Figurine customization, help please

[Kornaki]

My fiancee and I got some amiibo that we want to try customizing. For those unfamiliar, they are plastic Nintendo figures (with gameplay functionality).

Here's an unmodified amiibo
http://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/super-smash-bros-next/thumb/1/11/Amiibo_998.jpg/468px-Amiibo_998.jpg

and some examples of post-customization
http://36.media.tumblr.com/9ed4c7c3041f825d8196cc654ccaccd0/tumblr_nfinctLJk91roj9f0o1_1280.jpg

http://scontent-a.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xpf1/t51.2885-15/10808516_726097687472239_635012826_a.jpg


I haven't painted anything for fifteen years, and that was the astronaut paper mache I made in middle school. What I'm trying to say is I have no idea what we are doing, Based on my google searches, it looks like we just should be buying any old acrylic paint, and some brushes. Some people cover the amiibo in paper to prevent drippage, and one guy said he uses two Q-tips, a wet and a dry, to quickly clean up any misplaced paint.

I have the following questions if anyone can help: Are there kinds of paint that we should avoid, or paints we should specifically try to get? What is the actual risk of paint drippage ruining the piece, given that we haven't done anything like this before (for large scale reskinning, and also for small details - e.g. we want to paint a logo on Donkey Kong's chest)? Should we get a practice object to paint before we try the real thing? Do I have to take any care painting the translucent plastic vs. the rest of the figure (some of them have spurs of a similar material that we will be painting as well possibly)?

Any help with those questions or general advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Eldan]

There are tons of webpages especially on model painting, which is essentially what you're doing here. I recommend googling something like "tabletop model painting tutorial", that should help you more than a few tips from a forum.

[Kornaki]

Well we finished our first painting. Yoshi needs another layer on some parts, and we're going to add an egg base. I still don't know what I want t odo with Pikachu besides the base painting. You can probably tell from the picture that one of us was better than the other :smalltongue:.

A more specific question that maybe you guys can help with: I got a small splotch of red paint on Pikachu, and my fiancee a small splotch of blue on Yoshi's white part. I read that we can use rubbing alcohol to get the paint off, but I'm afraid it will also strip off the base paint of the figurines. Any ideas on whether this is feasible or a terrible idea? If not, we're just going to leave it as is as the splotches are very small.

Image:
http://i.imgur.com/KsJiSm9.jpg

[Lord Torath]

I would recommend testing the rubbing alcohol on an inconspicuous location before applying it to your 'splashes'. Maybe on the underside of the base? I've also had really good success using Simple Green (a common cleaning chemical) for removing standard acrylics, if that's available where you live.

[Kornaki]

I decided to not try to remove them, because they were small and hard to notice. I figured I risked doing more harm than good.

Anyway, did another figure. Invincible Mario:

http://i.imgur.com/rrdDT8T.jpg