The Energon Pub

After seeing some awesome custom paint jobs recently I would really like to get into this custom-paint-subject myself.
But before I start and eventually spend some money for the needed tools (brushes, airbrush equipment and so on) I need to know if there is a way to do custom paint jobs without sacrificing the option to transform your custom painted Transformers figure afterwards.

I don't transform my figures very often but I do it from time to time and although I am absolutely impressed by these custom paint jobs I would never do a custom myself if I couldn't transform the figure anymore after the paint job is done.

To me most of these awesome painted figures look very fragile paint-wise. I can literally see the paint come off if you tried to transform such a custom painted figure.

Anyone here, who can help me out?

1. Is it possible to do custom paint jobs and still have the option to do future transformations after the procedure?

2. What are the specific steps that have to be done?

3. Which tools should I use? Just normal brushes, airbrush, a combination of both, a totally other method?

I would apply my paint jobs mostly to the movie related figures (Leader Brawl 2007, Leader Starscream, Voyager Recon Ironhide, Voyager Grindor, the Human Alliance line, Battle Ops Bumblebee.....)

Any good idea is welcome. I am also fine with a cleary spoken: "That's just not possible. Don't try it, you will just mess up your figures........." (that would save me some money at least)

Somenone mentioned that you have to take apart the whole figure and then paint every single piece of it separately. I don't see how this would work. Obviously you cant take apart every single piece because not every single piece is intended for just popping off so easily. I guess you would really risk breaking some parts in the process if you tried to take them apart.