Repainting Dinosaurs...?

[Captain Nemo]

Greetings Gents,

Has anyone had any experience in re-painting figures made by Schleich, Papo, Safari Limited and the like? While most of the Schleich & Papo stuff is great, there are a few figures I'd like to try and repaint. I was just wondering if anyone had tried to clean off the and re-paint any of these figures.

[The Dozing Dragon]

Haven't done it myself but I believe a good wash in soapy water followed by a light, thorough, sanding with emery paper or similar should help. Then brush diluted PVA / white glue which, when dry, should help provide a good key for painting.

[Bullshott]

The problem I've had with repainting dinosaurs and other ready-painted plastiks (like SF3D/Mak powered armour figures) is that eventually the oils in the plastic leech trough your nice paint finish to produce a sticky gloss finish.

I would be very interested in hearing other people's experiences of thei problem annd how they avoided it.

The PVA coating might help. Does anyone know if there any other specialist plastic primers on the market that might do the trick?

[Plynkes]

Years ago I did a bit of a quick and hasty makeover on a Schleich gorilla.



Wasn't a total repaint though. What was already there seemed like a good basis to add to, so I didn't prime it or anything, just painted layers of highlights over the rather basic pre-existing colouring (I think it was bare plastic with a bit of paint for his silver back and he had coloured eyes too). Turned out okay. This was done about six years ago and he still looks the same now as in that photo. My only regret is that I didn't spend more time on him, but I was fighting a gaming night deadline (well, that may not be true, but it's what I'm saying).

[Westfalia Chris]

A couple of years ago I repainted this Natural History Museum-series T-Rex, which I bought a couple of decades back as a kid. Those were made by Invicta Plastics from a very hard, ABS-like material. I think they are still in production (haven't been to the NHM for a couple of years, but I think I saw some webstores somewhere selling them). An interesting factoid: those were originally made in the 1970s, and feature an interesting combination of anatomical detail with "traditional" poses (e.g. tails on the ground, vs. the more modern "active posing" which became widely popular with Jurassic Park, although paleontologists had discussed it for some decades before).



I used a "weatherproof" spraypaint (bought from a DIY store) to primer it, then painted it using GW and Vallejo acrylics. Worked very well and is still robust to the touch. Softer plastics probably won't paint as well, as Bullshott aptly described, but this hard plastic was very decent to paint, altough removing the mouldlines is a bit tricky - also, there are some areas with soft detail, due to mouldmaking, and they have a manufacturer's stamp on their bellies.

[Wirelizard]

I've repainted a couple of plastic dinos, and my brother had done more than I have, and the only problem either of us have encountered is one triceratops which primed just fine, took paint nicely, then went very shiny (but not sticky) after a coat of Dullcoat.

First time I've ever seen that with Dullcoat, in my experience it's very reliable. A couple of coats of Dullcoat later, the silly thing is still incredibly shiny. I'll probably scrub it and reprime one of these days, see how that works.

We basically treated them like any other model - wash, prime, paint, Dullcoat.

A couple of the dinos were left in their factory paint, often with added washes. The T. Rex my brother owns looked much better after a brown wash over it's mouth and teeth. The stark white teeth of the factory paintjob was so stark we dubbed the poor creature "Dentursaurus Rex" after the first game it was in...

[HerbyF]

A good Scrubbing and a coat of primer. Then paint with acrylics. I haven't had any problems other than the paint cracking on some of the bendy parts on softer plastics.

[Captain Nemo]

Thanks for all the info Gentlemen.

[JollyBob]

These are all Schleich models:







Well, except for the dimetrodon type in the last picture.

I didn't strip them, wash them or anything. Undercoated with artist's acrylic (it's thicker than the normal GW/VGC/CDA paint I use) and painted and varnished as normal. Didn't have any trouble with stickyness or bending.

D'oh! Just realised the Triceratops isn't actually painted! Don't seem to have a pic of the finished one, but don't remember any differences in painting it.

[Furt]

Not Schleich, Papo, Safari Limited or the like, but cheap plastics that were simply cleaned up, undercoated with GW black and then painted. No issues and the plastic was pretty poor quality.
A couple more pictures here http://adventuresinlead.blogspot.com/search/label/dinosaurs

[bluewillow]

I use enamel Matt Black Auto primer on my dino's then repainted them with acrylics, no problems yet!

[DS615]

just prime and paint, it's all you need.

[Traveler Man]

Useful tips, all. Thanks for sharing. 

[Mr.Dodo]

Some lovely work there!

[Nighthawk]

I have a number of repainted plastic dinosaurs in my collection. I didn't scrub and scrape. I just treated it like anyother model. I primed it white then painted it. I've had no leaching problems so far.