Painting old metal animals - Advise wanted.

I have several old metal bears with losts of paint loss, and I am thinking about restoring them.
What do you think I should do?

A: leave them as they are, discoloured, damaged and scruffy
B: strip the old paint and repaint them in basic white/offwhite only
C: strip the old paint and repaint them in detail with eyes, nose, mouth, maybe claws
D: other ...


L2R: Timpo, Johilco, Taylor&Barrett?, Britains, and?
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If you are not satisfied with their current condition, I think the best option is restoring in its more conservative way. I mean, try to find how these figures looked like as mint new and try to repaint as faithful as possible to the original even if the original painting is not very realistic. Your collection, more than a massive display of bears, is a testimony of the way these animals have been portraied and replicated allover these years. If one of these brands made it with red eyes, it won't be as testimonial as if you paint it with a more realistic color.
Please, option B noooo.

For these wonderful oldies my vote is for original restoration too.

I don't have any lead animals, but do collect another kind of vintage model, handmade horses from the 1960s to 80s, which have a rather fragile paint finish, and are often pretty beaten-up from childrens' play and bad storage.
My aim is always, always to gently restore them by filling in only the areas of paint loss, whether it's little chips and flecks missing, or scratches and scuffs. With very careful colour-matching of paint mixtures (with a dot of beige and grey mixed in to pale colours to emulate the natural aging of the surviving original paint), dotted onto the spots of damage with a tiny brush, you can respect the original paintwork, not lose the authentic finish, while giving the model a new lease of life and making it look loved and healthy again.
A top tip is to polish the entire thing gently with a bit of fleece afterwards, cos that will put a shine on your new paint, smoothing down any slight difference in the finish, helping it blend in with the old.
I use acrylic paint, which has the advantage of diluting with water, so if you touch a speck of paint on and haven't quite got the colour perfect first time, you can wipe it off quickly with a licked thumb, and it doesn't stick, or spoil the good paint next to it, the way enamels would.

The thing is I am not much of an artist myself.
Maybe a small chip or scratch I would paint up.
But look at the amount of paint loss on these figures.

I think I will get some basic supplies and try my skills on a different model first.

Those old metal bears had very basic painting so don't be affraid, it won't be so hard to restore them. They just deserved a bit of love and I know you love them.

The second from the right in the first picture is Britains. It was later produced in plastic (do you have it?)

I'd also try to repaint them in the original style, probably no more difficult than option C. You are right, always best to try things out on a model that isn't valuable before you have a go at a precious model.

rogerpgvg wrote:

The second from the right in the first picture is Britains. It was later produced in plastic (do you have it?)

I'd also try to repaint them in the original style, probably no more difficult than option C. You are right, always best to try things out on a model that isn't valuable before you have a go at a precious model.

Yes I do have that one. I have added the companies with the picture. Still looking for the fifth.

Dutch Bear wrote:

The thing is I am not much of an artist myself.
Maybe a small chip or scratch I would paint up.
But look at the amount of paint loss on these figures.

I think I will get some basic supplies and try my skills on a different model first.

I did got to the model-build-store and got some oilpaint, thin brushes and thinner.
The guy from the store explained that acrylic would need a primer first before painting these metal figures.
But as you all so strongly insisted I will try to only fill in the paintloss (although excessive), and not re/overpaint the whole bear.

Now I need to choose which one to sacrifice.