What types of paint do you use for brush painting on your figures, and what about thinner?

Well, I am specifically trying to cure a problem I am having with the Tamiya Acrylic Flats. The colors are spot on for what I am doing, but I've had some trouble with consistency. I have used good old tap water with other acrylic paints before, and can get a nice, thin coat of paint that will build to opaque, sometimes with a minimum number of coats. However, with the Tamiya paints, drying/gumming up seems to happen rather quickly as I brush onto the plastic, and will fill in detail areas, forcing me to have to strip the paint with the Acrylic Thinner that is available for Tamiya. It seems like I have to move overly fast to prevent this drying effect. I feel I am doing something wrong, but what? I have tried thinning with the Acrylic Thinner or Isopropyl Alcohol, but naturally, these tend to break the surface of the drying paint, which is obviously not a solution.

I am also considering that the paint bottle may become "contaminated" after a while if too much tap water enters the jar (even tiny amounts) over time. This tap water probably disturbs the original mixture.

Haven't used Testor Model Master paints in a while, so I don't know if the same problems will happen with their use.

Any recommendations for alternative brushing technique/paint brands/thinning agents would be appreciated.

Or if you think I'm completely Looney Tunes you can let me know that as well.

Ian

Two words

Vallejo
Acylic!

your problmes will be solved my friend

I agree that Tamiya acrylics dont brush very well. They dry way to fast. Great for air brushing though,

When I brush, I will use Vallejo. The finish is perfect and it almost looks like it was applied with an air brush. I thin vallejo's acrylics with distilled water and works like a charm.
When I use an air brush I use Tamiya and I learned this the hard way ..Vallejo is not air brush friendly!! I thin Tamiya's line of acrylics using their brand of thinner.

In order to be able to successfully brush paint Tamiya acrylics, you need to mix it with Tamiya Thinner which contains a drying retarder. That will give you much more time to work with the paint before it begins to dry, which will make it gum up and streak.

I usually mix very small batches at a time in a clean beer bottle cap. Put a few drops of Tamiya thinner in the cap with an eye dropper, then add a few drops of paint. Mix it up with a toothpick and you're good to go. If it starts to dry a bit after you've been working with it, just mix up another little batch. It's only a few drops at a time so it's no big deal.

Give it a try, you might like it.

maybe you should thin them, then they will work

Thanks everyone for your responses. I've never tried the Vallejo Acrylics before, but went to the site to check out the color variety.

I will try the thinning method you described for the Tamiya Acrylics and see how it goes.

Thanks!

Vallejo gives a way better effect and it has allmost 300 colours in it´s Model Color Range, I thought 80 in it´s Game Color range and also a amount like that in it´s Model Air range. So for figure painting you have way more choice and it isn´t neccessarily anymore to mix a lot.

Lars

Where is the best place to buy the Vallejo Acrylics?