Hey guys.
First sorry if this thread was started elsewhere. Just give me a link and ill go read it. If not then…
I have got a pretty good collection of enamels from testors going but i would like to possibly switch to acrylics. I would just like to know the negatives if there are any in things like, applying the paint with brush, and the quality.
AND JUST WHAT YOU LIKE! Thank you all in advance.
I am a sponge!
If using hand brush, acrylic rules…
Except in the case of Tamiya and Gunze/GSI Creos acrylics, which airbrush better than they hand-brush.
For hand brushing acrylics, Vallejo are hard to beat
I heartily disagree. I have had far better results with enamels when handbrushing 90% of the time. Nothing has topped Humbrol enamels for handbrushing in my experience. I’ve tried just about every acrylic brand I could lay my hands on (Testors Model Master Acryl and Acrylic, Polly S and Polly Scale, Tamiya, Gunze, Vallejo, Life Colour, Aermaster, Pactra, and several others) and none give the dead flat finish or one coat coverage except for the long gone Polly S line. While acrylics do give a nice even one coat finish they rarely have the opactiy of enamels and usually end up needing a second coat when hand brushed.
In air brushing each has their own virtues and vices. Thinners (enamels are simpler across the board), drying in the nozzle (More problems with acrylics), and clean up (acrylics less difficult) being the main issues.
Y’all know I’m Old School anyway, so it’s no surprise that I prefer enamels over any brand acrylics… I only use acylics for certain colors that I can’t get with Testor’s or Model Master enamels and would walk away from acrylics forever if I could… Enamels brush on better, lay down better when sprayed, never clog the airbrush (provided I strained properly and a piece of gunk didn’t make it’s way into the cup), and adhere better. Acrylics have their uses on my bench, but not enough that I’d ever miss 'em…
Besides, I LIKE the smell…
I have never minded hand brushing multiple coats of acrylics for good coverage, I generally start 1 to 2 tones darker than my end-goal, and add successively lighter colors for coat(s) 2 and 3 when necessary. I like the look and effect this color building produces.
For airbrushing, in my opinion, acrylics are much easier to work with. They thin with alcohol in most cases, or water, and clean up with windex. While not “non-toxic” as it has been claimed from time to time, it is a big step from cleaning with lacquer thinner. I feel comfortable spraying in my closed garage with my modest home made spray booth venting fumes outside with acrylics. If I were spraying enamels, I would not be satisfied with less than a professionally built spray booth and a respirator.
For me, the final kicker is that if you really screw something up, acrylics can be cleaned off or stripped far more easily without damaging your plastic.
Those are my opinions and thoughts, others will vary!
Raining on the enamel parade………
Enamels are going to be a thing of the past in the foreseeable future, so start learning to use acrylics.
That said, to learn to use acrylics, you must first realize that they are not enamels, have different properties, and behave differently. Aw shucky darn, yer gonna have t’ larn somet’in’!
The biggest complication to using acrylics is determining what solvent to use to reduce, or thin them. The second is learning that for some brands, dilution ratios are different.
Brushing problems have been addressed long ago by the artist’s community: they have retarders and flow-aids. The same things work very well for our paints, and one bottle of each will last a lifetime.
The same products will solve tip-dry and other airbrushing ills.
Adhesion is as good or superior to enamels with proper surface preparation and paint application. Good quality, fully cured acrylics can be very hard to remove (Polly Scale and MisterKit, in particular). Model Master Acryl does have adhesion problems compared to others, but I know too many modelers who use it all the time with no problems for this to be a real obstacle. Be nice if it were a better paint, but it appears to be adequate (adequate but marketable?) for most.
Cleaning? Between colors, on the fly, with less noxious solvents: acrylics, hands down. Full tear down and cleaning? Acrylics do it in the sink and no one complains.
The big drawback in acrylics has been metallic finishes. Hawkeye’s Talon Acrylics has fixed that problem rather convincingly. Hope he never sells out to Testors……
Not in my lifetime, I hope… Reckon I’ll just stock up on the Model Master in the meantime… I still have a few bottles of Testor’s that have .49 stamped on the cap, lol…
Gosh, I am surprised to hear such passion of one medium over another, regardless of the choice. I see the virtues of both and use them interchangeably, depending on what I am looking for in a kit.
