First World COVID Problem – No Paint Stripper

Here is another one that falls under the “First World COVID Problems” banner.

I have tinkering with the idea of updating my 1990’s 2nd Edition lead Skaven Bloodbowl team to the current Plastic & Fine Cast resin versions. To maintain some potential interchangeability, I thought that I would paint the new Skaven miniatures in the same colour scheme as my 1990’s lead miniatures which were largely based on the Skavenblight Scramblers team colours.

Just like every other warband project I have ever done, I started with the Biggest Guy in the team – a rat ogre – and started to block out the bright Blood Red and Emerald Green using the same 30 year old Citadel paints that were used to paint my original Skaven Blood Bowl team – BIG MISTAKE.(Ok this is not my First World COVID Problem)

The bright & cheerful colours used looked ok on the older miniatures which have a more cartoonish sort of look, but just looked garish on the current style miniatures. On reflection, I think that the new miniatures would benefit from a more restrained use of colour and would look better with more blacks / grey / weathered metals for the armour than the old bright Citadel Blood Red. Time to take the paint off & start again.

Now my “go-to” paint stripper is usually Simple Green, which is a concentrated detergent. Have used this many times in the past with great success particularly on resin & plastic miniatures that can be easily damaged with solvent based paint strippers. My “First World COVID Problem” being that I ran out of Simple Green long long before we went into Coronavirus Lockdown and all the local hardware stores are still not open to the public other than for On Line Orders & Curbside Pick up.

While I didn’t have any Simple Green on the laundry shelf, I did have a bottle of home brand disinfectant solution – similar to Dettol brand disinfectant. This solution is largely bulked out with pine oil, isopropanol, castor oil, soap and water which it turns out is quite effective at softening and removing not only acrylic paint, but also the spray paint I used as an undercoat. After leaving the rat ogre in the disinfectant solution overnight, I washed it under a running tap & gave it a very light going over with a toothbrush. All the paint was came off quite nicely. The only criticisim was I was left with a rat ogre with the quite distinctive “disinfectant smell” despite being washed with running water.

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While I was waiting for the disinfectant smell to evaporate from the rate ogre, I started to tinker with colour combinations for the rest of the team. I put away my 30 year old Citadel Paints & started again this time using Games Workshop Contrast Paints. After a blocking out just a few colours it was very clear that the current style Blood Bowl miniatures are very much suited to Games Workshop Contrast Paints. (Work in progress below – still have highlights & details to do)

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The plastic Skaven Bloodbowl team sprue also comes with a bunch of spare balls. One of the gimmicks of the current miniature set is these balls have pegs & the miniature slotter base also has a hole which I assume the ball can be inserted into & removed again during a game. Not too sure how practical this would be in a game & I haven’t seen many players use this feature. I have instead replaced the pegs with a magnet in the ball and under the miniature base. Seems to work ok & should have sufficient pull strength to hold the ball when the miniature base is flocked.

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(BTW – very impressed with the current style Bloodbowl miniatures. Unlike older GW plastic sculpts which are pretty “2D” / “flat” and with poses that were fairly static, the current minis have poses that are pretty dynamic and are not compromised for easy of moulding. Very little flash, well positioned mould lines that are next to invisible and assembly was very easy. Only criticism is that they are not “pose-able” which means with two plastic sprues you get identical duplicates with limited head swap potential)

69 / 100
General POTUS

General POTUS

Monday Knights founding member, known for occasionally losing his pants

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The Monday Knights are a gaming group based in Melbourne Australia.  We are happy to play just about any game at any time.

We meet every Monday night at the Auburn Bowls club in Hawthorn East, Victoria, from 6pm onwards.

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