Painting soft plastic figures

[Commander Roj]

I've just acquired some soft plastic  '70's era figures. I've never painteed anything like this material before and would welcome advice.

[Emir of Askaristan]

Wash with soapy liquid to degrease. A coat of matt varnish. Then your choice of acrylic paints - acrylics being that little bit more flexible. Top if off with a sealing coat or two of matt varnish and Bob's your mothers brother 

[Henrix]

Oil based, even the water soluble oil based, paints also work fine. (But washing first is obligatory.)

[Commander Roj]

Wash first, like resin (not surpsisingly now i think about it). Thanks.

[Momotaro]

For your primer coat, gesso works very well on soft plastics.  It goes on gloopy, but shrinks to the details and is nicely flexible when dry.  It gives a lovely texture to paint on too.  It can leave air bubbles or bare shrinkage marks - just touch them up once the model is dry.

Do a couple of test models to get the consistency right, and it's definitely an overnight dry.

I've used Vallejo Surface Primer on soft/flexible figures too - it's quite thin, so you can get puddling.  It also dries flexible and seems to hold the paint well, even though it's quite shiny.

[Emir of Askaristan]

That degrease is important as is a primer of whaterever suggestion you do go for. The smooth surface of the plastic isn't good for adherence so you need something to make your topcoats bind.

Have fun and publish the result!

[sundayhero]

Here 's a thread speaking of painting soft plastic :

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=35887.0

the old school (so probably eficient) technic I heard of is (once you correctly washed them with soap and water) to "paint" first the figure with pva glue. Then you can paint it with usual acrylics.

[Commander Roj]

Great. Thanks. A lot to ponder. Unfortunately my camera isnt up to taking pics. maybe some time if and when i get them to a club game, theres always plenty of photos taken there.

[SBRPearce]

I'll second the wash-up advice, but for a primer, I've had good results using one of the new spray-paints specially formulated for plastic. In the US the brand name I look for is Krylon Fusion. (The bonus, it comes in a range of colors, including a dark brown that makes a neat basecoat for several types of figures.)

Then follow with acrylics and the varnishing advice already posted.

[Hummster]

Here 's a thread speaking of painting soft plastic :

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=35887.0

the old school (so probably eficient) technic I heard of is (once you correctly washed them with soap and water) to "paint" first the figure with pva glue. Then you can paint it with usual acrylics.

I've been doing plenty of that recently for my WWII project. If you use PVA glue I do recommend diluting it with water to avoid it being too thick and obscuring detail.

Some examples of my using that technique here and here