Model Expo Acrylic paints

1

11320 Titanic

Joined
Jul 20, 2020
Messages
357
Points
103

Location
New England
Not used to acrylic paints, just finished Model Expos GrNd Banks Dory, first dab into wood modelling...using MS 4829 hull yellow ochre.
The dory was primed with white Model Expo Primer.
The first coat of 4829 looks terrible, it doesn't cover like Model Master paints did.
How long is advisable to wait before the second (or maybe 3rd) coat?
Using flat brush for painting.
 
If you are going to use acrylics, would you consider getting professional acrylics like those from any arts and crafts store? I am referring to professional grade tubed acrylics, not the bottled paints. High quality paint and brushes are key. That or three or four LIGHT coats of spray paint?
Allan
 
What Allan said. It's entirely possible to achieve a fine finish with a decent quality brush, but the trick is to thin the paint and apply multiple coats. Thin paint lays down flat and doesn't leave brush marks. Back in the days when Floquil was available, it wasn't unusual to apply six or eight thinned coats with a brush, sanding very lightly with 600 grit paper every three or four coats.

With respect to Allan's recommendation of tubed artists' colors, quality tubed paint has more pigment in the mix. Pigment is what costs. Paint thinner (with oil paints) or water or alcohol (with acrylics) is cheap. Tubed paints don't "dry up" like bottled paints do and they tend to be higher quality than premixed paint and have a high pigment content. You can always thin tubed colors as you need them and keep the. excess thinned liquid paint in small bottles, too. The tubed approach is also much less expensive than buying one- or two-ounce hobby store bottles.
 
You can also easily mix your own colors. Goodwin’s Arming and Fitting book includes specifications for a longboat that state that its interior was to be painted “Drab, (Not Olive Drab). Formulae for antique paint colors can be found on the internet. Drab is Burnt Umber mixed with white. Both colors available as artist colors.

Roger
 
Wow, thanks. The finish on the dory (bass wood) is splotchy after two coats, but solid color. I think I'll try thy tubed acrylics, Hobby Lobby is just a mile way.
There were no fuzzies with the primer coat
 
Roger Pellett said:
Goodwin’s Arming and Fitting book includes specifications for a longboat that state that its interior was to be painted “Drab, (Not Olive Drab).

Roger
Click to expand...

Hi Roger, quick clarification please. Do you mean Lavery’s Arming and Fitting of English ships 1600-1815 or Goodwin’s Construction and Fitting of English ships 1650-1850?

Many thanks.
 
Need to finish oars and ropes and work transom. Next the Norwegian Pram. This would have been easier if it were a little larger.
Do not like acrylic paints, but then not used to them either.
 
The (other) Roger:

Yeah, my mistake. It’s Lavery’s Arming and Fitting Book. I was too lazy to get out of my chair to check out the book in my library.

Thanks,

Roger
 
I use Liquitex tube paint with a brush. Opacity can vary a lot depending on the individual color you're using. Sometimes you can increase the opacity by mixing in a little titanium white with your colored paint.
This web page from Liquitex shows the characteristics, including opacity, for each color, as it comes from the tube
www.liquitex.com

Soft Body

Low viscosity professional Soft Body Acrylic paint. Excellent coverage, with a satin finish. Use it to paint, pour, glaze or print on almost any surface.
www.liquitex.com www.liquitex.com
 
Van said:
I use Liquitex tube paint with a brush. Opacity can vary a lot depending on the individual color you're using. Sometimes you can increase the opacity by mixing in a little titanium white with your colored paint.
This web page from Liquitex shows the characteristics, including opacity, for each color, as it comes from the tube
www.liquitex.com

Soft Body

Low viscosity professional Soft Body Acrylic paint. Excellent coverage, with a satin finish. Use it to paint, pour, glaze or print on almost any surface.
www.liquitex.com www.liquitex.com
Click to expand...

The link posted above is for Liquitex Soft Body Acrylic paint. Note on the left sidebar that there's a filtering list which identifies "opaque," "semi-opaque," and "transparent" colors. Light colors will never cover as well as darker colors, but the solution to that is an even undercoat and multiple coats until the desired level of opacity is achieved. In the Soft Body Acrylic paint line, the opacity varies with the color. The paint is also mixed thinner than the tubed acrylics and has significantly less pigment in the mix, so it's going to be less opaque generally.

If one is going to use acrylic paint at all, rather than artists' oils, I would recommend the use of the tubed Liquitex High Pigment Load - Professional Acrylic paint line. The high pigment load permits thinning with less loss of opacity and you get more bang for your buck because the paint is "concentrated." The "Professional" line will be a bit more expensive, I suppose, but in this case it's worth it since you're getting more pigment, which is what colored paint is all about, and higher quality pigments to resist fading, as well.

www.liquitex.com

Professional Acrylic Paint

Professional acrylic paint, with a high concentration of lightfast artist-quality pigment and a satin finish. Shop the range online.
www.liquitex.com www.liquitex.com
 
Last edited:
Bob Cleek said:
The link posted above is for Liquitex Soft Body Acrylic paint. Note on the left sidebar that there's a filtering list which identifies "opaque," "semi-opaque," and "transparent" colors. Light colors will never cover as well as darker colors, but the solution to that is an even undercoat and multiple coats until the desired level of opacity is achieved. In the Soft Body Acrylic paint line, the opacity varies with the color. The paint is also mixed thinner than the tubed acrylics and has significantly less pigment in the mix, so it's going to be less opaque generally.

