So I thought it would be good to discuss prep of the IA minis as there seem to be a lot of people either painting for the first time or experiencing this particular plastic for the first time.
1: "You Bent My Wookie!": Bendy weapons can afflict almost any of the minis, but seem to hit the following most often: Royal Guard, Vader, Diala, Gaarkhan, and E-webs.
This is a function of how the minis are pulled from the molds while not completely cured.
It's also super easy to fix!
You'll just need some water held at a rolling boil (I'm sure simply 'hot' is also fine, but I didn't check and it was easier just to do the whole thing by the stove), some ice water, pliers or similar to hold the mini and a toothpick or other poking implement.
Simply dip the offending portion of the mini in the boiling water for 3-5 seconds.
This will soften the plastic. It does have 'memory' so in almost all cases in my set the warped item settled back in line, you may find you need to encourage it with a toothpick or similar.
Then dip the mini in the ice water to 'hold' the fixed pose.
Super quick and makes your finished minis that much more appealing.
2:Mold lines. For those completely new to minis, these are the lines left behind where the different sections of the mold meet. Sometimes this results in 'flash' where the casting material seeps between the mold sections. Sometimes these are more severe due to mold slippage (the different sections of the mold not aligning correctly).
Many of us will want to remove or at least minimize these lines before we paint to get the best end results.
If you are a wargamer you'll either be very familiar with cleaning similar materials (Warmachine PVC, Mantic 'restic', multiple wargaming crossover CMoN products).
If you're mostly used to GW plastics or any metal manufacturers you might be in for a bit of a surprise.
Basically, scraping the mold lines off of the IA minis with an exacto knife won't work. What you need to do is shave the mold lines off.
Any other technique seems to lead to the plastic 'ripping' and burring, leading to various bits that need to be shaved off anyway.
It's definitely a more...concentration intensive technique, but it's the only way I've found to get good results.
Basically pretend you are peeling a tiny, complicated carrot and you'll have the motion down. Change out your blades as soon you start to meet a lot more resistance. You don't want to be leaning in to it as either you'll slice up the mini or yourself.
Anyway, that's all I've got to say for now.
Any other tips people want to add would be great!