Repainting 28mm plastic miniatures - example

I work from plastic kits for about 90% of what I do, and usually do the cleaning up and assembly myself.  Now and again, a client will send already assembled plastic miniatures for me to paint; and sometimes these miniatures have already been part- or fully-painted, and the task at hand is to repaint them (usually to match other troops which I'm building / painting from the start).

One such example came to me a few months ago from a client who wanted some Wars of the Roses work done - a combination of metal and plastic miniatures, mostly assembled, and some were already painted.  The already-painted miniatures needed to match the style of those I was painting from scratch - but rather than strip the miniatures and start again, I decided to see if selective repainting could make them match;

As you can see, there's nothing wrong with the models as I received them (above), but a comparison with other postings on this blog will show that they don't 'match'.  The metalwork is brighter, the leatherwork looks different, and the base treatment is quite different.  Basing was not an issue, as the client only wanted them 'stuck down' to rectangular bases in fours (no scenic treatment).

The first task was to touch-in areas of metalwork which had been missed, or which had inappropriate colours applied (note - inappropriate to my painting style, not necessarily wrong!).  The chap on the left has his gauntlets and sabatons painted in metal, and the edges of his blue leatherwork defined.  Chap #2 got his sabatons finished in metal, and belt area tidied up.  At the same time, I touched-in his chin with the flesh colour I was using for the rest of the unit, so he didn't look too pale or too tanned.

Next, I highlighted the armour edges and washed the metal areas in thinned inks to get the same effect I use on almost all metal armour (see other posts).  With these miniatures being mostly plate-armoured, this is the job almost done.

For the finishing touches, I repainted chap #2's belts and armour straps, then washed over all the non-metal areas on both miniatures with very thin sienna / umber to get the definition.  It barely shows on armoured chaps like these, but if you miss this stage on the odd figure, they look strange when you put them next to other troops who did get the wash!  With these particular minis, the job was now complete as they didn't require basing.

The alternative, of course, would have been to strip and start again, but this was quicker, and if you compare to previous posts, you can see that these chaps now fit right in.