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Humbrol Acrylic Paint Humbrol Humbrol is a brand name synonymous with scale modelling. With a long and rich history in the hobby, there won’t be many British modellers who have never prised open a tin of their enamel paint, squeezed a tube of their polystyrene cement or dipped one of their paint brushes in a tin of their thinners. Their history is intertwined with that of another iconic brand too – Airfix. Humbrol have had a range of acrylic paints available alongside their long-standing enamel paint range for some time. Now that they have moved most of their manufacturing back to the UK, it seems a good time to take a look at some of them. Humbrol have sent a box containing a sample of acrylics in 14ml plastic pots. The following colours were inside: 9 – Tan (gloss) 12 – Copper (metallic) 18 – Orange (gloss) 20 – Crimson (gloss) 38 – Lime (gloss) 52 – Baltic Blue (metallic) 67 – Tank Grey (matt) 86 – Light Olive (matt) 94 – Brown Yellow (matt) 155 – Olive Drab (matt) 191 – Chrome Silver (metallic) 237 – Desert Tan (matt) 238 – Arrow Red (gloss) 239 – British Racing Green (gloss) Humbrol acrylics are water based, which makes them easy to use indoors where the odour of enamel paints and associated thinners can be a problem. The 12ml pots are nicely designed, and it’s possible to remove the screw-top lids and access the paints without spilling the contents everywhere. Once opened, they can be brush painted or airbrushed, and can be thinned with water or isopropyl alcohol. The paint is reasonably thick though, so a minute or so invested in stirring the contents will be well spent. I’m a fairly dedicated user of acrylic paints already, although Tamiya and Mr Colour are my favoured brands. That said, Tamiya’s range is far from comprehensive and Mr Colour is hard to get hold of in the UK, so I’m always open to the possibilities offered by different brands. I tried spraying this Humbrol acrylic with my Iwata Revolution airbrush, having thinned it with Tamiya’s X-20A thinner. I’m happy to report that it sprayed very nicely indeed, with good colour density and adhesion. I applied it to one of Airfix’s resin buildings, but I hope to try it on injection moulded plastic soon. Conclusion You can’t really fault Humbrol for the range of colours that they have available, particularly if, like me, you are used to thinking in Humbrol from a youth spend gluing Airfix kits together. They appear to spray and cover well too. Of course if you have Humbrol’s excellent work station (reviewed here), then these little pots will fit perfectly into that too. Recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Afternoon folks - as I haven't enough Alclad for my current Lightning project I thought I would give the Humbrol Metal Cote a bash. Now I tested it on the spare Lightning fin - let it dry for half an hour then tried buffing it up with a micro cloth and micromesh pads but I can't see any improvement! I figured it must be my flawed technique and I better ask the experts! So can anyone give me some advice on getting Humbrol 27002 polished up to look like polished aluminum? thanks Chris

