You can clearly see the mould lines that need to be removed from
the miniatures. The tricky bit being to remove it from the neck area
without destroying too much detail. The Daleks are made from a hard
plastic so I should be able to file the mould lines instead of having
to cut then off with a knife which will be quicker and easier to do
on that neck area.
I've put up a picture of one of the worst examples of production
quality, it's clear the different sets offered on the magazine were
actually from different manufacturers. There are variations in size,
colour and sharpness of detail. Unfortunately I have quite a number
in this state so will probably use them on bits of terrain as destroyed
Daleks.
Here we see another example of the variation in the miniatures.
The Dalek on the left was from one of the more recent sets but
is clearly a different version. When I finally start painting
the Daleks I'll make sure to match up the variations to keep the
two intended factions matching. Below shows an example of how
I intend to clean up the Daleks. I have a filed the mould lines
off of this dalek using a fairly blunt file because the miniature
is plastic not metal and a course file would leave an abrasive
mark. The filing also leaves a lot of debris on the miniature
but that will be removed by scrubing the miniature with a toothbrush.
I also keep haering from people that you wash plastic and resin
miniatures before painting to remove any remaining release agent.
So this method will cover both those points. Stay tuned for the
next part of my Dalek project where the painting will start.