Flash Flash and more Flash

I've begun the task of cleaning up the Gripping Beast levy blister pack. Plenty of cleaning up to do too. Mostly little bits of flash like under this bloke's arm:

I pray to both Wōden and the Nailed God that I get better at finding and removing this stuff. I thought I had the first set of four figures all shipshape and ready for priming. Fortunately I waited for my new eye to arrive before beginning to paint, because I found I had missed quite a bit. And then after I primed them I found I had missed a bit more. And then when I painted their tunics I found I had missed still more. Cheeky bastards...

I guess the moral of the story is to be patient and methodical. Boring as it might seem, I'm going to start doing all the similar figures at the same time. This way I'll get familiar with where the flash lines may lurk by repetition. Here's one of the guys all cleaned up. Or at least so he seems. Until he gets some paint on him!

The astute reader will note the copious amounts of mind-besotting lead dust about him.

The file I had ordered turned out to be way too big for these wee men.  I hadn't the time or patience to order another from Amazon (as I tend to do for most things since I'm a Prime member - quite the trap they've set!). So I struck out one evening to find a proper set of needle files. Hobby Lobby is the local big box place and they are open later than the smaller hobby shops. However, they didn't have needle files. They did have these cool little sanding needles though. I like them a lot as the pointy tip is great for getting into hard to reach places. I seem to burning through them at an alarming rate though and they are not exactly cheap. Maybe I need a lighter touch. Or maybe I need some needle files still. I do like the fact that the sanding needles wear out before the figure does. I'm afraid with a regular rasp file I might get over zealous. More things to experiment with.