72nders - ACRYLIC PAINTS

There are 3 main types of paint used in our hobby, Lacquer, Enamel and Acrylic. Lacquer and enamel paints are the most harmful of the trio, especially Lacquer, the fumes it releases are quite toxic, I really recommend using a good mask and gloves when handling it.

Acrylic paints are our preffed choice of paint, with few exceptions, they are the least toxic of the trio, they dry faster than enamels, though not as fast as lacquers, and are easy to handel and can be diluted with water even!

My dad started out modelling using enamel and Lacquer paints, but when I was born he made the switch to Acrylics, seeing as it was too harmful for me, when I started the hobby at 12 years old, 4 years ago, I used acrylics paints and have never used enamel paints.

I like to seperate my acrylics in 2 categories: Those that can be used with an airbrush, and those for brush-painting.

Below are the paints we use for airbrushing:

My favourite paint for airbrushing, are AK Real Colors Acrylics, they have a large range of paints especially for military subjects, and the paint dries to the touch quite fast which allows you to freehand camo all in the same painting session, you can even mask it if you wait 2-4 hours.

Note: Some Real Colors paints aren't very accurate so you may have to modify them slightly.

I also like Tamiya acrylics very much, they have some nice colors that are quite accurate, they dry fast too, although that applies only to their flat paints, and as a bonus they smell good too!

Tamiya has a range of gloss (X series) and Flat (XF) paints.

Mr Color aqueous paints are equally good, they have the largest range of colors, but the one downside is that they only offer gloss and semi-matt paints, which means that the drying time can take between 1 and 2 days depending on the weather; this is why often opt to use Ak or Tamiya paints instead!

The few exceptions of our use come when using Metallic colors:

Our first choice is Vallejo's Metal Colors acrylic Line, they come in a range of colors, and they spray well on the airbrush, and you can use them for brush-painting too. The only downside is that the paint scratches easily and lifts when masked, I recommend passing a coat gloss varnish before masking.

There is one thing to take note of, Vallejo recently changed their formula, improving their paints, and this year they changed their bottle. Ways to recognise the different paints are as follows: -Old bottle has chrome finish (below far right)

- Newer bottle has "New Formula" written on it (below center)

- Newest bottle has completely differnet look than previous two and has a radial engine on the cover.

Our second and third choices are Enamel and Lacquer paints, although Vallejo's Metal Color paints are very good, it just doesn't give the same finish as Lacquer paints.

Mr Color's Super Metallic 2 series is our second choice, it is the best thing for a Base Coat on Natural Metal Aircraft. It gives an amazing finish and dries really quickly too. But when giving different shades to panels our go to paint s still Vallejo Metal Colors.

In third place is AK's Extreme Metal enamel paints, they are really good and give nice shiny finishes, and in 4th place, though not pictured are Alclad paints, they give the best finish on Natural Metal Aircraft but the fumes are extremely toxic.

Now for the paints we use for brush-painting:

Lifecolor has some great paints for brush painting especially if you need basic colors like black and white, but they might be a bit thick, as they are water-based, you can dilute them with water.

Tamiya work well for brush-painting too, although you may need to use their thinner to dilute them a bit.

Vallejo model color and model air work well to, although you may have to apply multiple coats of paint, because the paint is a bit thin.

If you want to brush-paint metallic shades, Vallejo Metal Colors are excellent, they don't need to be diluted and they have a big range of colors.

I don't have much experience with Green stuff world paints, but there Metal colors work nicely for brush-painting, they are a bit thick, but can be diluted with water.

So here was a small overview on the paints we like to use, I hope you find it useful!

Anna

WHAT PAINTS DO WE USE?

ABOUT 72nders:

Hello and welcome to our site!

We are a family of scale modellers who love our hobby and build models exclusively in 1/72 ; we decided to show our love for the Scale and our passion for the Hobby on this site.

It all started with my dad, Marco, who built models as a child and pursued his hobby on his days off, of being airline pilot, building mainly WW2 aircraft and the occasional AFV.