Stripping paint of custom jobs

Hi guys,

I need some help... I did some work on a figure but I made a few mistakes... I want to repaint it again, what can I use to strip off the old paint without damaging the figure? Do you do this at all?

I use Games Workshop Citadel paints.

Get yourself some purple power its a cleaner/degreaser you can find in Walmart pretty cheap. Put the figure parts in a little Ziploc or water bottle and put enough purple power in there to cover the parts. Let them sit overnight and the paint should come off with not much more effort. I've done this plenty of times with spray paint and testors acrylic.

Thanks man!

One problem is we don't have Walmart here (Philippines), so I am not sure I can find that specific brand, would any other cleanser/degreaser work? Would Mr. Muscle Kitchen Cleaner (Orange liquid) suffice? I am not sure if it's the same, so I may end up just looking for cleanser/degreaser.

Well I did some googling around and found a website somewhere mentioning that Mr. Muscle is a viable substitute. I believe any degreaser should do the trick. Another one I read about, which may work better, is Simple Green. A toothbrush helps remove the paint after the pieces have soaked.

Thanks blogness. I saw some Simple Green in a hardware store around here, I may try that. I made an error in painting a project and I'm considering redoing it instead of just patching it, now I have to strip the paint.

Thanks again.

Glad I could help. I was actually gonna make a post about this a while ago but never got around to it.

nothin beats simple green. Works on plastic, rubber, and metal.

Wait you can strip paint off the plastic? Everytime Ive screwed up my paint app Ive had to paint over it and hope its not that noticeable. Hmm... I'll have to looking into this "green"..  

yep, if you screw it up you just soak it in the green for a while and it falls right off.

I just tested Simple Green... and it's just that simple... Soak the items on a container full of the stuff and the paint just peels off... I did notice it had some effect on the original paint of the Mega Blok figure but not a lot, maybe if I soak it longer, but for the Citadel paints I applied it only took around 24 hours of soaking to get the figure fully cleared.

Update: I was painting the head of a Marvel Iceman MB MAF and I didn't like how the eyes came out, and since I was in the process of soaking some other figures in my 'Tub-of-Green', I included it in. The base coat was applied more than 72 hours before but the flesh paint was added just over an hour before soaking. Two hours after first soaking it I decided to rinse the other figures inside the tub, thinking very well that two hours is not enough to clear the Iceman head, but lo and behold... the Iceman head was completely stripped of all it's paint even the gray base paint... no brushing needed at all. I am in thinking it could be the clear plastic since the other body parts (Mr. Fantastic legs and arms) took a good amount of brushing to clear all the paint from it's surface.

Behold the power of the green side. Glad it is working for you.