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Repainting Tips
 

        More or less, I'm making this page to answer the questions I've received about the Beast Wars repaints I've done, as well as offer advice to anyone trying to do them themselves.

    1) I'd love to say that I use some exotic paints when I work, but the truth is I use ordinary Testors model paint that I buy from Wal-Mart. It gets the job done, is relatively cheap, and is easy to mix to get the colors you need. The only real problem is it can take several days to dry to the point where you can safely handle the figure, although i've found it dries enough in half a day that you can usually begin the detailing work.

    2) Now you don't have to do this, but I always try to have TWO copies of the figure on hand whenever I do a repaint, mostly because you need to disassemble the one your going to paint as much as possible. The other one is your guide when you put the first one back together, and I usually like to have it on hand so I can use it to decide how I want the finished figure to look. I hardly ever, except in Swoop's case, have an exact idea what I want the figure to look like, I usually improvise as I go along. Be EXTREMELY careful not to lose any parts, needless to say they are hard to replace.

    3) Now i'm going to try emphasize this as much as possible, NEVER paint a piece that is part of a joint. This includes ball joints, or indeed, any part that directly touches another. A good example is the picture of Night Stalker, in which I didn't paint the two ball joints in his elbow joints, which you'll notice are still the original color. Also his transformation to robot mode involves his front legs from beast mode around to form part of his backpack. The problem is they touch his side at several points during this transformation, and it can scrape the paint off, especially if the paint isn't completely dry. Unfortunately, I don't have a complete solution to this, except to touch up when necessary, and allow it to completely dry before transforming.

   4) Drying time. I usually allow a part that I've painted to dry at least several hours if I have any more painting or detailing to do on it. Testors paint dries relatively fast, so you CAN handle it enough to pick it up by then. Try not to exert any pressure, or force on the piece because at this point you can leave an impression, like a fingerprint for example. If you are done with the part, I recommend letting it dry for at least one and a half to two days before you attempt to re-assemble the toy.

   5) Remolding. The only real example I have of this is Eclipse and Machine Wars Optimus Prime. In Eclipse's case, this involved removing her hands, I used a miniature hacksaw so be really careful. Then I used a standard soldering iron that I got from Radio Shack, be REALLY careful, to
drill (melt?) the holes in her arms. The hands themselves are from an old robot gestalt that I had a long time ago. Fortunately the soldering iron is the same size as the peg on these hands. Her quad machine guns originally came from the old G.I. Joe hang gliders (You wouldn't believe the boxes I have of pieces of toys I used to own.) which fit in the holes in the fists. More or less I try to keep any remolding as simple as possible, however if you would like more info on it you might try Dave Van Dolmen's (sorry if I mis-spelled your last name Dave.) site which you can find in my links section. He goes into far more detail about remolding than I do, and also about the use of sculpty putty, which I presume is used in model building, but I have never even seen, much less used the stuff.
 

    Well, that's it for now. Maybe i'll add more later. If you have any other questions, you can e-mail me at: mordred@bellsouth.net. Thanks for your time.

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