Hello all. I'm in a state of confusion at present, heh. Ok, so here's the issue. After quite a hiatus I've recently got back into some modelling. Back when I use to make models, I put them together, painted them and added the decals, and that was it. I never used varnishes or washes or weathering. For Christmas I received a Bandai 1/72 Y-Wing starfighter. A bit different from what I used to make, being a clip-kit, but I actually quite liked not having to faff around with glue, sticking the parts to myself more than the other pieces So anyway. I gave it a coat of Tamiya primer, then some flat black and light grey for the shadowing. Other bits were painted with Tamiya acrylics with tiny amounts of Revell matt enamels here and there (for chips and marks and whatnot). Overall, I think it looks pretty good for my first foray into 'beating' up a kit. Now here's where the dilemma sets in. Varnishing. I've read a lot about Klear. Of course, prior to this kit, I'd never heard of the stuff. Apparently it was renamed and rebottled and appears slightly different, but works the same way. I got my hands on some Pledge Multi-Surface Wax, which I think is the same stuff updated. My surety wavers a little when I see people displaying bottles with the old Klear markings above the new title (I haven't actually seen anyone with the exact bottle I have). I've tested it on a small piece, and it did do the job. Also stood up to a small test of Mig washes and a bit of paint cleaner (still waiting on my Mig thinner to arrive). However, the results were a little less stellar on a larger test piece (the kit base). It didn't seem to apply consistently, and even after a few coats the wash test didn't really flow into all the little nooks and cranny's. In hindsight doing a test clean up with the Revell paint cleaner probably wasn't the best choice ( ) since it started to remove the underlying layer, but the exercise had me a little concerned for when I would apply this stuff to the model. By brush, I might add. So I started looking around. So far I've snagged myself a can of Vallejo matt acrylic for the final job (I think prior to applying Mig pigments, since I hear coating them doesn't work well) since a test of adding some flat base to the pledge didn't exactly work, but my recent test had me wondering about the gloss. Today I had a look around. The options were limited to a bottle of Windsor and Newton gloss varnish (not sure how that would react), and some Humbrol gloss cote. My confusion flares up with regard to the Humbrol in particular. The Humbrol video on the gloss cote says to thin it up with enamel thinners. That would suggest its composition is similar to enamel paint, or something similarly solvent based (no real information on what its made up of that I can find). But then the Humbrol washes (and the Mig for that matter) are enamel, and cleaned up with enamel thinners. So how is it the Gloss cote isn't stripped off as well? I'm pretty confused at the moment, and a little worried to try anything in case it completely knackers all my work so far. If anyone can clear this up for me, I'd really appreciate it. I'd also love to know for certain if this is the right stuff: Thanks for any help in advance

Anyone tried the new Humbrol Luftwaffe enamels (the ones in the 24x range) yet? What are they like for colour accuracy and actually drying matt like they are supposed to? Any other observations?

My first post on britmodeller and my second 1/48 scale model from Airfix. I'm going to be brush finishing this model with humbrol enamel paints and will be updating this topic a couple times a week I hope all of you enjoy and I look forward to some feedback from you guys thanks ! This the colour scheme I choose for the finish with the 24 yellow nose cone and 123 extra dark sea grey on top with a Number 90 beige green and 135 satin vanish mix for the underside of the model ">http:// I also have some Sprue pictures and a picture of the paints themselves ">http:// ">http:// paints ">http:// Thanks for having a look And I'll be starting the build soon

Hi, I've asked for an airbrush for my birthday, a Badger one of some description (I'm sure I can find it if it matters. I'm planning on using it for some Airfix tank models and a Spitfire. I do have some previous experience with models,although I've only done about 8 before. I was just wondering how much I should thin my paints for use in the airbrush. I'm planning on using Humbrol acrylic paints (they do say that they can be thinned for airbrushing, but they don't say how much I should thin it). Also, would water be sufficient for thinning? If so, any advice on what amount of paint to water I should use would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

For my Scarab... 50s/60s, and often later until the military was sold off to the civi contractors, RAF or RN vehicles were generally blue (obviously save for specials and frontline eg RAFG). Best Revell, Humbrol or Tamiya (possibly Vallejo if stocked)? Would love 100% accuracy but won't be mixing %s so will take a 'very close'. ... VMT. D.

Hello everybody, did anyone succeed in airbrushing Humbrol acrylics? I found this paint cannot be thinned with ethanol, my favorite airbrush-thinner. It rather turns into a sludge or does not disolve in the ethanol. Water, on the other hand, works very well with Humbrol acrylics. Citadel seems to be similar in this aspect. But I never succeeded in airbrushing anything thinned with water, as the paint immediately forms beads or tiny puddles on the model's surface. I have more or less the same problem with water, water with detergent, window cleaner (a German variety, I can't get Windex here, but it is probably similar) and even 70% IPA (=30% water). The problem seems to be that the water does not evaporate soon after hitting the surface as other, more volatile thinners do. On the other hand, I often read that people are using water or water-containing thinners for airbrush, so i wonder how it works. Ands sometimes it would be nice to be able to spray Humbrol or Citadel. Actually, the problem arose with a Folland Gnat that I had planned to spray with a Citadel silver (looks better than Tamiya's) and Humbrol's Fluorescent Red. Do you have any experince on this subjects? Thanks in advance, Ole

