Random Hobbyness

Hi guys. Thought I'd put up a few musings as I've not posted for a few days.

I was digging around in the attic a couple of weeks back and stumbled on a box of old metal figures that I'd started out with, when I first got into the hobby in the late 90s. Back then, I'd clumsily daubed them with any sort of paint I could lay my hands on... the results weren't too great, but everyone's gotta start somewhere I guess.

Previously, I've tried to strip down old metal figures using nail polish remover with a high acetone content. This is OK, to a point, but requires quite a soak and a lot of effort and gives a reasonable result, at best. In a passing conversation with my good mate Dan, I mentioned this and he recommended...

...Polycell advanced paint stripping gel. This stuff is awesome and I would absolutely recommend it on to anyone else looking to reclaim some old metal pieces. The tub set me back around £12.00, which sounds expensive, but it has gone a long way and I still have some left. At a conservative estimate, I think I've reclaimed £200 - £250 of old figures, including some really classic casts.

I found the best way of cleaning the figures was to part-fill an old plastic sandwich box with the metal pieces and then add the gel until they're just covered. Ideally, leave them to stew for a few minutes, but they can be worked almost straight away. I transferred them from the pot to a container of warm water and used a toothbrush to remove the paint. This stuff is great and a lot of the figures can out as new with very little effort. The latest batch was left to soak for a day or so and the paint virtually fell off. The gel does stink a bit, so make sure you open a window, and it does turn the consistency of snot when you're removing it after.... other than that, it's great.

So a little investment, a bit of time and five tubes of superglue later, and I've got a whole raft of renewed figures to paint up again. 

Whilst looking around on the net for some painting inspiration, I found a couple of guys who are turning out some awesome figures. The first is a guy called Lester Bursley. He's got a heap of tutorials all over the net and his figures are really quite impressive. From what I've read, he's only been on the scene for a relatively short amount of time, but his stuff is cracking.

The second guy can be found online here: http://thepaintingcorps.blogspot.com/ . I've pinched a couple of pics from this guy's blog as they're nothing short of stunning and would really recommend you head on over and check out the site in it's entirety. Of particular note are the Angels Sanguine Terminators...

Well, that's it for now, more soon. 

Laters :D