If one is going to use acrylic paint at all, rather than artists' oils, I would recommend the use of the tubed Liquitex High Pigment Load - Professional Acrylic paint line. The high pigment load permits thinning with less loss of opacity and you get more bang for your buck because the paint is "concentrated." The "Professional" line will be a bit more expensive, I suppose, but in this case it's worth it since you're getting more pigment, which is what colored paint is all about, and higher quality pigments to resist fading, as well.

www.liquitex.com

Professional Acrylic Paint

Professional acrylic paint, with a high concentration of lightfast artist-quality pigment and a satin finish. Shop the range online.
www.liquitex.com www.liquitex.com
Click to expand...
I agree with what you say about Liquitex professional, The link I posted for soft body paints are what Liquitex considers one part of their professional line. Sometimes the heavier paint can be difficult to apply evenly with a brush. If you don't want ridges in the paint itself you may have to thin it. Best to experiment on scrap wood to see what works best.
 
For my last model, I decided to use acrylic paints, hand mixed. I did it by squeezing out the tubed colors on a piece of glass. When I was satisfied with the color, I scraped the mixture into a jar and added some Matt Medium. I then added ordinary tap water as needed to thin the mixture for my air brush. It was easy to do and worked well.

Roger
 
Van said:
I agree with what you say about Liquitex professional, The link I posted for soft body paints are what Liquitex considers one part of their professional line. Sometimes the heavier paint can be difficult to apply evenly with a brush. If you don't want ridges in the paint itself you may have to thin it. Best to experiment on scrap wood to see what works best.
Click to expand...

Yes, I understand that. It goes without saying that one must always condition paint regardless of the packaged consistency. The whole point of using the thickest type, the artist's colors packaged in tubes with the consistency of peanut butter, is that I'm only buying pigment, binder, and very, very little water (or thinner/solvent in the case of oil paints.) Think of the thick stuff in the tubes as concentrated paint. It has a much longer shelf life than once-opened thinned paint. Whether brushing on oil-based (enamel) or water-based (acrylic) paint, it will always "lay flat" and any brush strokes will be eliminated if it is thinned to the proper consistency before application with a quality brush. (Natural bristle for oil-based paints and synthetic bristle brushes for water-based paints.) Regardless of what the manufacturers' advertising may say, for best results the painter needs to condition the paint to suit his circumstances. Paint is often packaged to a pre-mixed consistency for purposes of marketing to DIYers who don't know how to do it themselves or when selling some paints in quantity for the convenience of commercial painters, such as with house paint. For fine finishing work, though, the coating material has to be adjusted for the best finish.

Any paint will work for modeling purposes. Paints marketed for modeling are generally pre-conditioned to suggest they may be applied "right out of the bottle," but this is practically never the case. Most all must be thinned if applied by brush without leaving brush marks. This generally requires more than one coat. The number of coats required to "cover" will depend upon the opacity of the color and the amount of pigment in the mix. The tubed artists' oils and acrylics contain the greatest amount of pigment and generally will contain the highest quality and most finely ground pigments. This is important because the quality of the pigment, which determines the manufacturer's materials costs, also determines things like it's general opacity and its resistance to fading or "color-fastness." You get what you pay for, as with most things.

While many older ship modelers continue to prefer oil-based coatings for their greater creative flexibility and archival qualities, anybody using acrylics on wood should be aware that acrylic paint is better never applied to bare wood. This is because wood will readily absorb water and swell. When water-based acrylic paint is applied to bare wood, it can "suck" the water from the paint and raise the grain of the wood sufficiently to affect the finish of the model part. At best, this will require repeated sanding between coats and additional applications of paint to seal the wood surface. Bare wooden parts to be painted with water-based coatings (or anything else, actually, but beyond the scope of this discussion) should always be sealed with an impermiable seal compatible with the subsequently applied coating. For all practical purposes, clear shellac is the best option because is soaks into the bare wood surface well, is otherwise invisible, is one of the least permeable coatings available, dries very quickly, and is soluble in alcohol.

Everybody starting out must have had the experience of building a model and finding yourself dissatisfied by the poor quality of the paint job. To be sure, otherwise nicely done models are often marred by distractingly poor painting. Checking out the huge number of miniature painting instructional videos on YouTube will be helpful for anybody starting out. Below are three to get anybody interested started. Modelers who paint wargame figures seem to be in for forefront of model painting techniques, being as all they do is paint plastic figures and for them it is the central skill of their hobby.


 
Not a fan of acrylics, especially for airbrushing. I prefer flat enamel paints, Testor's or Humbrol. Using basic colors and a color wheel for reference, I mix the colors I need. For weathering or washes, watercolor paints, not acrylics. Watercolor is easy to remove versus acrylic.
I feel as long as the color I mix is a reasonably close match, I'm good with it. There is no exact color match to the original paint color, which likely varied as well.
I find too many issues with acrylics, thinning, drying time, application, etc. Then again, I'm still learning to use a cell phone!

20240113_084511.jpg

20240113_084310.jpg

DSC02511.JPG
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top