What paint brand to use (acrylic)

[tmaci6]

This is my first post here on brimodeller and im fairly new to modelling (just finished a airfix starter) and im getting a 1/48 model soon but im wondering what paint brand to use for acrylic but i dont have an airbrush and will not be getting one soon so what brand is good for brush painting acrylics oh and if you dont mind answering are humbrol brushes good

[Giorgio N]

First of all welcome! I'm sure you will find all the info you need here and also plenty if good people to chat with.

Paint, such a subjective thing... Each modeller has a favorite and each gets good results with paints that others find terrible!

In any case, my favorites for brush painting are Vallejo and Lifecolor. Both are very easy to use, cover well and with them I get no brush streaks. They can be thinned with water and cure fast.

I've also had a good experience with xtracolour but they are not easily available where I live.

Vallejo paints have one small drawback: the range is huge but finding specifically matched paints is not always easy. Lifecolor is great here although some colours are a bit off (others are great). Xtracolour is maybe the best from this point of view.

Keep in mind that having a certain brand if paint easily available can be more important than many other aspects! For example I don't use humbrol acrylics as they're hard to find here but guess if they were I'd be using them.

Last but not least: When using acrylics, always prime the plastic first! Acrylics are often fragile and don't stick well to bare plastic.

[Rick Brown]

Hi and welcome chap!

I'd see what you can source locally first and ask on here how best to handle it.

For brush painting I personally like Vallejo, Tamiya and Xtracrylix.

All can be thinned with W&N flow Improver when needed.

good luck.

Rick.

[Tomjw]

Welcome. I would have to go with Vallejo for brush painting. Boyes stock it locally and it touches up really well afterwards. I have not had good experiences of brush painting with Tamiya acrylics, so I tend to retain those for airbrushing.

Hope this helps.

Tom.

[cruiserguy]

Hi Timaci6,

I use Vallejo and Lifecolor. They brush well, and properly thinned airbrush well with each brand's own thinner own thinners or Ultimate Thinners. Both ranges are extensive, but finding exact matches can be difficult.

Best Wishes,

Will.

[Raven Morpheus]

I will second (or 3rd or 4th?!) Vallejo's range. Until I recently started painting models again I wasn't aware of their existence and I only found them because I had just got an airbrush and wanted an airbrushable out of the pot and cheap (relative to other brands) paint range to use.

Their model air range is what I currently use the most and whilst sourcing "correct" colour match paints can be a pita they are good paints on the whole. Although I've had trouble getting their standard model air yellow (#002 IIRC) to give me a nice smooth clean opaque finish (I did a whole 1/72 Sea King with it and a tail band on another SH-3 and still couldn't get it right) - I think it's too thin and watery out of the bottle to start with! Also some of their paints don't go through my airbrush all that well (possibly the paint still requires thinning, possibly my cheap airbrush).

The best things I find about Vallejo is the bottle allows you to drop a little onto your pallete, nice and easily, the model air range is pre-thinned so ideal for hand brushing and generally good for airbrushing (when they're not too thin, like the aforementioned yellow), all the Vallejo range can be thinned and cleaned out with water and their airbrush cleaner works well for cleaning up over-paint by rubbing it off with a cotton bud (Q Tip) dipped in said cleaner.

I have in the past (and still do sometimes) used Humbrol and Revell acrylics and when painting Games Workshop models (which I did exclusively for about 20 yrs on and off) I exclusively used their Citadel range but apart from having the exact colour matches I can't see any reason now to use them over Vallejo.

I even used Vallejo Model Air paints about 6 months ago to re-paint (by hand apart from base and under coats which were airbrushed on) an old Games Workshop metal Terminator Librarian (from the early 90's!!) and it turned out great (relative to my skillset) and you'd never know I didn't use Citadel paints.

Oh, and one other thing I love about the Vallejo range is that you can buy spare empty Vallejo 17ml bottles at a cheap price to mix paints in. I've got a couple and they'll be very handy if I need to thin down some of their Model colour range for airbrushing.

As someone who for 10-20 years on and off used Citadel paints exclusively, occasionally used Humbrol/Revell acrylics more recently and had never used an airbrush until about a year ago the Vallejo range has been a revelation.

As far as brushes go I've no knowledge of Humbrol brushes but I've seen loads of people recommend Windsor and Newton kolinsky sable brushes. But they're a bit on the expensive side.

Personally I've always used Games Workshop brushes but over the years their quality has been a bit hit or miss, especially in recent years. Currently I'm trying Italeri brushes where I need to do any brush work, and so far their 00 and 000 brushes I have don't seem to be that good (they refuse to hold a point) but I have a size 6 and that's pretty good, although obviously for larger areas, so I'm guessing they're a bit hit and miss on quality also.

In all honesty though I'd invest in an airbrush and a compressor, you can pick up a compressor+airbrush kit for about £70 (on ebay, look for the KMS brand) and learn with the cheapo airbrush (worth about £10 if you need to replace it) which comes with the compressor (which is what I've done this past 12 months) and then at a later date invest in an entry level Harder and Steenbeck (which is what I plan on doing after Xmas) or Iwata equivalent.

I've gotten far better results with the cheapo airbrush that I've got than I would have painting models by hand with a normal brush - especially on larger scale models such as 1/48.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[tmaci6]

Thanks everyone, when i get a bit of money what are some good airbrushes for a beginner i model 1/48 if that makes a difference.

[alan1302]

Thanks everyone, when i get a bit of money what are some good airbrushes for a beginner i model 1/48 if that makes a difference.

Just got a Harder & Steekbeck Ultra - very good quality airbrush for sensible money

[kev67]

Iwata airbrushes in my opinion are the best, easy to clean and very well made, the thing to watch out for is Chinese cheap copies

I have found that Life colour, Citadel paints and Model Air by Vallejo are very good for paint brushing

[Ratch]

I prefer Vallejo paints. As for an airbrush, I have two Iwata, an HPC+ and a Revolution. I also have a cheap Chinese clone that is everything as good as the HPC+ but at 1/10th the price. Not all clones are useless.

[Nigel Heath]

Vallejo paints are specially formulated for brush painting as I think they were originally aimed at figure painters. They can be rather soft though and prone to handling damage and I have had adhesion issues on Alclad primer but still good though. You can't go far wrong with either H & S or Iwata airbrushes.

[Rick Brown]

Iwata and Vallejo all the way!

Yeh!

Oops, too much caffeine.

Rick.

[Roo]

Personally I think that as you are just starting, go for what you can find locally. Everyone will have a different favourite when it comes to paint, and as you progress you will find your own.

I personally like most of the humbrol acrylics for brush painting, although some of the colours do not go down well.

The Revell paints are ok too, but they are a bit thick out of the pot so they need a bit of water to thin them down.

I've also tried tamiya paints, but because they are not water based acrylics it's better to use them as a main colour as I have found they do not like going on top of Revell and humbrol acrylics.

As I tend to buy what is available locally rather than mail order, I've not really tried Vallejo, although a lot of people I know swear by them.

If you want close matched paints I'd say try humbrol, at least for now , as it has a wide range of easily available close match paints. Revell paints have a smaller range and their kits almost always ask for at least one shade to be mixed.

[Giorgio N]

I forgot to add that it may be worth considering italeri acrylics too. These are made by Vallejo and work exactly the same as the latter. There are not many colors in the range but several are matched to fs standard colours