Humbrol and Revell Acrylic Paints - some musings and incantations

[AdrianMF]

Well over the weekend I finally put all my enamels (100+!) into a big tin in the garage. That tin will be making an appearance on Ebay shortly...

I have just topped up my acrylics collection with some purchases from Hamleys (pretty much the only model supplier in central London). And when I say "topped up" I mean trebled...

I use Humbrol with some Revell and Games Workshop paints, and I have a load. So I needed to work out what I've got, painted on my Airfix Ju88 and phtographed in decidedly non-sunny daylight:

Hxxx is Humbrol, Rxxx is Revell and (xxx) is the RLM number.

The first thing I noted is how different some of the acrylic colours are from the enamels - for instance H66 is more grey than olive, and H117 is much darker than its equivalent enamel - I presume this is by design. H154, which is a superb deep yellow enamel, is a sticky barely translucent mess (inboard end of port aileron) whereas H24 covers pretty well in a couple of coats - quality control problem? The new tins with the screw top lids seem to offer a consistent quality - the old pots with the flip top lids are almost always half full of over thick paint, and I refuse to buy them any more (I am hoping there will be new stock in the new pots).

White is always a problem, but I am now using either Games Workshop or "Crafters Pick" white acrylics, which seem to cover much better.

My "go to" DG/DE/Sky (inboard port wing) is H116/H29/H90. Revell offer R68/R82 for green and brown, which seems too bright but maybe I'm not used to it. For DG/OG/MSG I use H116/H106/H64. R79 might make a better Ocean Grey because it's bluer.

Desert stone/earth seems to be nicely covered by H225/H29. For Azure Blue I used a mix of 6 H34 white to 1 H24 blue in enamel land...

For TSS EDSG/Dark Slate Grey (inboard stbd wing) I think H79/R67 looks good - previously I've been mixing my own Dark Slate Grey. For the lighter shades, H27/H224 seems to hit the spot, R79 looking a little too blue.

For US OD/Grey I guess H155 is my best option, H66 and H86 (which I used to use in enamels) don't look right. For the Grey I used a mix of H24 white and H27 Dark Sea Grey in enamel land. For US navy I think H104 with H79 would work over white.

For RLM 70/71/65 I will use H241/H242/H65, although the contrast between 70 and 71 is very low - maybe I need a touch of black in the 70? I think the modern trend is to have a higher contrast between 70 and 71 than is realistic, although I don't know how they weather relative to each other. RLM 72 and 73 look like great colours and it might be the perfect excuse to crack open the Airfix Arado 196 to try them out!

H150 is not available as an acrylic so I will have to re-think my early war Soviet colour schemes, and I have still to try and work out how to apply these colours to Italian WWII colours.

Now that I can see them all in one place, I can mix and match. The port tailplane is done in H241/H117/H249 and seems to be a good match for US in Vietnam colours!

Hope this is helpful to someone. I know a lot of you use Vallejo or other brands but I tend to stick to the devil I know!!

Regards,

Adrian

[David Womby]

That's very useful info.. Thanks

David

[Graham Boak]

By the "over-thick paint" you mean the old good quality stuff that works so well with brushes rather than the thin weak rubbish we get now? (Forgive slight exaggeration!) The different perspective of an airbrush user - you could always just thin the original, and get more paint for your money!

70/71 does fade to give a greater contrast than when new: you can see this in many b&w pictures.

Edited June 3, 2015 by Graham Boak

[Marvel Onkey]

"...the old pots with the flip top lids are almost always half full of over thick paint..." It's not just me then.

I've picked up one or two Humbrol acrylics and found the pots half full of sludge, but I wasn't sure what I should be expecting. They aren't great for a novice brush painter although things have looked up since I discovered flow improver.

I wondered if it was because my LHS doesn't turn its stock over very quickly so they were going gunky with age, but perhaps the cause lies within the pot instead.

I've been building Airfix starter kits, and the acrylic paint that comes with them (which I assume to be Humbrol, it has the same paint chart numbers) is much runnier, but suffers from a grainyness that also makes a smooth finish difficult to achieve.

Either way I've taken to buying Vallejo as it seems to 'work' straight out of the pot. I have a hankering to try brush painting Vallejo Air as I'm thinking it is coming pre-thinned which will save me thinning it for multiple thin coats.

Cheers

A

[AdrianMF]

By the "over-thick paint" you mean the old good quality stuff that works so well with brushes rather than the thin weak rubbish we get now? (Forgive slight exaggeration!) The different perspective of an airbrush user - you could always just thin the original, and get more paint for your money!

70/71 does fade to give a greater contrast than when new: you can see this in many b&w pictures.

I've found the flip-top-lid paint to be glutinous and on occasion completely dried straight from the shop, so I think there may have been a problem with container design rather than the paint itself. As a brush painter myself, I've found all the acrylics (H154 excepted) to be very opaque and brushable (diluted a fraction with slightly soapy water). I couldn't brush the new enamels or get them to cover, hence my move across; once I got used to the way acrylic dries and how to use the brush to work with it I am now converted.

Doing that many different adjacent patches with multiple coats of enamels would have taken me a week!

70/71 - I guess the Airfix colours represent "factory fresh".

Regards,

Adrian

[charlie_c67]

Be careful with GW paints, there are multiple ranges within which have different consistencies and finishes. For instance, their "base" range has a Matt, slightly chalky, finish to it. I assume this is to help the other layers of paint take hold better.

[Knight_Flyer]

I've been having a bit of trouble with Humbrol new enamels as well. Luckily I still have a lot of old tins and will continue using them until they run out. However I have been looking at acrylics and tried Tamiya but it didn't appear to like being brush painted. I did find an posting saying Tamiya is only really suited for air brushing. I'm going to try Revell next as another poster said it was quite good for brush painting.

[Nick Millman]

You can brush paint Tamiya fine if you add a few drops of acrylic retarder to it. You need to decant the paint you are going to use and the retarder can be bought in most art shops. I use Liquitex Slo-Dri Fluid Retarder but there are other brands too.

I've probably mentioned this a dozen times but it seems people only find the comments that Tamiya can't be brush painted easily and so that idea goes on and on and on.

Nick

[PFlint]

personally , I think it is what Tamiya uses as a flattening agent.

I have used the gloss paints right out of the jar with a paint brush with no ill effects.

the flat paints(even with a 50/50 mix of thinner) create these little bee-bees and lots of streaks and spots that it doesn't cover.

this problem seems to be alleviated when you airbrush it.

for brush-painting I use :

Pactra A-series acrylics

Pollyscale

Aeromaster Warbird Acrylics

Testors Acryl

and even some Liquitex artist acrylics.

[Knight_Flyer]

You can brush paint Tamiya fine if you add a few drops of acrylic retarder to it. You need to decant the paint you are going to use and the retarder can be bought in most art shops. I use Liquitex Slo-Dri Fluid Retarder but there are other brands too.

I've probably mentioned this a dozen times but it seems people only find the comments that Tamiya can't be brush painted easily and so that idea goes on and on and on.

Nick

Thanks Nick, I'll try that and see how it goes.