Paint selection

For me, it was prevalence of product. I tried the old Polly S and liked it a lot. But, the shop I frequented never re-stocked it and I gravitated to enamels and lacquers - Model Master and Floquil. Floquil was tremendous paint - I'd love to get more but now that they're gone away, Model Master is the only one left of the ones I commonly used. I've resisted going into yet another range of paint as MM works well for me and I'm at ease with enamels and their thinners. I too, see the gravitation towards acrylics but still prefer enamels for my abilities to control them. My memories of Polly S are that it was finicky to airbrush, even though I got satisfactory results. I know what to expect from MM and Floquil and know the thinning ratios apply to all colors in their ranges. That said, I bought some Tamiya to use as an undercoat for my son's Games Workshop Lord of the Rings figures. I toyed around with it while it was in the airbrush and it behaved very nicely. I'll have to experiment a little more though I'll still stay with enamels and lacquers but my first experience with Tamiya was positive. I've never used Gunze and have never seen it stocked. Polly Scale is widely available as is Model Master Acryl but since I already have heavily invested in Model Master enamels, it's more of familiarity and availablity that I stay with MM.

Frank Kranick

Rich wrote:

I have really only just started scale modelling. I used to use acrylics only for Warhammer which I stopped painting a short while ago when I had no one to play with (aaaaa smallest violin playing just for me :)) Then it was because I found them easier to use with a brush and all the "right" colours were produced by Citadel in acrylic.

Now I have an airbrush and did try acrylics through it but I didn't get on well with them and the airbrush. I then tried enamels thinned with white spirit and they were great through the airbrush and also I found they gave me a much better finish when dry. However then I discovered that brush painting small parts and accessories such as shovels, guns, etc... just wasn't happening for me with enamels. I changed to acrylics for the detailing parts and find them much better leaving no brush marks and drying quickly, etc...

I also used acrylics for weathering/washes as I did back with Warhammer. I found that I was getting unsightly and inaccurate water marks and posted on here. Some people suggested oil paints so I picked up a tube of Raw Sienna and olive green and they turned out to be magic! I had never used oils before and was stunned at the results which could be obtained.

So to conclude I now use oil, enamel and acrylic! :)

I personally prefer enamels because of the adhesion factor - I can use them with zero prep on just about anything and they stick. I haven't read much of the same about acrylics.

And they're what I know, materials-wise...since the fumes/smell have never "bothered" me, I see no reason to change.

I also prefer enamel. Acrylics dry too fast for me. If I do not get my airbrush cleaned in just a couple of minutes, it has clogs that take real work to get rid of. If I get any on my hands, and I do not get it off right away, it is a major pain to get it off.

With enamels, I have ten to fifteen minutes to get airbrush cleaned, even longer- maybe half hour or more, to get hands cleaned.

I do keep a few acrylics on hand, for special colors or effects, but use them rarely.

They do NOT th>

I am very into enamels. I have some quantities of each of the major brands but I largely branched into other lines when Humbrol contracted its line and tried to foist their mixing book on the world. I don't feel like paying for a formula book and all the extra colours that might be needed to produce some of something they used to package.

I do have some acrylics here because they are great for figures. One can blend them whilst still wet on the figure. I made this interesting discovery during the construction of one of Bachmann's 1/1 bird models. The acrylics supplied made for some truly psychedelic birds unless one blends and tones them down. The paints supplied were not, IMHO, as good as the little pills-on-palettes that once accompanied the kits.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

I'm accustomed to using acrylics (particularly Polly Scale, but also Tamiya yellow and white, which are superior to the Polly Scale in terms of opacity) and I've found that while the airbrush can foul fairly quickly, an ad hoc cleaning (not the thorough end-of-session exercise) can be accomplished with water, household ammonia or denatured alcohol in a matter of moments. The fumes and the drying time are both issues, plus I understand the behavior of my chosen paint. That said, I've had occasion to use Testor's, Boyd's and SNJ recently, and I haven't found the fumes to be all that bad. They are a little easier to airbrush since they seem to atomize more easily, but they are a little tougher to clean up after. No matter what I use, the end-of-session is a five minute Diosol session,which gets rid of acrylics, enamels, terrorists--everything. Anything less hot, and my VL will refuse to operaste properly at the next start of session unless I completely dismantle it and clean it again. I'll probably stick mainly to acrylics based on the hundred or so bottles I've got, but the enamels no longer scare me.

Mark Schynert