Repainting Princess Merida of DunBroch

With the Ringgit dropping like a stone and the introduction of a good sales tax, things look bleak for a miniature hobbyist like me. Having a fairly small 'hobby budget' to begin with as well as having to contend with the fact that most, if not all, of hobby-related stuff being only available outside the country, I have to come to terms that a lot of miniatures and paints are likely to become unaffordable now and in the months ahead. That means working with what I already have in my collection and looking for cheap alternatives to paint. This austerity drive begins with a freebie from my local Tesco store - a figurine from the Disney Pixar movie Brave i.e. Prince Merida of the DunBroch clan.     

Figurine freebie from Tesco, redeemed after collection a certain number of stickers

Princess Merida as she looks straight out of the package

Back view of Merida, before being stripped for a repaint project

First step in the repainting project involved the stripping of existing paint from the plastic figurine. Straight out of the package, Merida had a very simple paint job on her hair, skin, eyes, bow case and shoes. While it wasn't too bad, it was a tad too rudimentary for my liking. I felt the figurine had a lot more potential and could look much better if greater effort was put into her paint job. So in she went into a Dettol bath to have her original paint stripped. I am not too sure if acrylic paints were used to paint her so using Dettol was a gamble on my part, and one which didn't really pay off in the end.

Princess Merida taking a bath in a pool of Dettol

Princess Merida with as much paint as possible stripped from her

Stripping paint from the hair was very difficult

Hindsight as they say is 20/20. If I could do it all over again, I would have skipped the 'paint stripping step' and just go straight into the priming stage. Even after many weeks of being immersed in Dettol, the paint on the figurine didn't come off easily especially from the hair. As you can see from the immediate pair of photos above, a lot of paint remains stuck in the grooves of Princess Merida's hair.

Princess Merida, primed with Tamiya Fine Surface Primer

Back view of Princess Merida after being primed in a light grey colour

As far as I can make out, there are two main colour schemes for Princess Merida. If based strictly on the costume the figurine is wearing, the colour scheme is cottony dark teal fabric with light yellow lacing (see first photo below). Another colour scheme of satiny light teal fabric with gold lacing was seen on a different costume which the princess wore when suitors were fighting among themselves for her hand in marriage (see second photo below). Both look equally nice and    

Princess Merida Colour Scheme A: Cottony dark teal fabric with light yellow lacing

Princess Merida Colour Scheme B: Satiny light teal with gold lacing

Although the sculpt is fairly simple and not very dynamic, there are enough details in it to make repainting Merida worth my while. Moreover, she will allow me to practice and perfect the painting of red hair, light skin tone and fabric texture. I leave you with this beautiful quote from the character ... There are those who say fate is something beyond our command. That destiny is not our own, but I know better. Our fate lives within us, you only have to be brave enough to see it.