Hey everyone! Adam, from TFG Radio, here to talk about a wonderful part of building your awesome models.
Anyone one who has read this series for a while know that I am not a fan of painting. I play in a lot of tournaments, well in the past anyway, and going to tournaments was a great way to motivate me to get my army painted. No matter how long I had to stay up the night before, I would have my army painted and ready to go. Like I said, my loathing of having to paint my models is well documented. On the other hand, I really enjoy building the models themselves. Especially with Games Workshop models, I enjoy the options available when building units that allows for customization, although it seems to be a bit less so nowadays. The one thing, though, that really gives me issues are mold lines.
For those that don’t know, or may not know what I’m talking is called, mold lines are those small lines on models that basically show where the two molds came together to create the sprue for the model. You don’t see it as much in Games Workshop models today, but if you get some of those older kits, they are definitely there. If you play other game systems or build other kits, you do see them more often. Ideally you would try to remove these or file them down to a point that the surface is smooth once again. You do this because the mold lines cause you issues when painting and can sometimes bring out the immersion of the model after it is painted. It can bee a hassle to remove, especially on non space marine models, if the mold line run through an area that has a lot of nooks and crannies. Depending on the tool you are using to remove the mold lines, personal injury can also occur. This is called “Sacrifices to the Blood God”
Speaking of tools, there are a few ways of removing mold lines. The obvious one is the X-Acto knife. It’s usually the first tool that people use when they first get into the hobby. Cuts really well but almost too well when you accidentally cut a huge chunk of your model instead of the small piece of plastic sticking out, not to mention cutting yourself in the process. Remember kids, cut “At your buddy, not your body”. Games Workshop also sells a mold line remover, which is just a blunt X-Acto knife, but it is sometimes hard for it to reach certain parts of a model. What I also use are small files. Depending on the size, they can easily get to places that most other instruments can’t. They help tremendously and do not bring harm to yourself or your loved ones, at least as far as I know.
All this is well and good but the real issue I have is time, and laziness. I just want to quickly put together my models and have them painted and on the battlefield. The sooner the better. I don’t have time for all this extra crap. Luckily, early on , I only played chaos space marines. They have mold lines like everyone else but because they had so much extra gubbins on the model it was sometimes hard to see the mold line at all. Since this was the case I easily just pass it off as a chaos mutation and move on. Unfortunately because I play other armies and game systems this is not the case anymore and that make me sad, and tired just thinking about it.
That’s all for this week. Let me know what you think, and if you had any model building mishaps, in the comments section below. Don’t forget to visit our Facebook, Twitch, and Patreon pages to stay up to date on what we’re up to and when episodes drop!
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