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

I am going to build the D-Day Typhoon and Dambusters Tornado from the new Xtradecal sheet. What would the Humbrol colours be for these builds. The colours they reference on the sheet seem to be wrong to me. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Lee

Have been quietly working on the new 1/48 Kitty Hawk F-101A/C Voodoo, bit of a challenge to say the least but satisfying for all that, least until I decided to apply the main colour. Despite the instruction in the kit which show a shiny NMF I decided to try to match the dull aluminium colour that most photos taken of Voodoos at RAF Bentwaters show back in the early 60's. I read somewhere that the aircraft were painted in 'Corroguard' and the nearest Humbrol equivalent is HU56 Aluminium so I set up the airbrush, stirred and shook the tinlet of paint, and thinned it to a ratio about 1:10 with Humbrol thinners. The intention was to spray the undersides plus the tail fin first, then the top surfaces as a second spray. Unfortunately all did not go well. The tail fin shows that where the HU56 went on well it looks very good however there are speckled areas. The view of the main body/wing under surfaces shows worse: And just to really add to things there seems to be a 'tide mark' along the fuselage! Not sure what is causing this. Maybe I didn't mix the paint properly (the tinlet was several years old), maybe I am not cleaning my air brush properly, maybe I am being too ambitious and trying to cover too much surface area, perhaps in doing so I am 'drenching' the area with paint. Not sure what to do now. I still have the top spray to do yet so I could apply a very light sandpaper then respray the affected areas. If that shows no improvement then it is Mr Muscle and start again I guess Michael

All, I've just completed an online purchase of a can of Humbrol Satin Spray and have just realised that I've ordered the Enamel version rather than the Acrylic version!! (only enamel version offered and I had no idea that it came in two formulas!!). Does anyone know if I can spray the Enamel spray over Acrylic based Klear? I will obviously try this on a test piece first before I attack the model, however I just wanted to ask to see what others know or have tried. Cheers and looking forward to hopefully a positive responce.. Dave.

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

I have recently purchased Humbrol Clear Coat Satin varnish. I'm planning on spraying it with an airbrush soon. Does anyone have any tips or advice when using it? How difficult is it to clean the airbrush after using it? And what do you use to clean the airbrush? On a similar note, what is best for cleaning Klear out of an airbrush? I'm wary that some cleaning products perish rubber and may eat at the o-rings in an airbrush. Many thanks in advance!

OK - I'll admit it, I'm a bit if a fan of Humbrol's Clear although I read here that others would not even apply it to a raging fire that was only meters away from their modelling stash!! Just wondering if anyone knows when the Satin & Matt Clear versions are likely to be released? Humbrol's 2014 range was announced in late December and I don't believe that any of their new products have been released as yet. Cheers.. Dave.

Hi guys I have a question that I hope someone out there is smarter than me to answer I need to know how well humbrol gloss black goes over tamiya grey primer I have read somewhere that you cant put enamels over acrylic but would like to get some reassurances Cheers

Am in the middle of building an Invader and using Humbrol 155 matt for the bomb color. I brush painted it about 24 hours ago and it is still tacky. It is one of the tins made in England, one of the newer batch. I am also using other Humbrol paints and they seem to be drying normally. Usually for a matt paint, it is not tacky after about 1 or 2 hours. After 24 hours, the paint is still tacky. Any suggestions. Since the other Humbrol paints are behaving normally on the kit, do not think it is something on the plastic or a reaction with the plastic. Did not use a primer, but didn't use a primer for the other parts. Any suggestions would be helpful, otherwise, thinking about stripping it all off and redoing the bombs with another brand.

Built for the obsolete kit group build, this is my first crack at armour (other than a 1/100 snap kit) so it's been an interesting learning curve. Build thread.

Something wingless and different for me to build! This is the 1981 Esci kit reboxed by Humbrol in the same year, it has been superseded by releases from dragon, Planet Models and Trumpeter. I'll be building this OOB so it should be fairly straight forward. It's even got the Esci decals! One of the great things with building a kit from the year of release is that the whole kit is completely flash free and the only sink marks are in non-visible areas once assembled.

