So, recently I bought six or seven colors of Vallejo Model Color acrylics to experiment with. I’d heard they were good paints, especially for figures, and my Model Master acrylics really don’t brush well unless I put two or three coats on, with a clear coat between each.
I’ve been painting some 1/48 and 1/24 figures with these Vallejo paints, and as they dry I’ve found that little specks of primer show through, almost as if a bubble in the paint was laid down, then dried. I swear–I SWEAR–I’ve covered the figure thoroughly. But, after 20 minutes or half an hour, the little specks appear as if I’m missed a spot.
Anybody got a thought as to what’s going on? Almost sorry I bought these.
I don’t have a lot of experience with Vallejo paints yet (I have some coming to experiment with), but in other paints this problem is usually caused by either surface contamination or small specks of oil or water in the air line. Try wiping down the primer with a clean soft towel - washed out old t-shirts are good for this, and a cleaner compatible with your paint. I’ve used denatured alcohol in the past with success, but again, test before using it on your model. Testors makes a product called plastic prep which I read works well too. Also, if you don’t have a moisture and dirt trap in your air supply line that is a good idea too. Good luck!
No thinner–straight out of the bottle. And yep, brush painting. Kurt might be on to something with the idea about debris on the surface. Two of the figures were highly modified to create zombies. Maybe the other two were contaminated as well with particulate matter stuck to them. Hmm.
Chris, I use Vallejo quite a bit, and never had that problem. Are you painting over resin? If so, maybe the resin wasn’t properly mixed or cured. It’s possible for resin to “weep” oil if it wasn’t mixed or cured properly. If so, primer and paint will never stick until you deal with that problem. If the pieces aren’t resin, I’d have to guess maybe they are contaminated with something. Maybe they were too close to something you were spraying and they got hit with some high gloss overspray or splattered by something you spilled. Any chance of those? Barrett
They’re all styrene figures, Barrett. I’m familiar with resin’s issues, but we can eliminate that here. I’m thinking yeah, some sort of contamination must be likely. I put a 2nd coat over most of the trouble spots today, and so far it seems to have cleared up. I’ll keep an eye on them the next day or two to make sure.