Painting 1:72nd scale plastics

[SteveBurt]

I undercoat using artist's acrylic, straight from the tube. This forms a flexible layer over the plastic.
Give them a thick layer of polyurethane varnish over the top.

One thing about soft plastics - beware using any solvent-based paints as an undercoat; they can go brittle. I have some Zulus undercoated using spray paints year ago who now keep breaking.
Figuers undercoated with acrylics don't seem to suffer from this problem.

[warrenpeace]

There is a Yahoo Group named DBLCHM which is focused on painting and collecting 1:72 scale plastic figures. It hasn't been very active the last couple of years. The peak period for message traffic was late 2001 through early 2010. You could join and search the archived messages and find all kinds of great tips for how to remove flash, clean, prime, paint, and put protective coats on 1:72 scale figures. Here's the link:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DBLCHM/info

[sundayhero]

Hi,

I found a great product for 1/72 soft plastic : I'm using vallejo premium clear varnish as a primer. First I carefull wash the figures, then I apply the vallejo premium clear varnish (in my case, using my airbrush), and then I can use anything I want.

Usually, I do this 

1 carefull wash the figures, to remove any grease or release agent
2 airbrush (you can use a brush) spray of vallejo premium clear varnish
3 (optional : coat of non diluted PVA glue on weak parts of the figures (weapons, legs, arms) to make the figure more sturdy)
4 then, you can paint the figure like any hard plastic, resin or metal figure : primer, paint, varnish,etc...

[Captain Gars]

"How the heck do you get the flash off neatly? I am tempted to just leave it there."

I use nail clippers.