The Tatanka Clean Up

In the comments section a few days ago, someone asked if I would share how I got the black marks off of my white bison, Tatanka. I'm happy to pass on what I did to clean him up. 

When I pulled him off the shelf to pack for the GLC show, I was dismayed to see that he had black marks on his head, sides, and legs. (He was on the shelf next to my black Spanish Fighting Bull; apparently they had a dust up when I wasn't looking!) Having taken the paint off of pieces in the past when I tried to clean black marks off, I was very leery of doing anything that might damage him. 

Allison Pareis had brought a woodgrain Brahma Bull to Happy Trails that had been riddled with black marks. She'd painstakingly removed them, and it was gorgeous! So, I contacted her and asked her what she did to clean up her models. I modified what she said just a bit, and it worked really well.

I placed a damp wash cloth with a tiny drop of Dawn dish soap over my index finger, gently rubbing the black marks. I found a circular motion more effective than simply rubbing back and forth.

If that did not work, I used my finger nail very carefully (and still protected by the wash cloth.)

There were two very stubborn black marks where I actually had to use my bare fingernail to scratch off the black marks. I did that as a last resort and VERY cautiously.

Allison cautioned me about the grey airbrushed shading - she said that, in her experience, it is the most fragile paint of all and will rub off easily.

I didn't use her last bit of advice about using a Magic Eraser this time, but it is good to know when and how that should be done.

It should only be used on bare, unpainted plastic. Use the corner of the Magic Eraser and gently rub the mark, but NEVER use that for painted areas.

Allison also gave me some advice on touching up rubs with paint. I have never done that before, but I filed it away, just in case. Here is what she recommends:

My big advice for touching up a rubbed area: Take a tiny pointed brush, tap/brush off as much paint as you can before doing the touch up. Then lightly stipple the rub area, carefully staying within the rub. It you paint outside of the rubbed spot, it'll stick out. Then you just lightly layer on the paint that way until you get it to the height/darkness of the surrounding OF paint. Sometimes you can blend a little bit, but 9/10 times it'll stick out. I tend to thin the paint beforehand and then brush it off on my palette (or paper plate works great, too!) until the brush is close to being dry, then stipple it in.

I hope this helps those of you who wanted to know about model clean up. Good luck!