Figure mounting and work holding

Someone asked me about the thingies I use to hold my figures while I’m painting them, and how I mount mini’s for painting, so I thought I’d devote a couple of lines on how I do it.

The figure holders are made from pieces of pre-perforated plastic board. I got them from my work, where they come as packaging for some sort of laboratory consumables. I don’t know exactly what – it isn’t something I use, but seeing them being thrown away I thought they were too good to miss and rescued them.

 

The green ones are better, in my opinion, as the holes are smaller, and so support the mini’s more securely. The sheets are pre-perforated and the holes therefore line up perfectly. All I do is open up the four corner holes to take an M5 bolt. Spacing otherwise is provided by the M5 nuts, and I use two sheets in each layer for rigidity. In the picture, there are thirteen figures on the holder, and it’s by no means crowded – twenty 28mm foot or a dozen horses is comfortably do-able.

To mount minis to paint, I use roofing felt tacks (for foot and horses) or pop rivets (for mounted), with hot melt glue, as here.

For foot figures, like the Reiver artilleryman on the left, simply apply hot melt glue to the tack, push on the figure and away you go. I don’t painted mounted minis on the horses, but mounting the riders this way doesn’t work for me. I drill a hole through the seat, 4-5 mm deep, of the same diameter as a pop rivet shaft, then glue the riders on as per the Warlord figure above.

Demounting is simple: heat just the tip of the tack or rivet gently, then carefully pull away using tweezers / pliers / forceps.