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Like MANY others, I jumped in on the awesome Reaper Bones Kickstarter and now have around 200 or so unpainted plastic Bones to paint in the near future. I'm very excited to get into this plastic mini painting hobby, but I'll need some expert advice :)
I've been reading up on various message boards but I have a few questions. I'll post each one separately so things can stay on topic. Please remember that I am ONLY interested in how these questions, answers and advice applies to the plastic Bones minis. I'm not interested in painting metal minis.
Onward!
I am not a fan of the broccoli blob bases these have. I understand why Reaper does this and have no problems with it. However, I just prefer minis to have more standard, round, plastic bases.
So, I plan on removing the broccoli blob bases and adding round, plastic bases. Any tips, tricks or advice?
For removal, I assume a good, sharp x-acto or utility knife is what I need?
From what I gather, Super Glue is the best thing to actually attach the plastic base to the Bones mini. Yes?
Oh, I know people use plenty of other clever things as cheap bases (wooden disks, metal washers etc). I'd really rather not get into those here though - like I said, I want to stick to actual round plastic bases.
Thanks!!!
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Steady hands and a sharp knife is all you need. Super glue will do the trick.
If your minis are going into a book bag or something on the way to game a small blob of plumber's putty (greenstuff) and a drop of super glue may be a bit more secure - super glue is great for pulling, but doesn't have a lot of side to side / off angle shear strength.
The first thing to be careful of is getting the base cleanly removed from the feet. I've not tried to cut up a bones yet, but my gut tells me you'll want some heavy-duty wirecutters for the big work, and then a fine-toothed saw to remove the base from the foot.
If I was going to do a lot of this I would take the Bones, clip off all of the easy-to-reach base with the cutting pliers, then clamp the leftover base in a vise, and saw through the base cleanly right below the foot, leaving a thin layer of the base. I would not try to cut it so that the foot was completely clear of the base, you'll risk slicing the foot off and damaging the mini.
Once you've got the base mostly removed, run it over a file to make sure it's level, and glue to your base. If you are going to leave your bases black, you might want to paint on some PVA (white) glue to cover the seams first. If you're going to texture the base, you can leave it as is.
By sawing through the base and leaving part of it you make sure not to damage the bottom of the mini, give a broader area for the glue to adhere, and generally make things a little easier of yourself.
Hi Marc, I've been getting into the hobby myself (Bones Kickstarters unite! lol), and I too prefer the round bases. I had a Bones minotaur, which was very cooperative about the whole conversion. The plastic gave way to an X-acto knife with little problems. I grabbed an old (large) DDM mini and separated the base from it (I couldn't wait for the plastic bases to arrive over the mail, heh) and put him down with Zap-A-Gap. He's been handled carefully (by that I only mean I haven't dropped him or put him in a bag with a lot of stuff piled on top) and has not separated yet. On a side note, he scales beautifully with both DDM and PF minis.
Alternately, you could get yourself some sunk-lip square bases (for instance from frpgames), glue your mini to it, and use some gel pumice (like this) to fill in the gaps.
I've done this with a number of DHL minis (metal ones), and have been extremely pleased with the results. Plus, it means you can create some nice basing effects without too much effort.
If for some reason you find the Xacto knife not cutting it (HA! Get it? Get it?), you could try a jeweler's saw or razor saw.
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Also (assuming the broccoli base is less than 1" across), you could just glue the broccoli base to a round plastic base. That'll also mean you're having a larger glue surface area than just the mini's feet. Painting it black like the base means you don't really notice it because your attention is on the mini, not the base. link link link
And if you flock it, you can't see the base at all. link link
And if you don't want to flock it and really don't like the broccoli look, you can smooth it out with putty or some thick glue so it's smooth.
Agreed with Sean, and will be doing the same. By just gluing the whole figure as-is to a base, you've got built-in terrain adding character to the mini!
In fact, I've got a lot of old leftover bases from some project or another that have very similar stippling and texture on top, and the broccoli bases blend right in. Rock!
I also agree with sean, and will likely be gluing my bones minis to some spare GW round bases I have laying about. It just isnt worth the cutting (and potentially risking the mini. Not sure what Im going to do with the big stuff yet, I feel like kthulu ought to have a terrain piece, not just a base.
Put me down as a third for Sean's method. Looking at some of the Bones I already have I can't help but think that you are going to be losing a lot of bases as the tiny feet of things like the Skeletons and Orcs just won't be able to grip the base well enough. Super glue has very little 'shearing' strength and could easily give way under even normal handling.
If you are dead set on cutting every single base off I would strongly recommend an epoxy glue that has some 'bend' to it.
Yeah, especially if you're looking for quick'n'dirty methods of painting like dipping, I don't know then why you would be so meticulous about the bases when it's just as easy to glue the whole thing to a new base.
This is not great photography, but this is a picture of Reaper minis with broccoli bases glued to another base. Sand was then glued (with Elmer's) to the base and painted--a much faster and easier process then trying to meticulously cut off each base and preserve the model's feet, and hope it stands up.
The only model you can tell there's a separate base glue to the base is the paladin because he was a big model where the edge of the broccoli comes over the edge of the base itself.
After I later glued flock to the base, you couldn't even see that--it just looked like an interesting jut of terrain.
The broccoli bases are such that it will not significantly impact height. Where there is a model made to look taller than others, it's normally because they are standing on a rock or something that is part of the original base, so it doesn't look weird.
Which actually makes me realize there's another problem with removing the broccoli bases -- while most of them are fairly flat, some of them are designed to be "interesting terrain" -- if you remove the base there, the model will likely look like they are holding their legs in a really weird position and won't stand up properly.
For example, look at Nienna here. There is going to be a Bones version of her.
Not only would it be a pain in the butt to remove the tree stump she's leaning on, she wouldn't stand up properly without it.
Now, most Bones minis have pretty flat, featureless bases so that is going to be a rare problem. But then, most Bones minis have pretty flat, featureless bases, so gluing them to another base will not add significant height anyway.