Repainting Dungeons and Dragons minis, The Guild and Windows.

Yay.
Installing my entire computer system again.  As a digital artist who has been around the block a few times, that means a lot of software packages that all need nursing, registering and whatever...  Point is it was a long hot day with boredom and task bars.
Fortunately for me a package of D&D plastics arrived for me to tinker with whilst watching endless spinning gifs telling me my pc maybe hasn't crashed just yet.

So the good news is you can easily take off the paint.  Nail polish remover on a cotton bud and in a few minutes of gentle rubbing and voila.  Bad news is that there really isnt that much detail underneath to clean the mank off of.  Those figures may look like they are clogged up with paint... really they are just a bit smooth.

I was actually quite impressed with how some where painted- certainly good enough for playing Dnd- which is mostly in darkened living rooms with a map a few feet from you.  I would certainly consider them as a gaming option- especially now they are going to be rereleased in non-random packs.
Personally I would love to see them release unpainted styrene versions- even if just available via mail order.  But anyway- there you go.

I stripped down an Everfrost ranger, but it really wasnt worth the trouble IMHO.  I think the stripper may have taken off a little detail, which was superficial at best.  Spray primer and undercoat, and it was back to looking rubbery and gluggy.

So for test figure 2, I tried overpainting.  Rather than use spray primer, I washed the figures in soapy water to clean off any grease, and using a big brush and Vallejo dark grey gently drybrushed the model.  After this dried, the thin dusting of paint gave the next overbrush purchase- and voila, the model was nicely covered and ready to paint.  I would recommend this method to undercoat- perhaps only stripping really gluggy trouble spots using gentle cotton wipes.

I grabbed a hook horror, Lightening Lizard, Digester and Giant Carrion Crawler too- and the bigger creatures are much better than the human sized figures- the horror itself is excellent.  Grabbing plastic versions of really, really big nasties is a great solution- but I myself would run to Reaper for my player characters personally and Otherworld for all other monsters.

To get rid of the plasticy look on some of the monsters I first filled the gaps and then stippled Vallejo Plastic Putty using a pin and a sponge.  This put some fine texture on the smooth surfaces.  Green stuff sticks perfectly well, so details can be popped back on if you can be bothered.  I think I will write off the everfrost ranger as a bad experiment- but I can see my Hook Horror appearing in many a Skulldred game.

That was my hobby time for today.  Oh, and if you have not seen the delectable Felicia Day's hilarious websode series on MMOG addiction, you MUST watch the guild.  Every bit as great as the original Red vs. Blue.

Linky:  THE GUILD