Good afternoon all, I am looking for some advice with airbrushing Model Color paints. I am aware that this is formulated for brush painting, but I have herd success stories with airbrushing this stuff, but my first attempt is not a success. I am comfortable using Tamiya paint, but their major flaw is their limited color selection. I have heard many people rave on about AV, So i wanted to give it a try. The Hobby Lobby by me only had one set of Model air, their olive drab kit. I did not need any colors in it, so I picked up the model color I needed. As my test, I went to my trusty spoon primed with Tamiya primer. The paint was mixed 50/50 with bottled water and it beaded right up. Went back to Hobby Lobby to see if they had the airbrush cleaner that people had good sucess using along with distilled water, but they didnt have any. The only airbrush cleaner they had was from createx. Same story.
Any ideas? My only other guess is the paint wasnt mixed up enough. Oh, before I forget, I was shooting at 10-15 PSI. I really want this to work. I have my hopes up pretty high.
I’ve given up on airbrushing Vallejo Model Air paints. Once they start to dry, only lacquer thinner can remove them. Vallejo AB cleaner doesn’t remove dried Vallejo paints. They do dry quickly.
When I airbrushed Vallejo stuff, I added Flow-Aid and a retarder to prevent clogging. Even so, Vallejo clogged my AB in a few minutes. I know some people get great results from airbrushing Vallejo, but it was not for me. I never have a problem with spraying Tamiya. Sure, their color selection is limited, but with a free app like imodelkit, I have no problem reproducing a variety of colors with Tamiya.
Huh, that’s the first acrylic I have heard of needing lacquer to strip it when dry. I’m use to taking windex to Tamiya and it just melts off. Thanks for the heads up, and the app. I was not aware of it.
With my Limited airbrushing experience, I find it hard to botch up Tamiya.
Both Chrisk-k and I have talked about this one earlier, and I am one of the ones who has no problem airbrushing either Model Color or Model Air. I am no chemist or scientist, but my understanding is that since Model Color is not put in the bottle airbrush ready, you will need to thin it as you talked about. I even thin Model Air. Basically the Model Color is too thick at 10 PSI even at 50/50. You need to have the consistency of 2% milk for pretty much “normal” spraying. At 10 PSI you will almost need water viscosity.
I have been experimenting at lot with them and I find a mix of 2 to 3 drops of Flo-Aid, one drop of retarder and then about a 70/30 to 80/20 mix for Model Air and at least a 50/50 mix for Model Color seems to work. I spray at 18 PSI. You can get pretty close in with a double-action ab at 18 PSI.
I have seen folks post who have said you can’t do mottling, etc. with Vallejo and I don’t agree at all. It just takes lots of practice and understanding the acrylics. If you can compare the Model Air against the Model Color side-by-side you will see the huge difference. Take the Model Color you have and compare it to the Tamiya on a palette and you will see the same thing. I would suggest getting a flat piece of styrene (or and old model), and then trying different mixes until you get one that works. I am in Arizona and we have humidity routinely less the 20%, so things will dry much faster when I am spraying than in a more humid climate.
I also use Model Master acryls and they work very well for me also. I just like Vallejo’s bottles better which waste less paint and don’t require all the lid cleaning like Model Master does. As Chris said, Vallejo brush paint just beautifully. Again, I love acrylics and won’t touch enamels and there are many who are vice-versa. There is no wrong paint IMO.
I agree with John. I’m no master at airbrushing Vallejo Model air, but I use it for the same reason you got yours, Zach. Color availability.
I also spray at 18 PSI. I have read in a few places that Vallejo is best airbrushed at that PSI or even as high as 21. I use Vallejo’s own thinner, but know folks do just fine with other thinners, distilled water included. As you already found out, the Model Color is really viscous (if I spelled that right, I mean thick), and it takes some messing around to get the thinning ratios right.
I like just opening a bottle and painting away,and this AK thinner works for that.
You do have to change the thinner to paint ratio a bit depending on whether it is for Model Air, Model Color, Panzer Aces, Italeri, Color of Eagles, etc, etc,but, it does work as long as you are flexible with how low you take your air pressure.
I am not going to give up my Flow-Aid and Slow-Dry just yet, but, this AK beats any other thinner I have tried for the “Vallejo Group” of paints. (disclaimer, I have not tried it with LifeColor yet, because I still have plenty of their thinner and it works just fine, so I am not ready to experiment just yet)
I use Tamiya and Vallejo. Like has been said, Thinning is important, and I use the Vallejo acrylic airbrush thinner and have had great results. Thinning ratios and air pressures need to be figured out by you for you particular airbrush, compressor, climate, comfort level. Take a day and practice on some sheet styrene. Vary the pressure and thinning and keep a record of what works best and use that as a base point in the future. Have fun!
Last night I went out and picked up a dropper bottle of their paint thinner, the milky colored stuff and I will order a bottle of airbrush thinner. For sure I will use the stuff for brush painting and tamiya for airbrushing. I’ll keep experimenting with airbrushing villejo until I got it down. My goal is to keep it all acrylic as I did a test spray with enamel, mind you with a proper vented spray booth and respirator, I didn’t like it one bit. The room still stunk and the wife didn’t like it, not to mention I don’t like cleaning the ab with oils. I am strictly acrylic now.
I had great success using their thinner medium number 70.524. Pick was using roughly a 2:3 ratio. I could of thinned flat red a bit more then I did neutral grey. I guess you guys weren’t kidding about tip dry Soon I’ll have an order for model air and model color with the proper airbrush thinner. Sofar with my first expierence, I am thrilled.
I want to put in an order for paint, but before I do, I would like some opinions on common colors that should be added. What shade of green should be used for radar screens, and what would be a good vallejo color for light gray fs# 33613?
This is my current list.
MODEL COLOR
COLOR
VALLEJO NUMBER
M.C. NUMBER
FS NUMBER
RAL NUMBER
RLM NUMBER
US FIELD DRAB
70.873
142
30118
BLACK
70.950
169
37038
FLAT RED
70.957
031
31136
US DARK GREEN
70.893
095
34079
BLACK GREY
70.862
168
37031
IRAQUI SAND
70.819
124
30475
FLAT YELLOW
70.953
015
33655
FOUNDATION WHITE
70.919
002
NEUTRAL GREY
70.992
160
36173
SILVER
70.997
171
17178
GUNMETAL GREY
70.863
179
37200
9007
3
NATURAL STEEL
70.864
178
9006
The additional colors needed that Hobby Lobby does not carry are: