[:I]I paint with a brush and I think I will change from enamel paint to acrylic.
Will I have prime first, if so with what?.My builds so far:-
Tamiya Wirbelwind
Tamiya Challenger 2
Academy Tiger Early
Tamiya Universal Carrier
Revell Sd.Kfz.250/3
My next build Academy Tiger with internals, hence thinking about acrylics.
Nice to be among you…Kenny
You shouldn’t, acrylics are kind of think compared to enamels. You should be good. I’ve never seen the need to when I brush paint. Airbrush, now that’s a little different.
Kenny,
I began with brush painting as did many of us, but when the opportunity arises for you and since you seem to be building nice kits…switch to an airbrush and learn how to use it well. You’ll never go back to brush painting the main parts of your models again…When it comes to acrylics enamels. Acrylics dry faster and clean up better but cover a bit thinner generally. Enamels clean up with solvents, dry slower, but offer better coverage and cure harder. You’ll find the finish with acrylics will scratch easier as well.
I like tamiya acrylics…you have more selection of paint with model master enamels and acrylics though.
Take Care,
Tank
I do almost all my painting with acrylics. Airbrushing especially. As mentioned above, some acrylic colors do cover things thinner, so a couple coats may be necessary. This is especially true with white and the metalic colors. In fact, when doing metallic, I use enamle. They just look better. Not sure what brand you use, but I have a lot of difficulty brush painting Tamiya. Thinning it helps. Now Model Master Acrylics work very nice, except for the coverage issue on a few colors. Airbrushing, I use Tamiya mostly. I also agree with looking for an airbrush if you plan to get into doing a lot of kits. Very nice
[:D]hi guys,to take this post abit futher ,when useing the Tamiya paints what would be the best to thin the paint with ,for an air brush???[:D]
Go with Tamiya’s recommendations and use Tamiya thinner. It works very well for me. After I am done I use rubbing alcohol to clean everything. A less expensive alternative than using thinner to clean everything.
[:D] Kaleu ,thanks for your answer,i will do that.[:D]
My thanks to you all for the advice…Kenny
For handbrushing acrylics, just make sure that you leave plenty of time between coats for the paint to fully dry. Even though the paint can feel dry to the touch within minutes, subsequent layers of paint can actually thin and rub the underlying layers off. I’ve found this to be the case with Tamiya more than any other acrylic paint.
Additionally, you can thin the paint using distilled water, diluted windex, but the recommended thinners are the manufacturer’s own. It may seem cheaper to go with other alternatives, but I’ve found that thinning with tamiya X-20a thinner works like a charm.
Just to add one more “acrylic hint” for the hand-brusher:
For “touchy” colors like silver, red, and yellow, I “cheat”.
What I do is I exclusively use Testors Modelmasters paints, and I “base coat” a difficult color with their enamel, using the same color, and finish it up with Acrylic. The Acrylic dries faster and harder, and the enamel base coat makes it very hard to “scratch off” especially if you can use an enamel flat for the base.
Since they reformulated to make their acryl to be compatible with their enamels, I swap back-and-forth all the time, but am using the enamels less and less.
In order to help with not “messing up”, I buy my paint brushes at Hobby Lobby when they’re half-off, and keep a complete duplicate set for both enamel and acrylic.
For some reason, the acrylics seem to stain the brushes worse then enamels do.
One in a while I will catch myself dipping my enamel brush in water for cleaning, but with a thorough wipe with a paper towel, it is ready to be put straight back into the enamel brush cleaning chemical.
Tom [C):-)]