I’m working on a plasticine model and was curious if you can paint this stuff- I believe I’ve seen car models in the past which were painted, but I’m sure there is some interim step before you start spraying it? Anyone know? Its not critical that I paint it, but it sure would help define the form from the base I’m building over. Looking back I should have painted the base structure of mdf/chipboard white rather than leaving it just with a coat of shelac.
You might be able to try an oil-based dye, but in my experience paint will just crack off. of plasticine. Acrylic seems to work OK if you don’t bang it around much.
Those car models, I think, are made of regular ceramic-type clay, not plasticine.
We use chevant clays for some of our models, i was under the impression that a lot of people used similar clays to make Auto models, i could be wrong though. Chevant makes various clays one of them being plasticene, i don’t know what you can do with that but with some of the others you can definitely take them to paint.
We are currently trying out a case of “Y2klay” it’s a non-sulfer low heat clay. It comes in a billet that must be heated to 115 degrees f to be maleable and then cools to a pretty decent hardness, not the hardest we have used but seems more than capable of taking a coat of paint after it’s sealed and primed, it’s definitely hard enough to hold a nice edge once molded and is even cnc toolable when cold.
I am definitely not an expert on clay, we only use for about 1 out of 10 projects.