Welcome back to the latest installment of Hobbyist Tactics!

Long before you are ready to prime and start painting your miniature, there is already plenty of work you need to do. Today, we are looking at some of the things you may wish to consider using when building and prepping your minis.

You will need:
• a hobby knife
• the super glue of your choice
• a pin vice
• brass rod or paper clips
• scrap paper

The first thing I look at when I begin working on a miniature is the flashing and mold lines. Flashing, refers to little pieces of  leftover material from when the figure was cast. Picture your little green plastic soldiers. There is almost always some degree of flashing to remove on a miniature. Mold lines, are tiny lines along the surface of the miniature that indicate the seams where the parts of the mold came together. These can be VERY visible after a miniature is primed and painted, so I try to remove as many as I can.

Typically, you can remove most of the flashing by shaving it off gently with your hobby knife. On occasion, you may need to use firmer cuts, but doing so is usually pretty straight forward.

Dealing with mold lines, is a little trickier. To remove mold lines, I use the following technique. Hold the hobby knife at a vertical 70º to 80º angle from the miniature, then drag the blade across the surface where the mold line is visible. You will need to make multiple passes with the knife to remove the line. How many, really depends on their severity.

When you have completed scraping the lines, there will be bright shinier areas on the miniature. If you still see a bit of a line in the middle of them, try again with the knife.

Attaching your Miniature to the base
Anima Tactics miniatures feature a metal tab that fits into the slot on the plastic bases. If you find that the fit isn’t perfectly snug, try this technique.

1. Take a small piece of paper, cut a little wider than the slot and just long enough to fit inside the recessed section on the base. Add a touch of your super glue on either side of the slot, and place the paper on top of it. Press it down with a tooth pick so you don’t end up with glue on your finger tips.

2. The glue will make the paper more rigid and strong. Once it is starting to set, hold your miniature over the strip of paper and figure out approximately where you want it to stand.

3. Press the figures tab into the paper. This makes a perfect hole that holds the miniature in place nice and tight. Pull the miniature back out and add glue to the tab, then press her back into the hole.

For tips on how to add detail and texture to your miniatures base, check out Hobbyist Tactics Part 10.

Pinning your miniature
Many of the figures in your Anima Tactics collection have very exciting and dynamic poses! Unfortunately, with arms and chains and wings glued on and sticking out from your miniature, it is VERY common to have things snap off during transportation and gaming! To help prevent this from happening, I often pin the glued on pieces to give them more strength.

1. First, cut off any existing pegs that may be on the surface you are pinning. Then, with the pin vice, carefully drill into the body of the miniature, and centered as possible. I try to go as deep as possible when making the hole in the body, as there is more room to go
Deeper here.

2. Next, drill another hole into the arm. Be VERY cautious about just how deep you are going, and the angle you are drilling at. You want to make sure you do not drill through the other side of the shoulder, and that the arm will lay flush with the pin at the correct angle to fit into the hole in the shoulder.

3. Once the drilling is complete, cut short 2mm lengths of brass rod or paper clip (which ever you have that fits the size of drill you have used). Add a drop of glue into the hole in the arm, then using a pair of fine pliers or tweezers, insert the rod into the hole. Once it is in place, add a drop of glue around the outside edge to help secure it. Repeat this on the other arm.

4. Once the glue in the arms has set, try fitting the arm into the shoulder hole. You may find you need to trim the rod a little shorter. Once you are happy with the fit, take the arm off, and add a drop of glue into the shoulder hole, then firmly press the arm on. You may wish to add a drop of glue at the seam where the two parts meet, as wipe away the excess. This helps to fill any gaps that might be there.

5. Repeat the process for the other arm, and your miniature is assembled!

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