AK Interactive Paints

[GazB]

What's the general consensus on AK Interactive paints? Not the Real Color line but the dropper bottle ones. Do they behave exactly the same as the Mig Ammo, or are they slightly different? Reason I ask is I'm eyeing their woodland camouflage figure set, but don't want to spend that amount if they're going to be a bit dodgy. I've heard stories about the paints being lumpy or clogging, but this was from a few years ago. I once picked up a few Vallejo paints and they were horrendous. 

 

With the Mig Ammo paints I tend to put a few drops of Ultimate Thinners in the cup to improve the flow, and I would reason the same goes for AKI. I watched an official AK video showing their paints in action, but while they worked flawlessly, you do wondered how true it is given that its the company channel.

 

Any clarity on the matter would be appreciated

 

Cheers,

Gaz

[Andy Moore]

I personally wouldn't touch them with a barge pole Gaz, although others seem to get on okay with them. Compared to AMMO, they have a very low colour density and it's much harder to build up a solid finish. AMMO paints are far more versatile too. You can mix them with Tamiya and Gunze, and thin them with lacquer thinner with no problems. You can't really do that with the AK acrylics, or not as easily anyway.

 

The Real Color range is a different matter though. In my (admittedly limited) experience with them, they're just as good as Tamiya or Gunze, and can be mixed with those and AMMO too.

 

I'm surprised you had any issues with Vallejo though. I've always found them to be excellent. I mainly use them for brush painting, although they airbrush fine too if you add a little drying retarder to the mix.

 

Andy

[fewr9fkr9595]

No major problems with Ak acrylics here, a couple completed builds on this forum with their AK air range. They are a bit soft so handle with care untill you start glossing ready for decals. Although perhaps not necessary if you are planning on doing figures ie the woodland set? 

 

Builds and wips are a 1/72 vf101 tomcat and a 1/72 He-111. 

 

Tony

[GazB]

5 hours ago, AndyRM101 said:

I personally wouldn't touch them with a barge pole Gaz, although others seem to get on okay with them. Compared to AMMO, they have a very low colour density and it's much harder to build up a solid finish. AMMO paints are far more versatile too. You can mix them with Tamiya and Gunze, and thin them with lacquer thinner with no problems. You can't really do that with the AK acrylics, or not as easily anyway.

 

The Real Color range is a different matter though. In my (admittedly limited) experience with them, they're just as good as Tamiya or Gunze, and can be mixed with those and AMMO too.

 

I'm surprised you had any issues with Vallejo though. I've always found them to be excellent. I mainly use them for brush painting, although they airbrush fine too if you add a little drying retarder to the mix.

 

Andy

Very peculiar. I guess Mig went with a different formula when he went solo. I didn't know Mig Ammo could be mixed with Tamiya and Gunze, though

 

I've heard good things about the Real Color range. I got two sets of them, haven't yet used, but I figured they'd work like Tamiya/Gunze. A guy I watch introduced me to how to thin the whole bottle of Tamiya/Gunze and he did a review with Real Color thinning them in the same way (more or less topping up the bottle with thinner). Performance wise they were virtually identical, they just dried a bit quicker.

 

I have a single Model Air colour, which was weird to spray. Really thin, crackly coverage. I also got a couple of the normal model colours, and even after putting some thinner in, it was like mud. I got a bit peeved as well because a guide for painting ACU pattern in what looked very realistic suggested three colours from Vallejo. Upon buying those colours, I discovered they were nowhere near the shades depicted in the guide, even if you mixed them, which the guide didn't mention. Instead of being greyish, the whole thing would've been dark and brown. Tbh every instructional guide for ACU makes it too green. I think I stumbled across a fairly good method for it, laying down a coat of buff, spraying some fairly tight lines of dark grey and then picking out the patterns with more buff, plus a mix of field grey and other greys.

3 hours ago, Tony Oliver said:

No major problems with Ak acrylics here, a couple completed builds on this forum with their AK air range. They are a bit soft so handle with care untill you start glossing ready for decals. Although perhaps not necessary if you are planning on doing figures ie the woodland set? 

 

Builds and wips are a 1/72 vf101 tomcat and a 1/72 He-111. 

 

Tony

I think that if I got the woodland set, I'd only be spraying down two base colours. Of the suggested patterns its the Multicam and Russian one that most interested me. Multicam I have done myself with mixed paints, and still have some of the mixed left over. The Russian one though was problematic for colour choice. I have the Zvezda kit with the modern Russian soldiers and was struggling to think what colours to use. I tend to do the patterns by hand, so perhaps that might be better than spraying?

 

Thanks for the replies, guys

 

Gaz

[little-cars]

We sell a lot of Mig Ammo paints, no problems, just use their thinner and retarder and you shouldn't have a problem. 

 

Paul

[GazB]

44 minutes ago, little-cars said:

We sell a lot of Mig Ammo paints, no problems, just use their thinner and retarder and you shouldn't have a problem. 

 

Paul

Mig Ammo has worked fine for me, no problems

 

Just didn't have any experienced with AKI paints

 

Gaz