Paint + Glue?

[Irongut]

Help! I have never really painted seperate pieces of a plastic model and assembled them at the end. The times that I have I have scraped away the paint to get the surfaces to better adhear. I have started a new army that demands that every figure has to have some pre-assembely paint- there has to be an easier way- any ideas?

[Orminah]

Yessir, there is! Get an army primer. (It's essentially spray paint.) You can buy them from a variety of companies, including Games Workshop, Privateer Press, and, if I remember correct, Vallejo makes a primer as well? Also, try to minimize your need to "pre-assembly paint" by just gluing together things and learning to paint around them. Remember, if you can't see it, it doesn't need to be painted!

[lobster-overlord]

I started off thinking the same with my armies, then realized that what Orminah says is true about if you can't see it, don't bother. The only items I can think of for my Space marines that require pre-assembly painting are the marines in the land speeders and the sidecar guy for the assault bike, and the interior of the Drop Pod. Not much else is going to need it.

If you do end up painting before assembly, a friend of mine used to use styrene rods to hold the parts (like space marine arms, heads, legs) on the end of them and when he would "break" them off, it would leave the space free where they were to be glued together with no scraping.

[Laban Den]

Irongut, Youcould use a masking solution. Paint the mask on befor undercoating. it makes it easier to remove the paint befor assembly

[phoenix01]

Microscale Industries makes MicroMask, a liquid masking medium. You paint it on where you don't want paint. After it dries, you paint as normal, then after your paint dries you peel it off carefully. No more scraping.

[sukigod]

Another option besides the liquid masks is poster tack (or sticky tack). Yellow, blue, doesn't matter. Knead it up, pick off small bits to stick over the ends, then spray. You can pee it off and wad it back into a ball to re-use again later.

I use it all the time and have been using the same pack I got about 5 years ago.

Good Luck!