Reaper Bones Plastic

Happy New Year!

I decided to take a night off from my previously scheduled painting and grab a mini out of my Vampire box from the first Reaper Bones Kickstarter to experiment with this new plastic. I found only two minis loose in the box (the rest were bagged together, stapled together, etc.) – Mister Bones and a very basic female something-or-other. I didn’t want to mess with Mister Bones, so the as yet unidentified female it was.

Supposedly this plastic does not require priming, so I didn’t prime it. I did clean mould lines and scrub the model, but that was it. I even left her on her broccoli base since it was so tiny I figured I could blend it easily into a regular base later. I found the weird, crunchy, hard spot that every Bones mini I’ve handled has had. Not entirely sure what that’s from, but on this model it was in her armpit, which made it a bit harder to clean up.

Her staff was bent up pretty badly, as you can tell in the picture below.

 

I put her in scalding hot water from the tap, held the staff straight, and put her in cold tap water. This seemed to fix the problem.

The first layer of paint went on a bit differently than I’m used to, as though the paint was a wash. After that dried, the rest went on as normal. It seemed to be staying on well also, so I think it’s probably true that this plastic does not need priming. I have a really hard time seeing the details on it though, so the matte finish of a primer may be helpful.

In this picture, her skirt, top, and boots are all the same color, but the skirt has several layers of paint and the rest of her dress and boots has only one layer, so you can see what I mean about the paint going on like a wash in the first layer.

 

The next morning her staff had reverted to its previously bendy self.

I did some reading, and found that the temperature of the water I used to straighten her staff the first time may not have been hot enough. This time I was going to put her in boiling water. There was a good chance of ruining the paint already applied to her, but that’s a small loss in the name of science. Figuring out how to handle Bones plastic is pretty important considering how very many Bones minis I have now and will have in the future from the second Kickstarter.

I dipped her in the boiling water for about 10 seconds, and her staff completely reset itself. I didn’t have to hold it straight, and cold water was probably unnecessary. I did notice that the staff was less pliable after this process, but only a little.

Unfortunately, a lot of the paint was ruined.

 

I found out what mini she is before starting this post – Reaper Bones 77193 Hyrekia Dragonthrall Mage. She’s not even supposed to be in the Kickstarter Vampire box! Of course if I try to just randomly pick a mini out of that box the extra one would be the one I pick, and of course I would ruin her, lol. Oh well. I’m going to give her staff some time to see if it stays straight.