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I've painted off and on over the years, but never much with GW's multi-part plastics with all their little limbs and weapons and such. For the Space Marines I'm working on, I've been assembling the legs, torsos, and heads first and then priming/basecoating them with Army Painter color primer. But I'd prefer to leave the arms off until later so that I can better paint the chest insignias and details. It would be nice to include those arms in the spray job, since brush priming and painting them is fiddly and takes more time than I'd like. Any suggestions for spraying those tiny bits separately? I'm guessing that just leaving them on the cardstock I use for spraying will either have them flying around or else getting stuck onto the surface. If I were to drill some shallow holes with the pin vise, would a section of pinning rod (mounted in cork or scrap wood or whatever) hold them well enough?

Pinning rod and a tiny amount of superglue, absolutely.

I also mount mine to a paint stir stick with some blue painters tape. Spray one side, flip, repeat. No problem!

Do you mask the stumps on the body? I'd like to paint my plastics unnassembled as well but I prefer using plastic glue instead of pinning with plastic models. (Mainly because I paint DE and a lot of that spiky stuff is a pain to aim a pin vise at)

 Zygrot24 wrote:
Pinning rod and a tiny amount of superglue, absolutely.

OK. Will the pin just pull back out with a good tug, then? Or do you have to cut it off?

I also mount mine to a paint stir stick with some blue painters tape. Spray one side, flip, repeat. No problem!

I was originally trying exactly that for brush painting those bits. It worked OK for the simple, relatively straight limbs, but was awkward for parts that were bent or at odd angles, though that would matter much less for spraying.

 boobah wrote:
Do you mask the stumps on the body?

Yes, just with a little blob of blutac. Works fine. Come to think of it, I think that will work nicely on the limb painting too - pin into the joint area and secure the pin with tac instead of superglue. Then you're masking and attaching at the same time - efficiency! At least for the small, simple pieces that should probably be enough. Larger things like heavy weapon arms might need glue.

tppytel wrote:
OK. Will the pin just pull back out with a good tug, then? Or do you have to cut it off?
Yes, just with a little blob of blutac. Works fine. Come to think of it, I think that will work nicely on the limb painting too - pin into the joint area and secure the pin with tac instead of superglue. Then you're masking and attaching at the same time - efficiency! At least for the small, simple pieces that should probably be enough. Larger things like heavy weapon arms might need glue.

Ya, if you only use a tiny amount of glue it'll hold to the pin but come right out quite easily.
I don't mask the joints and just scrape off paint if I want to use plastic glue, but usually I try and use super glue. Just simpler, faster, and allows for swaps later.
I don't paint tiny parts mounted on tape, and if I have any really tiny parts (heads) I just leave them on a bit of the sprue they came with and use it as a handle. Metal parts I'll do a paperclip or something. Then you can prime/paint it on the same handle and just clip off when you're done.

I tried using pins in the feet to paint hellions separate from their skyboards but when I misdrilled for the third time (because they have a hook up front that makes the footing have to be kind of precise) I decided to pull out the pins and scrape away spots for plastic glue. I ended up pulling two of their feet from their legs instead of pulling the pins free. I didn't use an excessive amount of glue (barely enough to tell the end of the brass was wet) but I think those particular holes may have been a little too snug.

I don't imagine that would be a problem with marines since none of their joints are as thin as faery ankles, but I'd still say be careful if you plan on removing superglued pins. (In my case I just think I should have widened the holes a bit.)

I actually will glue small plastic parts to small bits of plasticard or styrene rod. After the paint has dried, I just snip it off with flush cutters.

For the contact point on larger parts (bodies, vehicles...), I'll go ahead and mask those off as well...slightly smaller in area than the point of contact on the little bit.

You can also purchase some de-bonder for superglue which will make the pins easy to pull out if you don't want to just snip them flush.

I've also just used scotch tape to adhere them to a piece of cardboard or some such. I've used that to prime units of Marines which were full assembled as well. Made it much quicker, but you want to use a big enough base to leave enough space between them to make sure you get even coats.