I’m not a fan of resin. In fact, I despise the stuff. But, seeing as I’m currently putting the finishing touches to a small 30k Mechanicum Army, and a Night Lords ally force with their Primarch, I have no choice but to just get on with it and clean resin.
I’m sure I’m not the first person to post on this subject, and I doubt I’ll be the last either. I’m a very impatient person. I want to build and paint as quickly as possible. All the how-to blogs about this suggest washing your – hopefully not shiny, bag of resin loveliness in warm soapy water. Then let it soak in said soapy water over night, whisper sweet nothings to it, maybe take it for breakfast, hold hands by the fire, and get to really know and understand your resin. I could go on all day.
The Materials
This is how I tackle the horrible stuff. Warm soapy water in the tub. Chuck the resin in, and give it a scrub with the toothbrush. Pop some of the rubbing paste on the toothbrush, and give the nasty chunk of resin a good going over rinse thoroughly. Dry off and undercoat.
Now as fast as you’ve read that is as fast as I want to get it done. I can’t help it. New models to paint, and I’m like a child at Christmas, desperate to get some colour on it. The rubbing compound was recommended to me by a friend. Now, it’s a model making specific one, but after using it you could – if you’re stuck, get some fine rubbing compound from a local hardware store which carries car body work products.
The undercoat/primer I use is by a UK company: http://www.hycote.co.uk/. They do a fantastic range of paints. Plus, more importantly, because I don’t have a decent hobby shop nearby with GW or other paints, this has been my go to product. My local petrol station has this on the shelf, and at £3.50 for a 400ml can, you can’t grumble at that.
If you’re in the US then Thor has an article talking about the primers he uses.
Now, as you’ve probably noticed, I’m from the UK, so this product may not be available to you. What I will say is you can pretty much find a similar product in whatever part of the world you come from. I’m not saying this to be a GW product hater. For me, as I’ve said above, it’s purely for ease and my eagerness to get painting.
Shiny Resin
Now, I briefly skirted over the subject of shiny resin. This is bad, and generally there isn’t a great deal you can do about it except get in touch with the manufacturer. For example: GW or Forge World. I’ll use these as my example because they have sorted an issue out for me in the past.
Shiny resin just means something hasn’t cured or mixed properly. Sometimes you can get paint to stick to it, but generally it won’t and it isn’t worth the headache of trying. If you haven’t had to return a GW or Forge World product before, don’t worry or think they will not be willing to do anything about it. They are more than willing to sort you out with a replacement. Just remember to always keep your receipt, and the Forge World bag, as the batch codes are on there. They will need them to be able to help verify your order and sort your replacement. They may ask for you to return the faulty product. As with any company, GW does not like faulty products going out of the front door, and want to sort the problem so it doesn’t happen again.
Gluing Resin
Resin, as you’ve gathered, isn’t like plastic. So, you will need to use superglue or an epoxy glue, which ever you feel comfortable with using. Superglue and epoxy are great for sticking pretty much anything to anything: fingers to resin, fingers to the desk, hands to your forehead. You get the picture, or may even have been stuck to it at some point.
If you’re too young to be using these products on your own, and are being aided by a sensible adult (stifles laughter. I’m an adult, and I’ve managed to stick an Ork to my hand before. Anyway, I digress), remember don’t laugh when said “adult” takes a trip to the hospital trying to explain why a big chunk of resin is stuck to their face. This won’t go down very well, and there’s a good chance your resin will get smashed to a thousand tiny pieces.
For me when dealing with big chunks of resin, gluing it can be a pain in the neck. Where I can I use some green stuff to help hold the bits together with the glue as it cures.
Wrap-up
That’s pretty much it to be honest. Don’t be put off by resin models, and certainly don’t listen to “those” people who say it’s only for the experts at modeling. Get it painted and get it on the table. After all, that’s where you prove your worth.
I hope you find my ramblings of some use. If you don’t, I don’t mind. Every person has their own method of prepping. What works for me may not work for you. This is the first blog of any kind I’ve ever written, so please feel free to give me some pointers.
Now I must dash I’m busy turning this: 
into this…hopefully.
I'd never call myself a pro painter i just paint and if i get lucky and the end result is a decent looking model then it's all good.
I'm a petrol head and MTBer at heart and i'll wax lyrical about those subjects as well if i get a chance.
- How to Paint a Primarch: Konrad Curze (Night Lords) - June 24, 2016
- How to Clean Resin for Your Miniatures (Super Easy) - June 20, 2016
I’m with you. Model preparation is my least favorite part of the hobby. Cleaning mold lines drives me nuts, but having to wash the model (resin), and then also clean mold lines? Bleh.
Regarding shiny resin. I’ve had this once, and on the suggestion of a fellow painter, I hit it with a matte sealer first. I then primed it afterwards, and while I’m still working on painting it, it’s worked out very well.
+1 on the matte sealer. It can sometimes fix that problem. If it’s really bad though, only contacting FW will help you!
Good luck on the mega dread build. Prep some of the gluing for after you paint it (or prep in such a way you can remove sections for paint).
Ahh never used that matte sealer I’ll remember that in case I loose my fw bag if it happens again cheers.
As for the Mega Dread he’s almost done just going to throw some rust powders over it.
I pretty much always paint models in parts if i can and i’m confident i won’t ruin the look when i glue the bits back together.
“If it’s really bad though, only contacting FW will help you!”
There is one other option, if it’s truly terrible. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them….maybe you can hire The A-Team.
I never thought of the A-team ha ha ha ha
Ahh never used that matte sealer I’ll remember that in case I loose my fw bag if it happens again cheers.
As for the Mega Dread he’s almost done just going to throw some rust powders over it.
I pretty much always paint models in parts if i can and i’m confident i won’t ruin the look when i glue the bits back together.
I look forward to seeing that done.
FYI, you want to hit reply on the comment you are replying to. That way the person gets a notice that you responded to them. If you post it like this, not as a reply, then nobody (except me), gets notified :)
Oops, almost forgot my actual response to the article. I’m definitely with you. I recently put together a Kytan and a Sicaran, and I am so done with resin for the moment. I’ve actually got a bunch more I need to get to at some point, but I’m gonna do a bit of a “palate cleanse” with stuff I can use plastic cement on first, tho.
I have a real love hate relationship with resin love the models hate resin if only they were to release more plastic sets……. :-)
Once I’ve got them built, I love resin Models. It really does hold detail fantastically. But it’s such a pain to work with.
Unlike metal models, which are always a pain in the ass from start to finish.
Truth. Resin is, at least, substantially better than metal.
Actually, metal is still a pain even after the finish. It just moves from the ass to the shoulders, from carrying that ridiculously heavy case around :P
haha! It’s true. When I pack my case up with my metal monstrous creatures, I swear it weighs 10 more lbs easily.
I hated metal models then the batman stuff came out…….Now not so much….. hypocrisy at it’s finest ha ha ha ha
Eh. It’s not hypocrisy to dislike a general category, but like other aspects of specific examples enough to override that. I’m actually considering selling off my metal IG to fund the switch to plastic, but there’s no way my metal CSM are going anywhere unless I’m completely getting out of 40K for some reason.