What colors would be recommended for German and US WWII AFV’s?
Could you not go to a art store and buy pastel sticks and shave them with a scalpel blade and it would be the same thing?
no it really wouldn’t I’d recommend buying paints that are made specifically to suit the colours that you need. Trying to match these paints with “hobby store” brands may seem like the best thing, but really wont help your modelling! Don’t try to take the cheaper way out, trust me, from my own experience you’ll be unhappy in the end! A jar of Model Master, or Tamiya or Floquil, Humbrol… whatever, will make the experience more enjoyable in the end!
He is asking if art store pastel chalks are the same as commercially available, hobby pigment sets. Not about using paint from an art store.
The answer is yes. All they have done is taken the same pastel chalks you can get at art stores and ground them up, renamed them, jacked up the price, and marketed them to modelers. I have been doing exactly what you describe with art store pastels for years. It works great and is super cheap. Make sure you get the chalk pastels though. They also come in oil based pastels that are like crayons. They look almost the same in the package.
For colors, I would get some basic ones. Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, Middlestone (sand-colored), a few shades of gray and brown, black , and white. From these, you can pretty much mix any color you want and get any shade needed for weathering.
Good luck.
You know, I’ve used both ground-up chalk and the Migs Pigs, and the Migs Pigs really do seem to be more than just pastels ground up. Can’t quite say what it is, but there is something about them that’s different. The adhere and shade a bit differently from what I make on my own.
I have used both the expensive mig powders and also ground up my own powders using a electric coffee bean grinder to make a fine powder of the pastel chalks. I have had good results with the finely ground pastel chalks I’ve made, but I’m still in the learning stages. What I have done is use the Mig powders as a guide for blending up my own colors. Kind of an expensive way to learn but it’s working for me. Semper Fi, Mike
Weathering pigments (MMP, MIG) are not simply ground-up pastel sticks.
The MMP and MIG pigments are just that, artist’s pigments. This is what paint companies mix with a carrier to get paint, period.
These powders contain a bonding agent that allows them to adhere to the surface, just like paint…what is left when the water/alcohol carrier evaporates away from the paint? You got it…a level, thick (in comparison to applying it dry) coat of pigment.
I still use pastels, they’re great for most applications. I have a complete set of MMP powders and find them wonderful to work with. They’re more resilient than pastels, and they don’t tend to ‘disappear’ when you apply a clear-coat over them. I’ve also found them great when sprayed through an airbrush (mixed with rubbing alcohol), as they provide uniform coverage that can be dinged up later on…
As for specific colors…both MMP and MIG have colors that represent faded versions of a paint color…faded Olive Drab, faded Panzer gray, faded Russian armor green. Most other colors, dunkelgelb, raut-braun, and olivegrun, can be ‘faded’ by using one of the earth tone colors they have for weathering.
Are they a requirement? Absolutely not…we’ve gotten by just fine without them for decades. Will they improve the models? I think so…
Jeff
THe MP pigments are just paint pigments, minus the medium, so they do adhere a little better than the ground up chalks, but in my personal opinion, are no better or worse, as far as end results are concerned. You do obviously get the convenience of them allready being ground up and whatever, but IMO they’re not worth the extraordinary price that they ask for them. I can’t even find an LHS that carries them.
I went to an art supply store a couple of weeks ago, and got a set of earth tones chalk pastels for less than $15 CAD. There are all sorts of shades, about 12 to 15 in total, can’t remember the exact number, from light beige, to deep browns, and reds and oranges for the rust in between, plus black and white. This was money well spent for me, as had I wanted to get that same number of shades in pigment form, I’d have paid more than $50.
http://www.dickblick.com/zz029/59/
Here’s is what I use now. Really nice stuff and you get a ton of it.
I agree, the Gamblin pigments are very nice…I have slowly started to replace my MMP powders with them…I tend to use alot of lighter earth tones, so these make sense.
Jeff