Todd Michalak tests out the AK range of weathering oils.

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Thanks!

OK: I'll try them on the basis of your review. I admit that I've been underwhelmed by MIGs oils. They're not a bad product but I'm not at all sure that a modeler needs a million colors of oil paints, nor am I sure they need a top brand. When I dot fade I can't really tell any difference from student grade Reeves and Windsor. As for washes and filters, the exact color doesn't meant much. The quicker drying is interesting but if you want an oil to dry fast and flat thin it with Ronsonol lighter fluid - no joke, it works but wouldn't make a great painting. I've also got some of the water based oils from Golden that also have less linseed: will give them a test run too on my next kit.

It's no accident that all of this stuff is coming from Spain. Vallejo has had a good name in the fine arts for some time and a couple of decades back they decided see whether their artist acrylics could find a niche in the hobby market worth the marketing etc. The result was Model Color - which is a slightly modified version of a pure water based polymer acrylic with artist grade pigments. So it's these folk - with a back ground in fine arts instead of industrial paints - that come up with Model Air. All of the "Spanish school" techniques that rely heavily on washes, filters, fading, modulation etc etc are clever adaptations of standard art house painting techniques for the modeling world - and they work. The question is whether they sometimes charge a serious premium to do things that a modeler should know how to do themselves. And, I suppose, even if they do, so what. But a little hint - with oils you can go a long way black, white, burnt umber, green, red, blue and yellow. One thing oils do really well is mix and you can futz with just drops of the stuff until you get the hang of things. Anyway, at least they're charging a lot less than Abteilung which cost more per ounce then Sennelier which makes some of the best oil paints on the planet. (Sennelier and the US company Gamlin also sell pigments for artists that like to make their own paints - the fineness of the grind and the quality are absolutely tops. The folk that buy that stuff are art fanatics and some make their living with it. And it too is less per ounce than modeling pigments of any brand. Pigments are another thing made for mixing and simple to experiment with.)