Cleaning

Cleaning miniatures refers to the preparatory steps necessary to get them out of the packaging and ready to prime and paint.

The first thing we need talk about is finding and removing mold lines. Miniatures are produced in molds, and the molds are created in two (or more) pieces, which are pressed together and have hot material such as metal, plastic or resin injected into them. Once that material cools, the pieces of the mold are taken apart, and your new mini is born!

A mold line shows you where the two parts of the mold came together. Invariably a little bit of the hot material rises up into the tiny gap where the mold pieces were touching.

The mold line runs along the base, up the side of the head and along the back and tail.  

If mold lines don’t bother you, then don’t sweat it. They’re not usually visible from a distance once the mini is painted. However, they bug the heck out of me, and I always remove them.

For metal and hard plastic minis, the back of a hobby knife blade is usually sufficient to scrape the mold line off. Simply scrape along the line as if you were gently removing a layer of paint.

For soft plastic and resin minis, this can be too abrasive and gouge the mini if you are not very careful. For these minis, I use either fine or medium plastic sanding needles.

Minis can also have “flash” which is a larger chunk of material hanging off it somewhere. Molds have one or more holes in them, called injection sites, where the hot material is squirted into the mold. A common source of flash occurs when some of the hot material back flows into that hole and is left hanging there when it cools. Resin minis also commonly have little bits of flash hanging off of thinner parts of the model.

Flash should be removed and the site smoothed out the same way that you removed the mold line. However, be sure to take a look at some pictures of the model painted first to make sure that it really is flash. Sometime minis have bits hanging off of them that may look like flash at first glance, but are really some piece of detail that is intended to be there.

The final cleaning step is to wash the minis in warm soapy water and gently scrub them with a soft brush, such as a toothbrush. Manufacturers use oils, call mold release, to ensure that the mini doesn’t stick to the interior of the mold. The mini can also pick up oil and grime from skin while handled during shipping. This residue can interfere with our primer sticking to the figure. It isn’t always a problem. In general, it is less of a problem for metal minis, more of a problem for plastics and is frequently a problem for resin. Personally, I always wash my minis.

Once the washing is done, mount the miniatures on a stands so that you can handle them while painting. Stands just need to be something that you can comfortably hold in one hand which is sturdy enough to support the miniature. My favorite choice for stands is golf tees.

Mount the minis to the stands using an adhesive such as hot glue, mounting putty, or double sided carpet tape.

Golf tees and mounting putty

With our minis cleaned, we are ready to move on to the primer!

This post was adapted from an article originally published on the Mad Adventurer's Society.