What kind of putty is everyone using to holld the figures when painting them. I tried a few different kinds, can’t find one that works. I seen pieces stuck to sticks, for airbrushing. Any help, will be greatly appreciated.
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I think usually people use “poster putty,” commonly called “blue tack” in the model world. It’s a sticky putty used for hanging photos etc. on the wall. I don’t love it personally, as it tends to sag due to gravity and stick unreliably to various surfaces. Also if you drip thinners or solvents on it, it can do weird things, like chewing gum chewed too long.
I generally use superglue and toothpick with the end cut for a flat gluing surface, glued to the bottom of a foot (or whatever the ground-contact part of the figure is). It is usually brittle enough to just break off clean when I’m done painting. Worst case, clip it off with a side-cutter and it maybe needs a swipe with a file to clean up.
For a sturdier approach, sometimes I’ll drill a hole in the bottom of the figure, and glue in a bit of a paperclip or a sewing pin (with the head clipped off) and then stab that into an old wine cork or similar for painting. Then that same pin can later be used to pin it to the base/diorama/etc.
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I also drill holes in the bottom of their foot or for sitting figures on their ass, “ouch”, I insert a tooth pick to use for holding,when I’m done,I break it off and sand it flat. The last figure, “Bible” I glued him to sprue as another option
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Were can i find poster putty?
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Any office supply or craft store.
Staples
Hobby Lobby
Office Depot
Michaels
Or the like
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Poster putty is good for real quick work like spot repair or painting the top of the head. Sometime the figure would fall off the holder when I used putty for painting the whole figure and holding it in different positions.
As mentioned above, drilling and pinning the figure to a holder is far more secure for painting.
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Very interesting method
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If you’re doing a bunch of them, or have a tendency to bump and/or drop things off your bench, like me, you can superglue a small magnet to the bottom of your holder, and then use metal trays to keep everything organized.
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Yeah blue poster tack is amazing in this hobby. Any officr supply store will carry it. Its great for stowage items and accesories too. Just be careful getting it wet with thinners as it starts to stick and remove paint. Less is more with it. You literally only need the smallest piece you can get to hold .1 ounces of plastic to somethng
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Is that a scratch-built figure? Epoxy putty over a wire armature? Nice work!
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Drugstores
Grocery stories
Walmart
Target
Online
Any place that sells stationery. There are various brands. I use 3M.
But I also do like Tojo does, and drill a small hole in the figure’s foot or butt and insert a pin, Then I stick this in a cork as a holder. I use white glue to fix the pin. Sometimes I leave the pin in, to attach to a base when finished.
And for figures with bases attached, like many of the metal figures I paint, I use a universal clamp like this one:
I usually use it without the handle and just hold it by the clamp’s table.
Best regards,
Brad
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I use white glue or carpenter’s glue to temporarily mount figures on a styrene base that has been hot glued to a dowel. I drilled a couple rows of holes in a 2X4 to hold the mounted figures. The styrene bases/plates in the photo are the bases included in many figure kits, but you could as easily cut them from sheet styrene. Once painting is finished it is easy to just pop the figures off the base. The mounting glue usually stays on the base rather than on the figure, but it is easy enough to pick off the figure if necessary.
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Thank you for the idea, i just clip them in alligator clamps now.
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Thank you for the information
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Almost but I’m not that good 
Epoxy putty over an existing figure to modify it to the subject I want 
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Funny to say is that I use air drying clay, flattening it into a large enough surface with 1 inch of height and pin many toothpicks into it as possible, of course at an appropriate distance the one to the other, or insert nails from the bottom and let it thoroughly dry. Many are the uses with such a method, at least when I paint figures, tools, wheels or weapons, in which case I attach them with either plasticine or simply modeler’s wax. The amount of wax needed varies, but a bead as big as a pea holds any tool or weapon in place and the advantage is that once finished that “pea” can be reused for another purpose or reinserted with the rest of the wax in its container.
I also have rigid grips and bending grips on magnetic platforms but they are only effective on parts being painted while still on their sprues, or indeed just to give them a primer.
For vehicles chassis or other large structures I have a couple of special turntables with metallic grips sold by Tamiya.
I hope this helps.
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I use “recycled” handles for painting my figures. I use old prescription bottles. I will drill a hole in a spot that won’t be seen on the finished figure and put a pin in it to pin it to the handle. I use a little bit of super glue to attach the figure with the pin to the handle. I have tried using the poster putty with mixed results. Sometimes it held it just fine, other times they fell as soon as you moved them in a different angle. That’s why I switched to what I do now.
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Very interesting, tons of ideas from this topic
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Love this! My wife has a crap load of doweling that she doesn’t use anymore. Didn’t think I had any use for them. Until now.
Cheers,
Mark
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