Question about painting mini in component parts and fixing gaps

[ekipage]

Got a question for you more talented/experienced artists out there. When painting a miniature in its component pieces and gluing together after that, when do you fix any issues/gaps with green stuff (or your putty of preference)? Do you blue tack the cleaned up piece and then fix any gap issues and then take apart again, or do you paint the mini, fix the gaps and then repaint over those areas? My gut feeling is the first one but having never done it before I thought I would ask so I can avoid that "ahh S&$t!" moment where I realize I messed up the mini. It would seem to me more work doing the second option as you would potentially have a bit of painting to fix up after puttying over your original paint job.

Thanks for any help

 

[ten ball]

Others have their own ways, I always prep, clean, assemble, fill, glue etc be before any painting.
The only exceptions are when a part of the mini design 'covers' another part not allowing to get to a certain area but ive found this to be rare.

 

[bullfrog]

If just a small gap needs to be filled I tend to use liquid putty I can apply with a brush and touch up the paint. Often I will only leave heads of larger scale figures or busts off to paint separately and anything that will obstruct my brush. I almost always pin joints and for larger gaps I will apply a VERY small amount of Vaseline or oil to the joint to prevent the putty from permanently sticking. Put your pieces together one at a time. Fill the joint with putty and smooth it out. Once dry leverage the two pieces apart and clean in hot soapy water.

 

[CrookedEye]

The advice I have been given has always been, "If you can paint it all put together, do that. If you absolutely cannot- paint them separately and put it together afterwards." There's just oo much that can go wrong if you're putting together a piece after it's been painted.

Zach

 

[Arkaan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-4aePnwdyA

 

[ekipage]

Thanks for the replies. I have seen some of the posts on here and saw where individuals were painting the pieces separately and wasn't sure how they got the gaps filled without messing up the paint. Makes sense to try to do as much as possible with the mini together, but I just wasn't sure how they got the gaps filled in if it wasn't done beforehand (and then I wasn't sure how they would break the mini apart after filling in the gaps) {thanks for the tip Bullfrog}. Thanks for the video link Arkaan, didn't see that one when I was searching the other day.

 

[slowrise]

Got a question for you more talented/experienced artists out there. When painting a miniature in its component pieces and gluing together after that, when do you fix any issues/gaps with green stuff (or your putty of preference)? Do you blue tack the cleaned up piece and then fix any gap issues and then take apart again, or do you paint the mini, fix the gaps and then repaint over those areas? My gut feeling is the first one but having never done it before I thought I would ask so I can avoid that "ahh S&$t!" moment where I realize I messed up the mini. It would seem to me more work doing the second option as you would potentially have a bit of painting to fix up after puttying over your original paint job.

Thanks for any help

You may try looking at Hand Cannon online about "Beginners guide to beginning some assembly required pinning and gap filling". You may find answers there.