WWII German Uniform Acrylic Colours (AK11759)

[Mike]

WWII German Uniform Acrylic Colours (AK11759)

Personal Mixes by Calvin Tam

AK Interactive

 

 

This is another box of AK Interactive’s third generation acrylics, aiming for excellent coverage, with what they describe as awesome grip, and a promise of no clogging of your airbrush if you use one.  They’re also great for use with a paint brush undiluted, but they should be diluted with water or their own thinners if using with an airbrush, which I’ve successfully tested with my usual vague “semi-skimmed milk thickness” goal for the thinned paint, and using Ultimate Thinners as my thinners of choice.  Each pot arrives in a 17ml dropper bottle with sharp contours at the shoulder and a cruciform profile to the white screw-top cap, which is also knurled near the bottom to improve grip further.  The labels wrap around the body of the bottle giving general information about the new range, plus its name and product code near the top, with a bar code along one short edge.  Overall, it’s a nice look, but that’s not why we’re here.

 

 

 

This is a bit of a monster set that arrives in a large flat rectangular box, with an impressive eighteen bottles filling the interior, plus a small booklet showing some possible uses of the paint on some impressive-looking figures of unknown scale (they look larger than 1:35 to my eyes).  If you’re wondering who Calvin Tam is, he’s a master figure painter that is a well-regarded professional in the genre, and you can find out a little more about him and see a photo of him at work by flipping over the box to expose the underside.  Calvin’s prowess with a paintbrush is in evidence across the packaging, and most of us can only aspire to be a fraction as good at painting, but it’s a bar we can all aim for and be inspired by.  Having the correct colours in an excellent brand of paint will help us get a few steps up the ladder towards that lofty goal.

 

The usual orange AK logo with the negative silhouette of an AK-47 in the centre is prominently displayed, as well as the 3G Acrylics brand logo and Calvin’s name, with the product code above and the number of bottles below that.  The booklet is a sheet of A5 folded into three and printed on both sides with figures that have colour balloons and arrows leading to the colour in question, sometimes with multiple balloons converging on a camouflaged smock or trousering.

 

 

This expansive set includes the following colours:

 

1. AK11411 Light Green
2. AK11420 Waffen Green
3. AK11424 Grey Green
4. AK11419 Waffen Red Brown
5. AK11418 Ocher
6. AK11409 Orange Tan
7. AK11189 Dark Prussian Blue
8. AK11417 Waffen Brown
9. AK11425 Field Grey Base #1
10. AK11412 Medium Green
11. AK11115 Light Earth
12. AK11036 Ice Yellow
13. AK11008 Grimy Grey
14. AK11021 Basalt Grey
15. AK11027 Rubber Black
16. AK11004 Ivory
17. AK11407 Black Uniform Base
18. AK11414 Splitter-Muster Base

 

 

These paints are just as easy to apply as base coats by airbrush or paint brush, although paintbrush is the most likely for this application in the later stages, and once dry they are very tough as acrylics go, especially if you key the surface beforehand with a buffing-type sanding stick.  A primed and buffed surface is slightly ahead in terms of adhesion, but not by much so it’s good news all round whether you’re a modeller that primes religiously or not.  In addition to airbrushing well without clogging, the paint goes on very well with a paintbrush, needing one or sometimes two coats dependent on the colour, and brushing out well with very little in the way of brush marks evident on larger areas if you use a broad filbert brush.  I’m not a regular brush-painter these days, although I used to be a figure painter in the distant past, and was really pleasantly surprised at how well the paint went down despite my lack of recent experience.

 

 

Conclusion

I like these paints, their bottles are practical and attractive, and this large set gives you the shades you’ll need to complete your German WWII figures, which will be very useful for the figure modeller.  There’s a whole range of these colours available both individually and in sets for aircraft, AFV and other modelling genres, some that we’ve now reviewed, and the rest we’ll be getting to as they arrive at HQ.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Review sample courtesy of