Monday, April 13, 2015

How do you hold your models while painting.

I get asked this question quite a lot. There are a few reasons that you do not want to handle what you are painting directly. The big issues are as follows:

1. Oils from your hands. Yes even you have oily hands. Its just a fact of nature. That oil gets transferred onto the model and can mess with your paint adhering.

2. Snugging the not-quite dry paint. It happens and makes us all want to scream.

3. Its harder to get into the nooks and crannies of some models.

4. Paint rubbing off from handling. How many times have you been painting a model and notice that you once again have to repaint the hair?

So what does one do to get rid of these issues? Well there are several ways. Some folks go out and spend $20 on jewelers tools to hold models. Others drill a pin into the foot/feet of a model and hold it with a clamp. Some Pin and push it into a cork... Lots of ways to do it. All work pretty well.

Personally I like the cork method but a with a bit of a twist. Corks are fantastic, cheap (come free with the wine bottles even), or can be purchased in bags from your local hobby store.

However... for larger models your gonna need a bigger cork. You can spend a pretty penny on them, bind several together etc. Personally I made a hybrid

I used a 50mm round base I had laying around and super glued a cork to its center. It gives me something to hold onto and the base gives it stability

Here is how it looks.



Easy to work with, your hands never get near the model and you don't have to worry about the small cork tipping over and damaging your paint job. 

Give it a try and let me know what you think. 

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