well, you've just encountered the biggest pain when it comes to painting with acrylics

This' also the reason why its a good idea to prime your model first before painting, so that its easier for the paint to stick. Try getting yourself a can of the Mr Surfacer to prime your kit first.

Then, the other thing to remember about acrylic painting is that you'll need to apply the paint in multiple thin coats. The first coat is to just cover the piece that you're painting. It don't matter if you can see through the first coat to the plastic or the primer under it, as you'll fix that up on the 2nd coat.

Basically, its all about patience lar

And for the small parts, use a small brush lor

now, this I cant really help you with. Chriswoo will be better as he's hand painted using lacquers, while I've only done hand painting using acrylics, and only used lacquers for airbrushing.

The washing away of the bottom layers does not happen with acrylics, as wet acrylics does not dissolve acrylics that's already dried.

u got 2 choices, either using zippo lighter fluid, or turpentine.

if you're using enamels for lining work, then i suggest getting both. use zippo fluid to do the thinning (dries faster), then turpentine for the cleanups (turpentine's cheaper, but dries slower)

say.. r u using enamels or lacquers? enamel paint costs a bomb, and is usually used for lining work only. can u post a pic of the paint bottle?

Aunty Lenny's shop at Endah Parade has them, but not that many variety of colors, as most ppl tend to use them only for lining work.

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Added on January 20, 2008, 3:13 pmhmm.. think its a better idea if u can post a pic of the bottle for us to see.

This post has been edited by fyire: Jan 20 2008, 03:13 PM

u dont need a dedicated ventilator really. being a bit imaginative tends to help a lot

grab a fan, blow it out the window, and do your spraying work behind the fan. not as effective, but should handle most of the fumes already

Aunty Lenny sells for RM5.80 per pot for Mr. Color. XL goes for Rm5.90 I think

This will depend a lot on what you're painting too actually.

What I find is that acrylics r the best when it comes to small detailed paintings (such as those warhammer miniatures and so on). However for larger surfaces or models such as gundams, its not really that suitable, due to the moving parts (acrylic paints scratches off easier too).

As for control, it also depends on the type of acrylics you're using. There's different types of acrylics. Tamiya tends to be faster drying and therefore harder to control. Citadel or Vallejo tends to be slower drying and much much thicker (thus giving u better allowance when it comes to thinning) and the control on those r fantastic!

Cant really comment on the control of lacquer though, as I've only use lacquers for airbrushing, not hand painting.

According to here: http://www.naritafamily.com/howto/howtoindex.htm (look in the one for the Tiger tanks), he basically scrapped off the pastel into a small holding area, then added tamiya acrylic thinner to it.

Tamiya acrylic thinner can be replaced with isopropyl or Methylated spirits with some acrylic retarder added to it.

I've not used that approach before, but what I've done is to take Tamiya acrylics of the color that I want, then added talcum powder into it, which gives more or less the same sort of textured finishing.

For those who uses acrylic paints, here's an interesting article on cheap retarders

http://www.paintingclinic.com/clinic/guest...es/retarder.htm

The trick to getting a smooth surface using acrylics is to prevent the paint from drying too fast. Your thinning ratio needs to be just right so that the paint does not run too much, but still allows for the brush marks to smooth itself over before drying.

Its pretty much different types of skills that comes into play actually, and also depends on what sort of model you're doing up too.

An example will be something like this one here:



I did the priming and the initial coat of black using an airbrush, but there's totally no way you'll be able to do the rest of the paint job using an airbrush, considering that the model's only like 25mm tall from head to toe.

edit: speaking of that model, I'm currently planning on how to mod a zaku to look like one of those Warhammer Space Marine chaplains.

Acrylics is recommended to be applied in multiple layers, but not because its thin, but because its thick. because of the thickness, you'll need to have it thinned down and applied in thin layers to prevent the paint from building up too thick.

This post has been edited by fyire: Feb 8 2008, 07:18 PM

A Nurgle PlagueMarine will be the easiest to mod to Just heat up the armor plates until its all mishappened and lumpy. Pad the stomach area to make it look more bloated, then paint it to look like its got all sort of diseases dripping off the skin Not much precision work needed too, but despite the accuracy of portraying a plaguemarine, it'll still make one hell of a too ugly model for me to wanna keep in my room

Still pondering on which is more suitable for modding though, a Zaku or a Gouf. And wondering also on how a mono-eyed marine chaplain will look.

just to add, Mr Surfacer from the bottle does work very well as a liquid putty to be brushed on, then sanded. Just remember not to use it as a brush on primer.

For 3) Acrylics are water based, so you don't thin using normal thinner. What that's recommended for thinning acrylics depends on the type of acrylics actually. I normally use a mix of water + alcohol, but water alone should be alright. For the ratio, it depends a lot not only on the brand of the paint, but also on the color. Start off with a 1:1 ratio, and test out on a piece of scrap plastic first, then adjust accordingly for each color.

Also, remember that for acrylics, you're supposed to apply multiple thin coats. The first coat is to be thin enough that you can still see through it, to avoid too much buildup of paint.

As for whether acrylics r better for hand painting or not, I cant really comment on this one, as different ppl may have different preferences. Acrylics has got the advantages of being more forgiving should you mess up, and need to remove the paint and redo, but lacquers tends to give a finishing that's less prone to scratching.

Something to add to the paint to give it a better finishing? That's likely to be retarder I think, but the smooth finishing that it provides is not what I'm referring to here.

Ok, I'll start from the basics. For hand painting, you've got 2 types of unevenness to worry about. One is to do with brush marks, where you'll see marks on the plastic from the brush. This is the result of the paint drying too fast. With slower drying paint, the brush marks (which cannot be fully avoided) will have the chance to settle down and meld away before the paint dries. This is where the retarder comes in. Whether the retarder is needed or not will depend on the paint, and also how you mix it, so again, you'll need to experiment a bit on this one.

The 2nd type of unevenness is to do with too much buildup of paint. Acrylics by default is rather thick (hence the need to thin it down properly). Having the paint too thick will result in 2 main problems:
- prevent moving parts from moving properly. this is especially obvious for something like a PG, that has got plenty of moving parts
- tends to scratch off easier when parts rub against each other

So hence you'll need to thin down the paint properly, so that it can still run off the brush smoothly, but thick enough to cover the area that you're painting.

Normally I would use up to 3 coats when handpainting using acrylics. The first coat will be pretty much still see through. The 2nd coat will cover fully, then the 3rd coat will the finishing coat.

Well, one gives u a gloss finishing, one gives you a flat finishing, and one gives u a finishing that's halfway between the other 2

hehe.. couldnt resist that one.

Anyways, gloss is basically a shiny finish, while flat is well, flat. Semi-gloss is in between. As for which one is better, there isnt really one that's better, as it depends on the individual's preference on what sort of finishing they would prefer.

It depends a lot on the brand of the paint too. Take the Tamiya lacquer varnish for example, drying time is about 10 minutes, but it may take up to 4 hours or so to properly cure.

Meaning, its safe to touch it after 10 minutes, but the varnish will not fully harden for another 4 hours, and may scratch easily before curing.

removing the scratch then repainting's easy. However the toughest part is trying to get the color to be exactly the same.

Can actually. I was trying out Tamiya's lacquer varnish. After you let it be for a day for it to fully cure, the surface formed is amazingly tough.

I normally do my test spraying on a piece of plastic taken from my old notebook, where I usually will sand off the paint again to reuse the same piece of plastic for further test spraying. I had hell of a time sanding through the Tamiya varnish.