personally paint the backs of knees, under armor, the bottom rims of helmets, etc. so that all the little details are 100% relative to the custom.

Also take a look at your figures, Hasbro cuts a lot of corners with their painting. Sometimes it's the wrong color, it's only painted on one side, or they leave bare plastic where there should be paint. I have a Baron Fel figure that has exposed flesh toned plastic on the edges of his black gloves. They also don't always get the paint in the right spots.

Hope this helps :)

spudafett:
Great tips AFE!  Superb ideas.

I wouldn't sand any areas that your afraid to loose detail on however....


Also, giving any figure a good primer coat of flatt black or even a proper primer grey or white is a good way to get a uniform paint surface.  Plan ahead.  If the majority of the figure will be black, or a dark color, use black to prime the figure...  if the majority of the figure will be a lighter color, use white or grey.

Primer is usually alot thicker than other paint, so you may have issues with joints rubbing if you use primer PLUS paint on top of it.  If your going to do any sanding down of your figure, around the joints is where you might want to hit with a bit of sandpaper.  Loosen up the joints slightly with sanding, then paint them and that should take care of any rubbing issues.

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