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I'm currently painting an Eldar Venom and Waveserpant and I wanted to know how do you guys paint the small details on the clear plastic?

You cannot prime it because then it would cover the entire area and will no longer be "see through".

You can't just paint it because there is no primer for the paint to stick onto.

You can't wash or glaze it because the clear plastic is smooth and it will just drip off.

Any thoughts? I would greatly appreciate advice! Lastly can you matte or gloss coat spray (purity seal) over the clear plastic?

You can pick up brush on primer from any hobby center that has an air brush section or very carefully tape off the parts you want to remain clear and use a rattlecan primer on it. If you want to just use a brush you can get a small dropper bottle of vallejo primers off amazon for less than $5, its very handy to have so it is not wasted and it will last you a very long time.

Try Citadel 'Ard Coat.

Hmm, interesting replies. I simply... don't...

I'm about to start on some DE skimmers and flyers and I plan on masking the clear parts and spray priming the rest. I don't know if there many other solutions.

The final step will be to dip the parts in Future Floor polish to make the clear parts shine.

I protect mine with masking fluid while airbrushing. then peel that off and paint the frame of the canopy with vallejo polyurethane primer using a bristly brush. note that this primer cannot be thinned or it beads off. you just have to put it on very carefully and spread it out, so it does not get that thick paint look.

I use Tamaiya brush on paint, its a bit thick and you have to keep it wet to work, but its sticks on very well and drys tough.

I'm not sure exactly what you want to do.

If you want to paint onto clear plastic, but keep the unpainted areas still clear, use Acrylic Gesso, which will adhere easily. You can scrape off any you don't want with a fingernail or a nylon tool (like an interdental nylon pick). Then paint over it with regular paint.

Or, you could create a frisket/mask and apply gesso, then paint on top of that.

DorianGray wrote:
You can't just paint it because there is no primer for the paint to stick onto.

Here's a thing - most of the sprays that people use as 'primers' ... aren't. They're just spraypaint.

And the biggie - If you're using decent quality acrylic paint (which most model paints are) you don't actually need a primer anyway. Acrylic paint bonds well with a vast range of different materials, including the polystyrene plastic that miniatures are made from.

A solid basecoat is important for painting. A primer is not. I have Space Marine models that I've been gaming with for over 20 years now that were undercoated just with Chaos Black straight out of a pot, that have held up with no noticeable wear.


So the answer to your question is to just paint the bits that you want paint on, and leave the rest as is. Throw a coat of sealer over the top if you want to be sure, although some sealers can fog up the clear sections, so I'd look for some recommendations there first if you're not sure.

Get some Tamiya masking tape and mask off everything but the frame. Cover the entire area you want masked and they use a brand new blade in a hobby knife and carefully trim away around the frame and you'll be all set. It should look something like this before priming:



Masking fluid works pretty decent too for irregular shapes, but I usually stick to the tape.

 insaniak wrote:

DorianGray wrote:
You can't just paint it because there is no primer for the paint to stick onto.

Here's a thing - most of the sprays that people use as 'primers' ... aren't. They're just spraypaint.

And the biggie - If you're using decent quality acrylic paint (which most model paints are) you don't actually need a primer anyway. Acrylic paint bonds well with a vast range of different materials, including the polystyrene plastic that miniatures are made from.

A solid basecoat is important for painting. A primer is not. I have Space Marine models that I've been gaming with for over 20 years now that were undercoated just with Chaos Black straight out of a pot, that have held up with no noticeable wear.


So the answer to your question is to just paint the bits that you want paint on, and leave the rest as is. Throw a coat of sealer over the top if you want to be sure, although some sealers can fog up the clear sections, so I'd look for some recommendations there first if you're not sure.

While I agree that typically, primer is optional... I find specifically on the clear plastic of canopies, paint doesn't like to stick well. If there's anything where paint will want to bead up it's this stuff, I'm not sure if they use a different plastic or what, but I think using a paint that has some solvent (which gives it more bite on plastic) is a good idea and usually yields a smoother result.

Also don't use any sort of spray or brush on sealer on canopies, you'll almost always make them look worse. You can dip them in "future" floor polish. It has very good self levelling properties so modellers often dip canopies in to it in order to give a more glassy finish and get rid of small blemishes.

As for painting, I'm in the "mask it!" camp. I use blutack, masking tape and masking fluid. I find if you're using tape, you want to spray very light coats and make sure the edges of the tape are pressed down properly so you get a nice sharp edge. Blutack I've never tried on canopies, I imagine it'd work as long as you press it down to a nice thin and sharp edge (to avoid getting a soft edge to the spray that you often get when using blutack). Masking fluid has always worked pretty well for me, the only time it didn't was when I hadn't properly masked something properly (or maybe I accidentally knocked the mask off when handling it and didn't notice).

Some people use both masking tape and masking fluid in combination to make it less work.

I just painted the black parts of my Nephilim Jetfighter's canopy black. The paint sticks just fine, and looks nice too! I was nervous of getting paint where it didn't belong, but it turned out ok.

As with the others here, brush on primer and then several layers of your chosen colour until it gets solid enough. Probably one of the occasions when you don't want to thin your paint much, as the thicker paint sticks better and reduces the risk of it running.

Steady hand and patience are also required!

That polish dude did this. Currently I'm building a Stormraven and I'll be tinting the windows green, but haven't gotten that far yet.

There is a liquid mask from Humbrol that you can use to mask the areas that you want to be transparent, then you paint the canopy detail that you want to look like metal (not transparent). You can then use any of the Tamiya transparent gloss on the inside to tint the canopy to what ever color you like, then you just peal away the liquid mask and you are done!

1. Mask transparent areas with liquid mask (outside)
2. Paint metal bars (outside)
3. Paint transparent, gloss on the inside of the canopy to tint it.
4. Peal away the mask.

I cannot recommend the liquid masking fluids enough.

I have even seen people go the route of masking off the areas they WANT TO PAINT (i.e. put masking tape on the areas where you will be painting later), and then apply liquid masking to the areas that will need to be masked-off for painting.

And then they remove the mask for their mask.

There is a reason for this maskness (madness):

Simply paining on a liquid mask can give you shaky edges.

Simply masking with tape can lead to edges that can be hard to deal with after painting.

But if you create a mask for your mask, you can get straight edges on the liquid (painted on) Mask, without having to worry about mask bleed, or the lip that can form of the paint at the edge of a taped-mask.

MB

Mask, spray prime, then remove mask. I use maskol - a liquid masking agent.

Touch up detail with brush after primer coat has dried.

If you can't find maskol, I use Mr Hobby Mr masking sol neo and it seems to be just as good.

BeAfraid wrote:
But if you create a mask for your mask, you can get straight edges on the liquid (painted on) Mask, without having to worry about mask bleed, or the lip that can form of the paint at the edge of a taped-mask.

Yo dawg, I heard you like masking things

Seriously though, that is a good idea I'd not considered