Hans, I think I’ll start a West Coast Wing of your Monogram society and add a branch of enamels forever [t$t]
I gotta agree about enamels being my preferred medium in most cases. And considering all the LHS I shop at have a great stock of enamels on hand, between them and my current paint stock, I think I am covered for the foreseeable future. I won’t have to be learning any new tricks there to my painting, even in the state I am living in. From the steps listed by the acrylic insurgent[whstl] (adding retarders, extra plastic preparation, various mediums for thinners,etc), those are added steps that detract from the convenience of acrylics in my book. Especially when brush painting. I have been quite satisfied with a big can of hardware store thinner for nearly all my needs (Testors airbrush thinner rocks for enamels for airbrush thinning). Mind you, I like my acrylics, I just prefer my enamels. Considering that I do my airbrushing in an open garage, fumes are not an issue. Weather and daylight are the deciding issues there.
Life would be much easier, and acrylics more appealing if Tamiya would revert to the early-to-mid 80’s formulation of their acrylic line.
This was a paint which dried a bit slower than the current formula, that didn’t roll-up and self-levelled almost magically, and the paint actually made it to the model before it dried on the brush. Brush marks were near invisible and you almost needed a magnifying glass to see that it was brush painted and not airbrushed. And yes, this was when brushed straight out of the bottle.
I still have a few bottles of this “old” stuff - yes, nearly 30 years old and as good as (well actually, better than) new.
If we could have this back, I would buy it by the truckload.
Yes, whatever Tamiya did to alter their formula back then was NOT an improvement. If only there was a hobby shop time machine to go get those old OOP supplies…[proplr]
WOW. Thank you all SO MUCH.
This has been absolutely great information, all of it.
I went out today and got some new paints to try out. I have a lot of testors enamels but i picked up some Model Masters acrylics today. I do a lot of hand brushing. But jeez all of these opinions have been so great. Thanks again guys…
“Acrylic insurgent,” indeed! [:P]
I don’t consider surface preparation an “extra step.” Long experience with various coatings has taught me that 90 percent of all coatings failures are due to inadequate surface preparation, regardless of the coating system. The other 10 percent is usually use of the wrong coating system or improper reduction.
Adding a retarder takes less time than a single stir of the paint. Most of the proprietary thinners already contain it.
I have three paint solvents on my bench, none of them highly toxic: 90 percent isopropyl alcohol, distilled water, and odorless mineral spirits. The mineral spirits get used for oil washes and the few enamels I still use—metallics. Since the old Polly S line went away, no one has made a decent brushable acrylic metallic, at least that I’ve tried.
For airbrushing, I like Tamiya acrylics the most, and Model Master acrylics the least.
For handbrushing, I like Humbrol enamel the most and Tamiya acrylics the least.
Uhh, acrylics. No, wait, enamels… argh! I doubt you’ll find too many that use one exclusively over the other these days. In my case, I’ve made selections based on what my LHS can keep in stock, because I do prefer to support the little guy.
Here’s my story:
That being said, the shop I frequented before moving back home had an excellent supply of Model Master enamels, which included the RLM colours I often need. I really didn’t have any issues with them, although they sometimes seemed a little thin for brush painting - bad batch? And airbrush cleanup was a little messier, stronger fumes when painting. I still have a good stock of the MM colours and use them routinely.
Grab some of each!!
I agree with Tamiya most for airbrushing, followed closely by goldens acrylic airbrush line.
For brush painting however, it’s Vallejo for me every time!
Well, there’s one right here. I’m ALL about enamels…Testors & Model Masters. It’s what I’ve learned with from the get go. They work well for me…so why try something else that will only bring about a learning curve.
I have tried some acrylics though. My bro has a set of super expensive stuff that he uses on gaming figs…man was that stuff crap!!! I stole one of his figs and painted it with enamels, he 'bout lost his mind when I showed him what I did with my “cheap” enamels.
Myself I use acrylics, mostly Tamiya, with some MM Acryl for airbrushing. When thinned properly, they cover flawlessly, produce a fantastic finish, and are very durable when allowed to cure properly. Heck, I can even intermix the colours without any issues. Cheap to thin, very easy to clean.
However, for handbrushing, I find them absolutely horrendous. They are not a paint range suited for that. I’ve stuck to Warhammer paints when wishing to hand-brush acrylics, and keep a few enamel colours on hand; I’ve been meaning to actually go and pick up a supply since I find that MM enamels are perfectly suited to handbrushing, and share some properties with oil paint that I very much enjoy.
I used to use the warhammer paints too (Made by Citadel for Games Workshop.) I switched to Vallejo because they brush on very similarly, have dropper bottles, and a bit better pigment in my opinion. Plus, I HATE GW’s paint pots! The new flip lids are better than the old screw on caps, but I still get alot of paint drying and wasted paint using those.