[Kamen Rider Die]

So, had a few minutes tonight, and I've also got a roommate who has clear coat nail polish, so I took a run at Chasing's sticker sealing approach. Here's how it came out:




In honor of the new The Batman trailer, and not just because I had an extra of this one that I could sticker up in under five minutes, it's NIGHT ROGUE. The original is on the right in both photos, the sealed version is on the left. I can tell them apart by one of my screw-ups, the tiny thumbprint on the sealed one's left pec. It honestly doesn't bother me at all, but is a notable error. Needed to brace the figure at one point, and accidentally gripped it in some drying nail polish.

I think it went okay? I'm happy with how the sealed one came out. The stickers for his piping lay pretty well flat, although one end peels ever so slightly in the back. There's just not a lot of adhesive on these old stickers, which will be a recurring problem in this post.

I started off trying to drip the polish on, as Chasing recommended, but it wasn't really working. I just couldn't seem to get enough polish on the brush to get anything decent to drip off. So, as this Night Rogue was a disposable test dummy, I just started slathering the polish on with the brush. I, uh, I didn't have any problems with it! Stickers all seem fine, no loss of detail or smudged paint that I can see. If it looks garish and wrong to you, please let me know. I think the brush ended up working out okay.

The thing is, there aren't really a lot of stickers to Night Rogue? He's a one-box figure, and he's only got five or six stickers. He was useful to make sure I wouldn't destroy a figure, but he wasn't great for telling me how much of an improvement this process would/could be. I did another dupe, Grease, but that one left me with the same questions. He came out just fine, no errors or damage, and I like how sturdy his stickers are, but it felt like a minimal (although visible!) improvement. I needed something that was in critical condition. "Luckily", I had just the subject:



Rocket Panda, and, hand-to-god, that's exactly what he looked like when I took him out of my display. This thing is... I don't know how every drop of adhesive vanished at once, but this thing is covered in stickers like a tree is covered in leaves at the start of autumn. Let's see if this nail polish trick can resurrect this, frankly, embarrassing and nearly-nude tiny man.




Very happy with the result!

It wasn't a hundred percent successful, but the patient was pretty far gone to begin with. Two of the white stickers on the back of the leg would not stay on long enough to be sealed. It was like trying to seal a warm breath. Tried gently moving them into place, tried cajoling them into position, but there was nothing to stick to the plastic. Sort-of the same thing with the blue sticker on the Rocket hand. In pressing it down while trying to seal it, it just became a soggy mess. The leg stickers aren't that big of deal since they're on the back of the figure, but the hand sticker is a bit of a bummer.

Still, the rest of the figure has literally never looked this good. The pauldron isn't immediately peeling off, the other leg stickers are tight to the figure (-ish, it's still stickers that were hanging on by a thread to start with), and it now has a rather nice sheen to it.

I'm not sure if I'm going to redo every figure I've got. The ones with solid stickers, I don't know if it's worth the hassle for a minor improvement. (Maybe it'll be worth it when I don't have a huge SO-DO backlog!) But for the handful of figures I have where the stickers were too old to stick properly, yes, absolutely worth it. Only took a few minutes to slather, then let 'em dry for a half-hour (while watching an episode of Blade, although you do you), and then they're fine to handle. Real pleased with how this process can rescue some not-great tiny mans.

Thanks again for the tips, Chasing!