Gaming vs Showcase protection

[J2FcM]

Just wondering what steps should be taken to protect painted minis for showcase and for gaming?

Can the same process be done to both without quality loss? Part of the reason I am investing in Confrontation\\Warhammer is painting\\modeling. The other part is because I\'d like to try out a few games of it. If I paint nice mini\'s, I want them to not get chipped like my last night incident.

 

[Gilvan Blight]

Dropping a mini and having it hit a hard surface my chip it no mater how much protection you put on it.

Well technically you could gloss varnish it up enough to prevent any possible damage but you would probably have a ball of varnish with a mini in there somewhere at that point.

I find and have seen others suggest the same, that a nice coat of gloss varnish is enough to protect to mini. A futher coat of dulcoat (a matt varnish) is enough to take the shine off the mini.

Most of mine, are sitting bare though, as I never seem to do that last step of protecting my minis.

 

[MathewBaich]

usually, I use a more form-fitting padding for my display miniatures and less padding for my gaming stuff. Jakob Nielsen\'s way of transporting miniatures is ideal. jakob\'s site
look under the tutorials.

 

[matty1001]

I dont play enough to need to protect my gaming stuff so i dont bother. And for my display stuff i don\'t bother aswell, im not going to be touching it and i put it in a plastic display case so its covered. I find varnish can mess with colours and such.
But i will use matte if i need something not shiny or gloss if i need something shiny.

 

[airhead]

As an old D&D player from WAY back, let me tell you - minis that get played with, will lose paint. Fact. If you cannot deal, just paint for show or competition.

Short of casting each painted mini in clear resin there is no way around gaming minis showing wear.

Gaming:
One or two coats of gloss varnish (Krylon Triple Thick Krystal Klear) - watch the humidity and distance - two light coats is better than a solid wet one. Follow with one or two light coats of dulcoat. When the mini starts looking glossy, respray with dulcoat. (sounds good, but I\'ve never done that last step. We just keep on playing with them - you come too attached to your charactor\'s mini.)

Show mini?
One or 2 coats of DulCoat. Handle by the base. Wrap loosely in toilet tissue before transporting in a nice form-fitting foam lined case.

 

[charley1968]

Try diluted PVA (wood glue) on exposed parts of the mini(tip of sword etc.)

 

[Krause]

I have seen a guy use furniture varnish...very bad idea

I used GW varnish but sometimes the mini shine too much.

Now I use vallejo setin varnish. I am talking about the samll bottles for painting with brushes. But of course ussing a brush to apply varnish is no good idea either, so i have used my airbrush to do that.

Results?
My mounted chaoslord:
- No shine to normal eyes.
- Shine on pictures, maybe because of the flash :S
- Protection: He was a brave chaoslord standing on top of the hill on the battlefield. But then he fell into the abyss, also known as the floor of the gaming store. Because he was painted in red and coated with vallejo varnish he was saved by his gods and took no scratch, I had only to glue his shield back on.

So I recommend Vallejo varnish into an airbrush. It is super resistant and you can apply several layers without problems. But if you want to take picutres of it do it before the varnish. You can try to use the matt varnish. Vallejo has 3 varnishes matt, setin and gloss. I only used setin until now.

I hope this helps. AND STAY AWAY FROM THE FUNITURE & NAIL VARNISH!!!!!

 

[hakoMike]

I have a big jar of Minwax semi-gloss polyurethane varnish that I\'ve been sorely tempted to use as game-protection for minis. For a test, I dipped my Eshin Sorcerer in the goop, and shook off the excess, then brushed off any remaining globs. What was left leveled quite nicely and didn\'t change the colors noticeably, but man was he shiny. A quick spritz of Testors\' dullcoat took the shine right off, and now I have a mini that is literally encased in polyurethane.

My next test will be to coat two metal models and let them bang together a little. Plastics don\'t seem to pick up damage like metal models do, in my experience.

 

[Jericho]

Paint chips off metal figs WAY easier, this coming from a guy with 2 years of GW experience. Nothing quite like repainting a few dozen minis almost every week after Mega Battles

Anyway, a couple coats of Dullcoat is good protection. GW\'s Ardcoat is great for toughness, but you end up using a lot more money doing a gloss followed by multiple layers of Testors Dullcoat. In the end I don\'t know if the added protection\'s worth the time and effort.

Worst part is how Dullcoat comes in frustratingly small cans, I finally broke down and ordered a case from a local hobby shop, bulk discount FTW! With my luck I\'ll find something bigger, better and half the price in a month

 

[Krause]

I play GW games over 9 years now. The worst GW game to get paint chips on the minis is blood bowl. If you use platic mini u don\'t need to worry about chips.

And i never found something as good as the vallejo varnish used with an airbrush. One bottle of that varish costs 2€ and last a life time...almost. I admit an Astek dual - function airbrush cost a lot. But you can buy the very cheap \"spray\" airbrushes. They cost like 15€, but you cant regulate nothing, so the only use you get from it is under/base coating, varnish and painting terrain.