Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Vallejo Model Air Metallic

Today I bought some acrylic Vallejo Model Air paints (Steel and Arctic Blue) which come pre thinned for aibrush in 17ml bottles and I take back what I said about cleaning the airbrush after Mr Metal Color, cuz this shit is just vile. It leaves some sticky goo in the airbrush that seems somewhat resistant to washing out, so I have to more or less scrape it out. What the fuck! Not recommended, even thou the metallic is kinda nice. Maybe some more thinning will give better results.

I'm using a Harder & Steenback Evolution Silverline with a 0.4mm needle btw.

Alclad 2 metallic colors remain the best imo, great metallic effect and easy to work with. Althou they are a bit on the pricey side.

5 comments:

Pim said...

Vallejo Air is super stuff, you just need to know how to work with it ;)

Thin it with a bit alcohol before spraying (eventhough it is prethinned). Use water to clean it out, and spray a bit of alcohol at the end to thouroughly clean it out. No problems what so ever ;) I use Mr.Surfacer as primer and works A-OK!

S. L. said...

thanks, I'll try that. (Kinda defeats the purpose of pre-thinned thou, no? lol )

Pim said...

Hehe, yeah well I have a H&S too and noticed that thinning them down a bit more helps... Becarefull not to mix in too much though, you gotta find that sweetspot ;)

Martin said...

Sorry, but do NOT thin the Model Airs with Isopropane-Alcohol!
Only thin them with water.
If you thin them with Alkohol,they "clump" together and get thick and gooey.
They are normally very easy to clean.
One tip: The best airbrush cleaner ever is a chemical called "Dowanol PM". You can get it e.g. from artists shops or order it. It is relatively cheap (around 7€/Liter in germany) and the most efficient cleaner there is.
It is also relatively non-toxic and does not diversely affect Polystyrene.
You can use it also to strip models from paint and putty, even Mr. Surfacer comes very easily off.

It's "chemical" name is 1-Methoxy-2-propanol

S. L. said...

thanks for the info.
will also look for that Dowanol stuff. I usually clean my airbrush with alcohol or acetone, but the latter isn't really pleasant to work with. heh