How carefully do people clean up their miniatures? Does it depend on the project/nature of the unit?
I’ve bought painted minis where they weren’t removed, and on tabletop it didn’t make much difference. The overall impression of the army was still good.
I tend to clean figures up v carefully but wonder if to some degree this might be wasted hobby time?
I usually go over the model with a blade or a file to remove any very visible ones, but if they are not very visible I might leave them alone.
For me it does depend on the project.
Prized pieces I will tackle everything with every method available.
I always take any off the top surfaces and as these are more obvious and will show more readily from dry brushing.
But I usually spend a few extra minutes and get at whatever I can.
If I’m less worried about the end result I have found that you can remove the lines from certain parts of the model and not fuss about others so much. Just breaking the continuous line can be enough.
I usually do this for any work on hair or other heavy textures.
I use exacto knives, hobby files and I get coffee stirrers and glue fine grit sand paper to the tips to smooth them after.
Also, I often see some present as I work on the paint job so I’ll often file or slice at them while I’m painting if they’re going to bug me.
I nuke them all from orbit. It literally wrecks my head seeing a mould line on one of my completed miniatures.
My least favourite part of the hobby.
A good trick I learned recently is to use plastic glue to get rid of smaller lines and lumps and bumps from filling. Tamiya extra thin with the brush applicator is doing great for me at this.Go easy though - you don’t want to be simulating fireball hits on your miniatures.
For all the time spent I often miss them. After the base coat stage there isn’t much you can do…
I hate mould lines and it does my head when I realise I missed one. That being said, unless someone is getting right up close to the mini only the most egregious ones are really noticeable (but I know it’s there!)
It can also depend on the project. I have a few I didn’t remove on my “tree people”, but the mould lines double as bark.
They are also more noticeable on lighter paint schemes too.
My general approach has been 100% on everything - but that is time consuming and slows down the overall progress. If I eased up a bit on the mould lines, I’d probably get more finished.
Difficult to start deliberately leaving some alone though. I might give it a go on my next rank and file unit.
And on characters and monsters, if anything, I’m getting fussier - using Tamiya and dissolved sprue to hide the joins.
I try to take off everything, and certainly the ones on places where they will stand out.
To me an ok painted model looks way better than really nicely painted model with obvious mold lines.
If I see them, I remove them, if I miss them and find them when I paint, I only remove them if it is some character model. And sometimes I just leave them when they are on some delicate features (I am looking at you, old goblins!).
On regular grunts I don’t care if I miss some, it is not like anyone are going to see it over table when they are in unit.
Life is too short to lose mind over some mould lines on minis.
everything gets cleaned and the final steps are a polish or buff with wire wool to remove the tool marks of the previous steps
It depends… I put in about 4 hobby hours per week. I’ve got about 180 unpainted models in my immediate queue. At a blistering 30 min per model, it’d be done in ~6 months. And every 15 seconds per model of extra effort adds 45 min to the total project scope.
So with that reality in mind, I tend to skip mold lines unless it’s particularly visible or a special model.
obsessively clean off every mould line on everything.
This is my current position too and I’ll probably stick with it for everything but rank & file.
On regiments etc I’m going to try and drop down to 90% as the last 10% takes a disproportion amount of time.
I get rid of all of them, I use a file so it can be done while watching TV, it might be time consuming, but doesn’t require much attention.
If I’m spending the time to paint the mini nicely, I don’t want that effort to be ruined by mould lines.