Painting "White Detail" models

I was reading through the FAQ, and they said that the best material if you wish to paint over it is WS&F.

I need to get some models printed in White Detail, but I also have to paint them afterwards, so I was wondering if anyone has tried doing it before, and how did it go.
Pictures would be great too.

Thanks

PS: I'm planning to use enamel paint.

Same boat for me here.

I just ordered some WD parts, hopefully they turn out...

I was kind of thinking Krylon might work really well. Enamal paints would probably be fine too, as long as they get a good clear coat on top. Make sure you give each coat enough time to dry, otherwise the next layer will seal in moister and can actually "shift" if you rub it at all. (Yeah, My bro and I painted my model Heli, and it was perfect...but the first layers still had a small amount of moister, so the top layers shifted and now it looks like it crashed or something...haha)

Let us know how yours come out! Ill probably post my paint jobby as soon as I can.

I found some info on painting models printed my Objet printers...

http://www.objet.com/Misc/_Pages/Application_Notes_Left_Pane /Painting_of_PolyJet_Parts/

its slightly useful, it basically just says to use a lacqure primer coat.

Hello,

I've been working with some WD items I recently purchased from Shapeways. They look excellent, but upon priming them I am seeing an interesting phenomenon: the surfaces are becoming slightly "fuzzy." The paint dries just fine, but the slight bumpiness of the WD material becomes exaggerated when primered. I am using Armory-brand white primer, which is a pretty standard enamel primer I've always gotten good results with.

I am hoping sanding the items is not the only option. These items are small, complex, and highly detailed, so much so that sanding will (a) consume an extreme amount of time and effort and (b) probably result in a destruction of a large amount of surface detail.

So I am wondering if anyone else has had this occur. Is this due to humidity, perhaps? It was pretty humid today. Or is this just an inherent limitation of the WD material? Also, any tips for dealing with this? I am wondering if I could paint it as normal, then hit it with a glosscoat and then a dullcoat to smooth out the surface bumpiness. What do you think?

I dug out my Dremel Stylus and tried various sanding/polishing/buffing tips on the more inconspicuous parts of my items to see if I could reduce the bumpiness/fuzziness (the distinction comes from whether the moden had been primered already or not). I found that the only tip that really smoothed out the bumps in the WD material is the medium-grit sanding tip, and that removed too much material, threatening to destroy surface detail. So now I'm back to trying to smooth it out by layering paint. Anyone know of a spray paint that's viscous enough to smooth out the surface bumps but not so thick as to wipe out details in the approx. 2mm range?

I'm not sure what's happened there; I've had no such troubles painting Detail, though granted I haven't used spray paints on it, so that may be the problem.

But hand painting them with acrylics (even fairly cheap craft acrylics), I still get good results, as long as I've made sure to clean the base model before painting, and use thinned coats of paint.The main reason I prefer WSF over Detail is that for my models, I necessarily get parts that rub together at joints, and in those situations, the paint can flake off Detail, whereas WSF can take it much better with only minor scuffing.

For static models, however, that's a non-issue.

I think that, if you want to paint Detail it is a good idea to soak the parts in caustic soda solution to ensure that all the support material has been removed. This seems to be especially the case if you want to use oil based paints, eg enamels.

It's not the presence of support material that is causing this. All the pieces, I soaked in hot detergent solution and scrubbed with a brush before painting. I then dipped them in extremely hot water to see if any more wax would come off, and none did. I have sone that I have not sprayed yet, and I checked them carefully just now and there's no wax on them. I'll try a brush-on primer, see how that goes.

No comments from anyone on the humidity? I seem to recall the last time I painted something and it got 'fuzzy' it was also foggy outside. That was a metal miniature.

Well, as I said, I don't spray myself, but I do know from others that spray paints often develop odd textures when use in 'extreme' conditions (e.g, too hot, too cold, too humid), so it's entirely possible the weather just wasn't right for spraying that day. One of the many reasons I stick to brushwork is that I don't have to limit myself to certain times and places to do it.

Here you can find WSF (left) and white detail (right) painted.
As mentioned above spraying is extremly vulnerable by the environmental situation (humidity, ... )
So I only brush my parts.


Woody64

That's a great paint job, woody! The details on the two figures are amazing. OK, that's great; if you can get that smooth a paint job with WD and WSF, that gives me hope. What kind of surface prep did you use on these items?

WSF polished colored blue
FD colored grey



So far I did nothing for preparation. It seems that some colours have better results then others.
I use Acryl water based colours (2 in 1 - including the primer)

See also here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/34336019@N07/5771156365/in/phot ostream

The grey did extremely well with 1 coat!
I also had some other colours which did not as well.
Take a look on my flickr gallery to see results. I've experimented a lot since for me colours are so missing in the shapeways offer.

Woody64

I called around to various art supply stores in the area and the only brush-on primer I could find was Liquitex Gesso. Anyone ever use that on a Shapeways item? How well did it work?

You don't want to be using gesso as a primer for models - that's for priming canvases, and is designed partially as a gap-filler - totally not what you need.

You don't really need a specific primer paint for small models like this - just apply a couple of coats of white, grey or black paint (depending on the colours you plan to use), so you've got nice even coverage, and something to give the actual paint job something to adhere to.

If you do specifically want something primer-like, you could try Vallejo's Model Color Foundation White, or the Citadel Foundation paint range from Games Workshop.

Yeah, none of the hobby stores or art stores in the area had any brush-on primers, vallejo, citadel, reaper, or any other brand. Weird.

I'll try some normal (non-primer) vallejo white on the piece in an inconspicuous place... what I really need is something to smooth out the minor rippling in the surfaces of the shapeways items without obliterating the details.

That'll do you nicely. Just remember to thin the paint a little to help it flow better, and it should gradually fill up any imperfections.

Vallejo has brush on primers... a bit bubble prone when used with a brush, tho. You can try with that gesso, not so uncommon, primer.

Another trick is using Milliput slurry, which is sandable, or matte varnish (toughter than plain paints), as they have a bit more filling capabilities. The Milliput trick is rather old, and depends in the property of that epoxy to "disolve" into water, forming a "paint". Try the fine grade for smoother results.

That's funny, I was about to link to this thread:

https://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65373

Which says pretty much the same thing. I think I'll try the Gesso on a couple of throwaway (non-shapeways) figures first, see how it goes.

Hmm... I shall consider myself schooled. I guess it's because the gesso I'm used to is really thick (like, almost solid); I hadn't considered that it comes in a more viscous form suitable for stuff like this.

So I painted a couple of my shapeways figures with gesso, lo and behold they still got fuzzy. I painted a non-shapeways pewter figure, and the gesso went on great, dried perfectly smooth, no problems.

So it's not the humidity at all. The brush-on gesso looks the same as the spray-on Armory primer.

I've put a couple more layers of gesso on my shapeways models, let's see how they look after a few coats. Hopefully the texture will smooth out a bit.