Stripping paint out of your minis

I originally named this post “Good job gone bad”, but I decided to change it after giving it a little thought. As mentioned earlier in previous posts, I’m collecting an Imperial Guard army to play Warhammer 40k. I still haven’t written the fluff for it but I have some ideas. From the name of the site, you can tell where my army comes from: Valhalla; and since Valhalla is an icy world I opted for a light blue color scheme.

I had primed a few of my minis with black gesso while creating my army list for combat patrol. After I primed the first infantry squad, I started the paint job on it. I used the same color I previously applied on Lt Varras Battle for Macragge mini: a 1:1 mixture of Mordian Blue foundation paint with Skull White. The color stuck easily on the gesso primed surface and only 1 coat was required. I was happy.

I proceeded to paint the rest of the squad’s flak armor and when done, I started to think about the second color. I just realized that white would be a good choice, but then I remembered: I used black for priming. I was avoiding white altogether just because I read somewhere that black is easier for beginners. I have no idea why and just followed the advice. I had some trouble with red paint over a black primed mini while painting the nids from the Macragge box. I had to apply several coats until I was satisfied with the result. I knew I would face the same problem with the white color.

Surprisingly, the gesso proved himself a good option for priming once more: I had to apply only 2 coats of white paint. Great! . The results can be seen below:

First try at the 13th Valhallans

Although I was happy with the results, I decided that applying two coats of paint would take too much time. It was time to try some paint removal tips. From the various methods I read, Pine Sol was the only one option I had at home. But since I used gesso for priming, I thought that it would work great.

My minis take a bath into a pine sol solution

You can already see some of the paint peeled off of the mini in the bottom of the image. I used a regular dishwashing scrubbing sponge (the one with a hard and soft surface) and an old tooth brush to take out the paint. I will update the site when I’m done re-priming them with white gesso. Until then.