Vallejo Water bsed Hobby paints. (1 Viewer)

[The Major]

Im a "Humbrol" man but decided to try several new sets of Vallejo paints. Couple Observations here, Their German Grey is too dark, nearly Black. Some of their colours, for example, in the Allied Forces paint set, seem to me to be too bright. Uniform Green is one example. How do other people rate these Water based paints?

 

[Hazebrouck]

Their German grey is quite dark. I find that they tend to dry a slightly lighter shade than as it comes out of the bottle. You can always lighten it a shade or two by mixing some white in until you are happy with the new shade.

Overall I find them very good. Painting with acrylics is a bit different than Humbrol enamels (assuming that is what you usually use?). I add a little bit of water in when mixing the paint and build the colour up in two or three coats to get a better surface finish. First coat in particular looks patchy but the colour builds up well.

Have a look on youtube at how the 1/35 figure modellers and wargames figure painters use acrylic. They all tend to use a base colour. then a slightly darker shadow colour followed by a highlight.

Scott

 

[theBaron]

If you're going to use water-based acrylics, I recommend using a wet palette. If you've never used one, a wet palette consists of a water-tight and hopefully air-tight container, a sponge, and a piece of porous material as the actual palette. There are papers made for this purpose. You wet the sponge to a little more than dampness, lay the paper over it and let osmosis do the work on thinning your paint. A wet palette allows for uniform consistency or thinness, and it lets you save a batch of colors from one session to the next.

When I decided I wanted to use one, I made my own out of a take-out container, a kitchen sponge that fit into it, and I used brown packaging paper for the palette. I saw the advantages right away, though the negative to my rig was the paper deteriorated rather quickly, getting fibers in my paint. And eventually the lid cracked around its edge and was no longer air-tight. But since I was going to move to a commercially available wet palette, that wasn't a problem. I could have used palette paper with it, too, just cut to fit.

Masterson is one brand, available from art supply houses and at craft stores. I bought RedGrass Games' original palette in the small size, about half the size of a sheet of paper. I liked the smaller footprint compared to the larger ones. I use it with all my water-based acrylics, from Andrea and Vallejo Model Color, to Lifecolor and Reaper, to craft store brands like Folk Art, Americana, and Apple Barrel.

Now, to your original question about Vallejo colors. First, let me say that Vallejo Model Color is formulated for hand-painting and is very popular. I think for that reason, not too many painters have noted colors being off. As Hazebrouck mentioned, they can be blended, and I think that's what the connoisseur painters do. They will create highlight and shadow shades through their process.

I don't blend mine too often, since my toy soldier style doesn't really call for it. I will mix colors to get a particular color of shade of a color. But otherwise, they're good for hand-brushing. The only complaint I have is that some of the colors can dry to a glossy finish, even though they are formulated as matte colors. Vallejo's Prussian Blue will dry glossy, for example. Again, for my toy soldier style, that's not a problem, because I finish my toy soldiers with a coat of Future for a gloss finish. For someone painting in connoisseur style, he can always add a matte medium, or use a matte varnish to seal when finished.

As noted, there are a lot of water-based acrylic brands, including brands sold to the wargaming community. Reaper is one, and I think Warhammer has its own brand. No reason not to use those, either, except that "Burnt Siena" might be called "Dwarf Barf" or something like that in a wargame paint catalog.

I don't have any AK or MiG paints, not because they're not good, but because I already have a stash of paints and I don't feel the need to add yet another brand. Unless you remove the cap and the paint magically finishes the figure, I'm not interested in adding it.

One more thing-remember that "acrylic" does not mean "water-based". It means the paint's binder is an acrylic compound. If the paint is water-based, ie, water-soluable, that means its binder is water-soluble. There are acrylic paints whose binders are alcohol-based or lacquer-based. You can't use those on a wet palette, because they need other solvents to thin them. There were even acrylic enamels, particular the old Pactra brand. Those were water-soluable, or could also be thinned with isopropyl. I still have some of those, 45 years on.

I hope that helps!

Prost!
Brad

 

[The Major]

Their German grey is quite dark. I find that they tend to dry a slightly lighter shade than as it comes out of the bottle. You can always lighten it a shade or two by mixing some white in until you are happy with the new shade.

Overall I find them very good. Painting with acrylics is a bit different than Humbrol enamels (assuming that is what you usually use?). I add a little bit of water in when mixing the paint and build the colour up in two or three coats to get a better surface finish. First coat in particular looks patchy but the colour builds up well.

Have a look on youtube at how the 1/35 figure modellers and wargames figure painters use acrylic. They all tend to use a base colour. then a slightly darker shadow colour followed by a highlight.

Scott

The vallejo paints seem to mix all right, though one expects to buy something like basic German Grey in its "ready" colour. i just painted our Display Modelof the Mountford German Light Field Wagon in he stuff. looks ok . I enjoy Mixing and keeping "special" paintcolour of my own, like stuff for weathering etc, but hope not to have to mix too many "basic" shades to make them "right" first if you know how I mean. For my own private collection (alas no time these days !!) I prefer Oils. I do have Acrylics too, which i find easy to work with.

 

[Hazebrouck]

You could try Vallejos Dark Grey (70.994) which is a smidge lighter. Tamiya's Panzer Grey is another option for German equipment, however, that is a different paint to use than Vallejo again with its own methods.

Dark colours can drown out a model or figure, Its worth experimenting with lighter shades to see how it turns out.