I am fairly new to armor modeling, and I already know how to assemble a model, but I am confused at how to paint it. Could anyone give me a short list of different types of paints(acrylic,enamel), and other products that I would need for painting? Thank You!

For starters, you can hit the search bar above, and type in painting techniques, or finishing guides. Also, search through the forum as this topic comes up frequently.

Do you brush paint or do you have an airbrush?
For acrylics, Model Master, Testors and Vallejo are the currently available brands I can think of. Vallejo paints the best but might be more difficult to find.

For ennamel, Model Master is the brand I have experience with. There are others out there that are probably very good as well.

Tamiya are water clean up, but don't hand brush well. They are excellent for airbrushing.

Paint color depends upon what You will need primer, primary color, detail colors and weathering products for basics. So, for a basic M4 medium tank, Olive Drab for the body, flat white, flat black, rubber or NATO (or scale black) for the road wheels, steel, clear red, clear green, wood or a different shade of olive green for the tools, dark brown and silver. You need a gloss coat or Future floor wax as a sealing coat and to put decals on. Then a flat coat to seal the decals and dull the finish. If you want to do some basic weathering, some raw or burnt umber as a wash over the model, and some ochre to simulate dust or fading. You can use chalk pastels to make powdered pigments.

"Basic" painting can get fairly carried away depending on the finishing technique, but it makes a big difference in the appearance of the model.

Tell us what you are building and ask for tips as you go through the construction and painting. Others with much more experience and skill can answer this question better.

Hi Vincent,

That's kind of a wide-open question. Giving an answer or advice sort of depends on what your resource (i.e. money and what you might already have on hand) are.

For instance, if you wanted to start airbrushing and money was no obstacle, then giving you a list that included all the bells and whistles would be pretty easy - a sort of X-mas wish-list.

However, if you're really starting from absolute scratch, I would recommend that you:

1. Just concentrate on hand brushing, which is the basic painting skill that should be mastered before all others.

2. Just aquire the bare minimum essentials required.

3. Find out what brands of paints are easily available in your area without having to resort to shopping on-line (especially at first).

4. Select a brand and type of paint (acrylics or enamels) and stick to only those paints and proprietary thinners. This will increase your chances of success for finding compatable paints and products.

5. Accept that your learning curve will not allow for perfect results with your first efforts. You will need to practice and accept that it takes time and multiple tries to get things right. Don't worry about messing things up or ruining some kit or another - That's just going to happen. Do the best you can, learn what you can, then move on to the next build with a goal in mind of making each a little better than the last. You can get "frozen" into in-action if you're so afraid of messing up that you never actually do anything. The consequence is that you will never learn and get any better.

(Trust me, we all started at the beginning at sometime. We all made more than one mess out of more than one or two models before we started to get the hang of things. Then we've all gone through a long period where our progress was very incremental, and finally, no matter how good any of us thinks we are now, we all still make mistakes!)

You can take this very basic painting to the next level after only a short while, but at the very beginning, you want to reduce the number of variables and possible problems so that learning how to work with what you have is easier as will be getting advice on solutions for any difficulties.

As Russ mentioned, forget about tryin to hand brush Tamiya acrylics - period. If those are the only hobby paints available locally, then do go to the internet for your shopping.

So, that leaves acrylics with Model Master, Pactra, Polly Scale, Life Colors, and Vallejo probably being the most common brands or hobby enamels with Testors Model Master, Pactra, and Floquil being the most common (in the US).

You want to learn how to:

1. Thin the paints to a brushable consistancy. How thin this will need to be just depends, so you'll need to experiment some.

2. Brush the paints onto large areas with as few brush marks, runs, and drips as possible.

3. Control your brush to get good clean and sharp lines on the edges between different colors.

4. Paint small details with is to say, how to use the tips and body of the brushes.

5. Clean and maintain your brushes so that they will last a long time and remain in good condition for painting.

So, what do you actually need?

1. Fairly good brushes in sizes from about #3 down to about #0. You don't need the most expensive brushes, but you don't want the "El Cheapo 10-pack" of kiddy water color brushes either.

For acrylics, I prefer to use sable liners. For enamels, I prefer rounds or brights in either sable or Taclon (an artificial material). These terms refer to the shape a size of the bristles and what they're made of.

The liner brushes have longer bristles that hold more paint with can then be flowed from the bristles, which makes them better for acrylics, in my opinion, which are generally used in multiple, thin layers. The rounds and brights have shorter, stiffer bristles which allow them to mix next brush full of paint into the last already on the surface. This makes them better for enamels that will "reactivate" setting paint as newer brush loads are applied.

2. Paint. Either hobby enamels or acrylics. Each has particular properties in the way they dry and must be applied. So, at the beginning, select one medium and stick to it long enough to understand what it's doing when you paint.

Acrylics are applied in very thin layers of thin paint. Each layer is allowed to dry completely before applying the next. