Search the Community

Hi fellow modellers. I have just used Future as a gloss coat for the first time. I normally use Enamel or Lacquer glosscoats that I would weather easily with acrylic/water based washes and chalk/pastel water sludges My question now is this...... With Future being acrylic .........what are my choices now for weathering????? Can I still use watered down acrylics or will that soften/remove the Future coat? Should I now used thinned enamels or oils for washes and panel lines. But what do I thin them with and clean them up with?? What about the pre-made stuff like Flory or Tamiya washes? Are they suitable for using on a Klear topcoat??? if so what can you safely clean them off with? I understand you shouldn't use ammonia based anything on Future to clean up (I believe) but is Isopropyl Alcohol or Methylated spirits okay. Is MicroSol and Micro Set still okay for settling decals that have been applied on a Future gloss coat Can you use water to clean up at all on a dried Furture Top coat or is that just not on. Any list of fluids/materials/thinning agents/weathering agents/solvents/aftermarket or specialist products etc that can be used safely for weathering and panel line highlights on a Future gloss coat would be greatly appreciated. Happy modelling everyone! Cheers Bruce

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

Some time ago I settled on Vallejo and find I'm fairly competent at airbrushing both Air and Model colour through my Iwatas; I prefer Air, but if I thin the Model Color with plain water and a drop or two of artists flow enhancer, it goes on OK. For the first time, I just tried some Vallejo fluorescent stuff, and couldn't make it work. Even adding more water and half a dozen drops of flow enhancer failed to prevent it from clogging up very quickly. And what gets onto the model is very thin, watery, feeble stuff. Is there a special technique? I wanted to use an Airfix aerosol fluo colour but blasted Antics in Bristol were out of stock yesterday... Thanks, Tony

Luftwaffe Colours 2 AK Interactive Paints can be a very personal item to the modeller who can and will stick with one particular manufacturer or at the very least a specific type. The choice of paint in the current market is huge. Well, now there is another set of acrylic paints to choose from, released by AK Interactive, who are probably better known for their weathering products and are also increasing their line of paint. The set comes in an end opening box, with the 17ml plastic bottles contained in a plastic tray inside. This set has been designed for German aircraft, and contains eight Luftwaffe colours, RLM 72 RLM 73 RLM 78 RLM 79 RLM 80 RLM 81 RLM 82 RLM 83 According to the blurb on the bottles they can be both brushed or airbrushed which please a lot of modellers. Once the bottles have been shaken very well colour density looks pretty good, and if they are anything like their armour colours they spray and cover well. Although I haven’t used them with a brush, I cannot see why you shouldn’t be able to get a good finish with them. On the back of the box there is a useful colour chart of which colours go together and depict six aircraft in various schemes. These being two desert schemes for the Me-109, one for an F and one for a G, one scheme for the Arado Ar-196, one for the Junker Ju-52, (the float equipped version being shown), one for the Arado Ar-234 and one scheme for the Fw-190D. Also included in the package AK interactive sent to us were two bottles of thinners. The standard thinners, in a 60ml bottle is specifically for thinning the paints when using an airbrush and, according to the information on the side of the bottle has been designed to prevent clogging and jamming. The second bottle contains 100ml of what AK Interactive call their Nitro Thinners, a nitrocellulose based thinners which can be used with, again, according to the information on the bottle ,any other brand of acrylic paint. It can also be used to clean brushes and air brushes after use. How well either of these thinners works will only be known when I use them, which will probably be on my next build. After which I will be able amend this review accordingly Conclusion This is another set of very useful and well thought out selection of paint colours. The ease of use I’ve had with their previous paints should mean that when I get to use them the results will be just as pleasing. Since my next build will be for a review, it will be good to try these products at the same time. Highly recommended, subject to testing Paint set Thinners Nitro Thinners Review sample courtesy of

I purchased a set of testors acrylic paints a while back. I have used one of the paints - Metallic Silver with code number of 1921575 on my klatest build. I am just about to run out, and can't seem to find this paint as an individual pot. I can only find it in the set, which of course, is about $14, and I haven't touched most of the other colors in the set, so I am going to end up with duplicate colors that will never get used. Does anyone know if Testors offer this particular silver in any other format?

Last week, I got my hands on some "artists" acrylics. According to the label they are water based. I am doing a custom mix for my build and just mixed up a new batch of pseudo silver - the color looked great. Now the issue! As it comes out of the bottle/tube, it's far too thick to airbrush. I added IPA to thin the mixture down and what do you know, the mix turned into some kind of gloopy plasticky mess. So I tried a little experimenting: Artist Acrylic + IPA = gloopy plasticky mess Artist Acrylic + Acetone = another, but different gloopy plasticky mess Artist Acrylic + water = a solution which appears to thin down nicely without too much issue. Artist Acrylic + Alclad thinner = almost no mixing at all My question is: Is it okay to use standard H2O as a thinning medium when airbrushing? I am worried that it will not evaporate fast enough when airbrushing and I will end up with runs, or some other issues. Does anyone else use water as a thinning medium when airbrushing? Any advise?

