Daves back... now with the awesome power of bleach

Yes.  Bleach.
So my 'real' job is 3d artists, as you may know, and this month has been crazy busy crunch time.  Result- no miniatures stuff, but my bank account is healthier (in theory- freelancers tend to get paid months after work).

Today showed a little chance to get something done, so I decided to tackle the most urgent problems in my collection- bloom.
Bloom begets leadrot which begets, well, lead poisoning and angst as your classic mini crumbles like a Skeksis Emperor sitting on the Something Wicked This Way Comes merry go round.

The solution is alkali.  Lead+ acid = sugar of lead = leadrot.  Alkali neutralises the acid.  Yay Alkali.  Up until now I have been using bicarb, but someone on some forum somewhere suggested bleach.  Turns out, its pretty darn strong alkali, and pretty darn good at cleaning up minis!

Harpic bleach gel.  The result, 24 hours soaking later

A soak overnight in some thinned bleach and the figures turned from ash grey to murky brown.  Wearing gloves, I brushed this with a soft copper brush and it came up dazzling shiney.  Not minted new shiney, but the sort of shiney that gives you confidence that the figure is risk free, and certainly a nice painting surface.  Take a butchers hook at these three...

FS7-1 Naked Girl Bound Hand and Foot, FA11-2 Illusionist
FS22-2 Victim hanging from Gibbet.  Bases detailed in procreate.

They are some of the earliest citadel figures, and as you can see are nice and shiny now, awaiting a tickle from the hairy stick.  I just love how politically incorrect the range was then, from stoned druids though to one legged bondage babes.  Oh and look, not a skull in sight. Though I was too young for miniatures when these originally came out, as I have collected citadel figures I have been drawn more and more to the very beginnings and now find myself with baggies full of spacefarers, fantasy adventure and fiend factory figures.  I think because they where 'anything goes' and the citadel clichés had yet to be established makes these figures stand out from the throng, plus the delight in getting an old, cruddy looking thing and trying to make it stand up to modern standards.

Anyway, bleach gets my tick of approval and joins in ever increasing box of foul smelling bottles in my tool kit.

I am looking forward to some free time soon, I have to finish up a bunch of sculpts and I am back to painting things then blogging them... yay!