AGAMA Acrylics

[AdriaN (MLT)]

Has anyone ever tried using AGAMA paints? What are your thoughts?

For my massive F-15E, I bought AGAMA dark gray acrylic paint. It was my first time using them. They come in cute small 10ml tins. They spray like any other paint and dry nice and hard. Took many, many layers to build up a nice coat.
 

But I did notice a few issues with this paint:

1) No matter how much I mixed the paint... I would keep getting different coloured ripples in the dark gray paint. Dark-dark gray ripples. I mixed it with a paint mixer and shook it around. They appear a few seconds after mixing. This is not new.. the same appears in revell's acrylic paints.
2) I mixed the paint with their own Agama thinner and a few drops of artists retarder. I mixed them and began spraying. When I looked in the colour cup, the paint turned from a nicely thinned gray to a patchy/rippled colour. Dark and lighter gray patches. Almost like mixing oil paint with acrylic.
3) When the paint begins to run out in the colour cup, I always get blobs of dried paint stuck to the color cup, and they are very hard to remove. even with their own thinner. I cant understand how they form even when the colour cup has wet paint inside it.

4) When post shading, I added 2 drops of Vallejo acrylic white and this white paint turned into tiny "dusty" blobs of white. Literally like dust particles in water. Just like oil in water.

Anyone ever experienced these things? With Agama or not?

 

Edited October 2, 2018 by AdriaN (MLT)

[bmwh548]

Never got along with them. Very prone to tip-dry (I didn't use any retarder in the mix), the pigment is awful on the light colours so it needed about a million coats for white/yellow, the flake size is huge on the metallics so the 0.3 nozzle was constantly clogging up... A big no, thank you from me. I switched to Tamiya and Gunze for "normal" acrylics and never looked back. Every now and then I use Revell Aqua when circumstances force my hand and IMHO they're a lot better than Agama.

[AdriaN (MLT)]

3 hours ago, bmwh548 said:

Never got along with them. Very prone to tip-dry (I didn't use any retarder in the mix), the pigment is awful on the light colours so it needed about a million coats for white/yellow, the flake size is huge on the metallics so the 0.3 nozzle was constantly clogging up... A big no, thank you from me. I switched to Tamiya and Gunze for "normal" acrylics and never looked back. Every now and then I use Revell Aqua when circumstances force my hand and IMHO they're a lot better than Agama.

Yes its really starting to annoy me! It does occasionally stop spraying (tip dry), you are right. Im using a dark gunship gray and still it takes AGES to build up the colour. I just panel shaded with a very thinned mix.. and it dried dotty and for some reason much lighter! BUT when it dries, it dries to a nice smooth finish and nice & strong.
I personally love Revell acrylics!
Their agama thinner is not good either!

Edited October 2, 2018 by AdriaN (MLT)

[AdriaN (MLT)]

I tried mixing the paint with 'window cleaner'... and it got along with the paint a bit better. It mixed well and didn't look like oil in water, like their thinner looked like. Also no retarder this time.
But one thing.. i thinned it quite a lot and the paint had a tendency to dry much lighter, and look a bit white-ish too and also gave off a dotty finish.

This is what i mean 'ripples', i mixed it a lot and still got different shades in it!


As you can see these dried blobs came out of nowhere. even when the paint cup was wet.


 

Edited October 2, 2018 by AdriaN (MLT)

[bmwh548]

Is the paint properly shaken/stirred? The ones I had needed ages to get all the deposits of the bottom. Maybe those blobs are just pigments that didn't disolve? 

[AdriaN (MLT)]

1 hour ago, bmwh548 said:

Is the paint properly shaken/stirred? The ones I had needed ages to get all the deposits of the bottom. Maybe those blobs are just pigments that didn't disolve? 

Yes it is. I first shook it, then stirred with a paint mixer, then shook it again.
This happens with revell acrylics also. Cant understand why. ONLY acrylics.
I wonder if they are blobs of un-dissolved pigment...Or just some sort of a reaction with thinners/retarder?

Edited October 3, 2018 by AdriaN (MLT)