Having recently returned to model building after many years I'm very interested in the advances that have been made in detailing and finishing of kits. In the painting arena I'm taken with the whole idea of the oil wash to bring out detail but can't shake off the art and decorating training that says oil and water-based paints don't like each other much. In particularly I'm intrigued by the order in which one applies the oil wash to a model. It seems that many people add this wash after decalling but do you then go on to apply a finish coat, say a matt one, after the wash? If the paints are acrylic and the final coat is acrylic how does it react with the oil? My knowledge of paints says that acrylic should not be applied over oil. What do you do? Perhaps the thinning of the oil prevents it being too sticky and most of it is in the panel lines etc but it seems to me any residue will undermine a topcoat that is water-based. What's the general experience in the application order of the finishing coats? Cheers.

I'm flitting between enamels & acrylics as I get more into my airbrush. I've been using rattle can cleaner, which seems to strip everything (including dissolving the nitrile disposable gloves I was wearing!) but I've got some Vallejo airbrush cleaner on order. Will this work if I switch back to enamel, as I did this afternoon? Thx & happy Christmas one & all Andrew

Wall Hanging Paint Rack (Acrylic) Sphere Products We've known about Sphere for a while, and their MDF racks and fittings have been reviewed here before. Their engineering is very nice, and they work just like they're supposed to. Jon Page let me have one of their newer products, which has made a jump from sheet MDF to crystal clear Acrylic, which to me adds a great deal of class to their products. The racks can be configured as you like it to fit your chosen paint pots, from Gunze through Humbrol to Xtracrylix, and it's the latter that he let me have for review. The racks are provided in kit form from the factory to reduce postage, and mine arrived in a recycled box wrapped carefully and ensconced within a thick gauge Ziploc bag with two further bags within to protect the small parts from the large and vice versa. In the bag were three large pieces of acrylic with their protective peel-off sheet still attached on one side, packed in a way that naked acrylic doesn't rub together. In one of the smaller bags were a pair of notched uprights, and in the other, the hardware to lock the parts together, including a little Allen key to ensure you don't have to scrabble round your toolbox looking for the right one. That immediately scored brownie points with me. One large sheet is decked out with two slots at the narrow ends, with a pair of lugs cut out from the top to accommodate the screws needed to attach them to the wall. The other two parts have the same slots, plus 66 paint-pot sized holes in them, cut at a very slight angle so that they line up and hold the paint at a slight upward tilt to stop them sliding out. The end pieces have the tabs that slide into the long slots, plus some complex little grooves that accommodate the bolts and retain the nuts that pull everything together. The hardware consists of eight dome topped Allen bolts, eight washers, and eight nuts, all M3 sized, in case you need replacements. Construction is simple. Peel off the protective layer, place the clear sheet at the back, and drop the holy sheet without the logo on top of it, ensuring the holes are pointing up toward the fixing lugs. The slide the long tabs on the end pieces into the slots, securing them with a nut/washer/long bolt combination from the back. Then drop the remaining sheet onto the tabs, with the logo at the back, so the words are readable. Secure that with the remaining shorter bolt/washer/nut combination, and ensure it's all tightened up with your free Allen key. That's it! You've done it. All you need to do is place the rack level on your wall, mark two Xs and drill/plug or drywall bolt it onto your wall. My workshop walls are chipboard, so it was a piece of cake for me. You'll notice from the photos that I've written the paint codes on the bottle tops to help me find the correct bottle, as that's the one downside of these racks. Get yourself a fine permanent marker and you're ok though. Conclusion The acrylic is beautifully finished, with all sides polished to a high sheen. The design is very clever, and the resulting paint rack is an incredibly space-conscious way of storing your paint on the wall. My rack is less than a quarter of the size that it used to be, and all my doubles are now in a small box somewhere out of the way. The one drawback? I think I have the full range of Xtracrylix, and there are perhaps another 24+ paints from the Armour range that won't be in this new rack. If it had enough holes for the full range, it would be just about perfect. My thanks to Jon for providing us with the sample, and for including my new 000 Windsor & Newton Series 7 brush in the package to save me postage. Very highly recommended Review sample courtesy of

What are appropriate colors to use for painting those camouflaged Cold War-era MiG-23s in straight-up Soviet service? I am not a good paint mixer (as I am an excellent paint spiller), and I really only use acrylics, so "close enough" is probably fine. I see Testors/Polly (easily available here in the land of milk and honey that is northern Illinois) have some Soviet aircraft colors (Soviet Green, Soviet Khaki, Soviet Sand), but are these what I need?

Help! My Spit Va was coming on nicely. I was losing my fear of the spray gun and somehow worked out the consistency of mixing Tamiya acrylics with X-20A. Then DISASTER! I wanted to seal the underside which I had panted with XF-21. I sprayed a light coat of Plasti-kote Super MATT. The "Sky Green" now looks wrong and blotchy??? I have a tin of Plasti-kote Super - should I have used this. Everyone talks about using Johnson's Polish but as we all know you can't buy it in the UK. Life was easy when I worked in enamels as a boy. Sigh. A tin of Paint also lasted longer. My first attempt at spray painting was a disaster. I thinned the paint too much. Thank goodness for Tesco's Everyday Cleaner. I was able to start again. Now on my second bottle of Tamiya things were looking up until I sealed it. By the way. Working in 1/48 how long should a bottle of paint last if its a main colour. Yes I know that there are lots of variables, but some rule of thumb would be nice. BUILD GRINNDED TO A HALT – PLEASE HELP Thanks