Newbie question re painting lead figures

Hi,

I found a whole bunch of lead soldiers and thought of painting them; I've
only dealt with plastic or resin figures before.

(I assume they are lead- because they are very heavy, the material is shiny,
soft and bendable.)

Do you need a primer paint for the lead soldiers?

Will the lead soldiers take waterbased paint or can they only take enamel?

Wylie,

Welcome to the hobby. Yes, you do need to prime. You can buy fancy
figure primer from a hobby shop, but I prefer cheap gray auto primer.
You want the cheapest stuff so that it is watery and thin and won't
fill-in the detail. You can use any paints you like, most use
waterbased because of the ease of clean-up and range of color. Enamels
are sometimes used on things you want to be shiny. The last step is to
cover the figure in a matte spray in order to protect your paint job.

If you find yourself unhappy with a paint job, you can dunk the figure
for a couple of days in Simple Green, a non-toxic cleaner and start again.

Have fun!

Mort


Wylie Wilde wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I found a whole bunch of lead soldiers and thought of painting them; I've
> only dealt with plastic or resin figures before.
>
> (I assume they are lead- because they are very heavy, the material is shiny,
> soft and bendable.)
>
> Do you need a primer paint for the lead soldiers?
>
> Will the lead soldiers take waterbased paint or can they only take enamel?
>
>
>
>