I’m thinking of switching to Vallejo paints for airbrushing (mostly due to lack of odour and ease of use). However, I mostly build car models, and I’ve noticed their colour selection seems to be mostly geared towards army/millitary modeling. I am used to using Model Master enamels.
Have any of you tried using vallejo paints on car models? If so, how did you find it? How do you find the colour selection vs Model Master? I’m concerned about the lack of gloss paints, are you able to get these paints to really shine like Model Master?
I have used Vallejo twice on cars . Under a good Clear Gloss coat they came out beautiful ! . It’s a shy medium as per colors , But you can learn something about mixing to get the color you want .Something that is valuable for any modeling . T.B.
One of the model clubs I belong to is a model car club, and several of the people in it use the Vallejo paint, with a good clear coat over it.
I personally do not like acrylics, as with enamel I can do a reasonable gloss without clearcoats, which I think is more realistic for the older cars I frequently model. But for customs and more modern cars, the clearcoated ones are nice.
I find car modelers about the most diverse of modelers as far as type of paints. It seems in this area the modelers are about equally split between acrylics, enamels, and lacquers.
Reaper Minatures’ line of acrylic paints, MSP - Master Series Paints, are essentially the same as Vallejo. I have used them interchangeably with Vallejo.
Ignore their goulish names and look at the colors. You won’t find Candy Apple colors but you will find good useable colors. They hand brush well and are thinable to go through an airbrush.
Fortunately a local LHS stocks Vallejo, Reaper, and Andrea. I’m going more toward these paints for many of the reasons you have listed