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I have bought some minatures but wanted to change the colour scheme on their clothes (they are a dark brown). I was wondering if I could just paint over the top of the bits I wanted to change (I like the rest of the mini) or do you need to strip the whole thing?

If they did not put the paint on too thick you can do that. Look at it this way, if you try painting over first you can always strip it if it does not work out. And if you are considering stripping anyway, what are you out if you end up having too after trying to modify the paint job?

How does one go about stripping just one part of the model? Wouldn't dettol run (and then strip paint from other parts of the model)?

You cant really strip paint from localised areas.. Youre in for the full ride.

Well, you can strip paints from localized areas of a model if you want to play archeologist for a few months while you do so (I did it once, and discovered it would have been easier by weeks to just strip the whole thing).

So... Unless you are practicing for artifact restoration and a career in the professional artifact recovery field......

Strip the whole thing.

MB

Yeah, so long as the original paint isn't too thick, you should be fine to just paint over the top.

Some of my first Space Marines went through 3 or 4 Chapters before I finally settled on a colour scheme...

Would painting over the old paint in white be necessary (i.e. would some of the old colour bleed through the new colour if it were painted directly on top)?

Really depends on what colour you're going with instead.

If it's something pale, then yes, a white, bone or grey layer over the dark brown would probably help. If it's something darker, there's probably no need.

hasdrubalsbrother wrote:
Would painting over the old paint in white be necessary (i.e. would some of the old colour bleed through the new colour if it were painted directly on top)?

If you use acrylics, and depending on the covering color, yes to varying degrees.

Acrylic water based paints are translucent when thinned to the point that they go on smoothly. To completely cover brown with white will be 7+ coats of paint; to cover it with dark blue, maybe 3+.

The problem is if a part is brown and another is green, they will need many coats before both parts look the same red.

One way to deal with it to prime over it before painting.

But seriously, consider stripping. It's not that hard.

The reason that I am worried about stripping is that I have never painted before and so am concerned that if I strip it all back I will never get the quality back up there.

So just strip one, see how you go