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I recently started playing, and after trying out a paint scheme on my Tau FWs, I realized that I don't like how the colors turned out (Blue/Blue-grey). Now I plan to repaint them a medium red with blue markings. My question is, do I need to strip the models of the original paint first? Or can I just start over by priming them again? I haven't painted very much on the FWs - just a single layer of basecoating on most of them (And that's not even totally finished. I stopped because I didn't like the color scheme).

I can probably get some supplies to do actual stripping, but I'm just wondering if it's totally necessary if I haven't even completely painted them.

I'd say its a good idea to throw them in some kind of Cleaner like simple green or something of the sort because if you already havepaint on the models you can lose details if you just paint over the old paint. Ive done this a few times.. and a detailed hand goes from hand to oven mit,

depends on how thick your paints are. five coats of my current painting are about the same thickness as one coat of how I painted before I learned that one could thin paint. I'd be able to weigh in if you had pics posted, but what's my opinion anyway?
I would say if you're going for tabletop quality then don't bother. However if you want a perfect army then go for the stripper. I hear Simple Green takes off the paint and won't damage the model, and its not even that expensive.

I say strip them, but I'm anal about my painting even though my best work is tabletop standard (If it's gonna be average, it'll be the best damn average out there!). If the detail isn't too obscured, go ahead and paint over them. If there's no detail around the eyes, or you can't distinguish fingers, bust out the simple green or brake fluid. I agree with romulus though- post some pics so we can give proper advice

Recently I have been repainting my SW and IG.
Pine-Sol and an electric Tooth-Brush have been the best como i have used for striping. it can sart working in little as an hour and can even stip varnish.
-Metal: you can leave it for weeks if you want, and then it comes off clean
-Plastic: works good, i have lest them in there bath for a few days and not hut them at all, but i would not recomend it

You can easily strip them if you bathe them in blue alcohol (that's a mix of ethanol with methanol) leave them overnight and then just peel off the paint with an old toothbrush. Piece of cake, I've done this about 2 times on my fetish 6mm Leman Russ and Baneblade tanks.

*looks around for GoFenris*
Ok I beat him this time! Use this stuff its the tits. Unless you paint fairly thin. Then Id say just paint over them. Or do a test mini, if it looks good, keep on going, if not then USE THIS STUFF. IT has beaten all the other strippers people have tested so far. Look in autozone and walmart for it. under 10 bucks for a gallon

Personally I would strip them. I've had good luck with Simplegreen, however, I couldn't remove black spraypaint primer. I'm going to get some Superclean.

Sorry that third one is blurry - I don't have a terribly steady hand nor a tripod to mount the camera on.

just put the camera on the desk ha!

it looks like only the raised surfaces have been touched by the paint, which if I may say so is extremely even and nice for such a light blue. Anyway, I would say painting over should be fine since there is no paint in the recesses to cover over. If you're really worried about it then strip, but these look good to cover and go again.

hey they look pretty good!

Hey they look pretty good!

I got a little messy with my first ones (Ignored the crevices all together and painted right over 'em...) but I really think they got better as I painted more models. With such small surfaces to paint, I didn't even need a bigger brush for basecoating - I just used my detail brush after priming/drybrushing.

One other question, should I reprime them at all? Or can I just paint right over the blue with the red I intend to use for the new scheme? I am keeping the same color primer (Black) so it shouldn't be a big deal, but I figured I should ask just in case.

(Oh, and thanks for the feedback. These were my second-ever painted models, the first being a set of Stealth Suits that I bought to give modeling a try, because they happened to be the cheapest models I could buy for a Tau army)

There's another thread with some good info: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/266455.page

From what others have said and the reviews that I found online, I'm sticking with what KingCracker said about the Super Clean. When I strip the models I have, that's what I'm going to use.

Edit: I fail at BBcode.

use super clean to strip them. its cheaper than simple green and works better/faster.
iirc it was $8 at walmart

of course if you strip them you could get a better result !
don't forget to get rid of the moulding line .
the problem with red is the ' coverance ' of this paint if you use black primer you get a brown red result most of the time with a white primer you get a flashy red -most of the time I use grey primer for colours like red .

earenciel wrote:the problem with red is the ' coverance ' of this paint if you use black primer you get a brown red result most of the time with a white primer you get a flashy red -most of the time I use grey primer for colours like red .

I'm a little worried about that too, but if it becomes an issue I'll just thin down some grey and lay that down in the appropriate spots. I'm going pretty light on the paint, I don't think another layer would kill the details. That's just me though, I'm strange.