Hi all I have a question about colours of Grey used by the Raf. (only modellers can find conversations about shades of grey interesting ) Anyhow I note that wrap around colours in humbrol would be 163 and 164. But I see some useing a colour I have never until recently come across called ocean grey 106, It looks a little lighter and I guess is ideal for creating the faded look of an in service 164. Or did the raf sometimes use 106 later on or was it restricted to spits tempests typhoons and such like. I have used humbrol 27 since I was a kid I believe this was the call out for ww2 machines. I am not particularly fussy when it comes to shades I like to know what is official but I do sometimes mess about with other shades to create variation in air frames. Especially as after seeing many of the same planes lined up over the years they are often varied in shade. I have seen a tornado that had about 4 different shades of green and grey all over it so I guess its whatever you like. I just wondered if hu106 is a matt version of hu164. Just as a matter of interest I have recently found a tin of humbrol 163 from 20 years ago in my modeling draw and my suspicions that the shade has changed are true when I noted hu66 looks more like hu163 used too. My old tin of hu163 is about 50% darker than a new tin of hu163 and more brown in hue. so i guess even the manufactures are guessing. Cheers Rob

This has probably been asked before, but is there a simple RLM conversion chart for us simple ones Preferably to Humbrol enamels as that's all I have. Probably because I don't do a lot of Luftwaffe, I find the correct colours harder to fathom than Sabre wings and quantum mechanics. Cheers Chris

Bit of a strange one here! Managed to get a couple of bottles of the new Humbrol Clear from Modelzone as part of their clear out sale a couple of weeks ago. Have just applied the second coat to my Academy F-86F which has been painted using Humbrol Metalcote. Time between each coat of clear being about 3 hours after giving the Metalcote 24 hrs or so to go off. Have now found the Clear has removed some of the Metalcote from the port wing upper surface but nowhere else!! To say I'm not best pleased is an understatement!!! Looks like the wing needs totally stripping and starting again!!

Enamel Weathering Washes Humbrol Enamel washes have become the de facto standard for adding accents to panel lines and creating a degree of shading in organic folds and creased for the modern modeller, requiring them only to use an acrylic paint system or apply a clear gloss acrylic barrier coat before they are used on enamel or lacquer paints. Airfix have formulated a range for the modeller, which has been released en masse and contains ten colours that should be of use to most modellers. They are easy to use, as can be seen in their helpful video below: The colours are provided in 28ml glass bottles with white child-proof safety caps that can be a little tricky to open, as you have to apply downward pressure for almost all of the unscrewing process. They will need copious shaking before use, as the enamel paint sinks to the bottom of the jar leaving a thin film, while the rest of the bottle becomes more clear over time. The shades available are as follows: Black Blue grey Dark grey Dark green Dark brown Rust Gloss oil stain Sand Dust White I have had a dabble with the various colours and they seem to work in an almost identical way to any other enamel wash I have used in the past. Their easy availability from your local model shop should encourage even the novice modeller to partake in this interesting technique. Removing the excess is simple with either a dry piece of kitchen towel, moist cotton bud or paintbrush. Once completed, you can seal it in place with a further gloss or matt coat, making it safe from smudging by your fingers during handling. Conclusion A very useful tool that will probably be easier to get involved with due to Airfix's almost ubiquity in the model shop. Of course washes aren't for everyone, and the debate will go on forever if you allow yourself to be suckered in. If you like the technique, and think it makes your models look good, then use it - it's your hobby afterall! Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Thread started in response to overwhelming public demand. The question is whether Humbrol have changed what comes in their No 30 pots to match MAP Dark Green more closely. The story starts at post 259 in this thread: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/51881-blue-blue-my-love-is-azure-blue-now-with-the-new-humbrol-157/page-13 PS Why don't I just go and buy some and find out for myself? Well, for starters, on the X-Rite colour perception test I come out at something like 153 (where 0 is perfect colour perception) so my views may not be helpful.

How do, I am shortly to be in possession of a 1/48 F8F-1 Bearcat and I'd like some painting advice please! I use Humbrol and Xtracolour enamels and I'd like some suggestions for the interior green and the exterior blue colours please. I tried the Humbrol converter, but they had no match for the Gunze 365 or 58. Parabat