Mr. Color Acrylic paint--instructions for thinning and cleaning brushes

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

I just got my first order of Mr. Color Acrylic paints for doing a Hasegawa B-24. There seems to be no thinning and cleaning instructions given on the bottles. It’s all Japanese. Since i’m new to this painting medium, can anyone please provide thinning and brush-cleaning instructions for this particular kind of paint??.Thanks so much

2

I’ve used Mr. Color before, both lacquer and acrylic. I used Testors brand for the lacquer and Tamiya X-20A for the water based stuff. It worked fine for me although I’ve heard various “experts” say you should always try to use the same manufacturer’s thinner though it’s not always reasonable given that some of them are difficult to find. Anyway hope that helps; good luck on the Liberator!

3

To be absolutely certain, “Mr Color” paints are lacquer based (Yellow “Mr Color” logo on a blue background with no prefix on the paint number). These are not to be confused with “Mr Hobby” aqueous acrylic paints (which have an “H” prefix on the paint number).

Mr Color paints can be thinned with Mr Color Thinner, Mr Color Levelling Thinner or Tamiya Lacquer Thinner (all three of these types are formulated to be friendly to styrene). It can also be thinned with regular hardware store lacquer thinner, but this can be aggressive to styrene. Given the choice, I would thin with one of the above hobby brands and clean my brushes with the generic lacquer thinner.

Although it’s described as an acrylic paint, it cannot be thinned with (Gunze) Aqueous acrylic thinner,Tamiya X-20A, alcohol or water. Attempting to do so will render the paint a sticky ball of goo.

4

The solvent based Mr. Color can be cleaned up with generic laquer thinner, but it definately works best with its own thinner like Phil stated. The Hobby color aqueous range can be cleaned up the Isopropyl alcohol and windex and thinned with this stuff for best results:

5

I use Mr. Color almost exclusively now. For airbrushing I thin it about 50/50 with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner. Can’t go wrong here since it provides nice smooth finishes on the model.

I clean my brushes with lacquer thinner from the Home Depot…Kleen Strip brand I think. Keep in mind, though, that Mr. Color paint doesn’t really brush that well. It dries very quickly giving you little time.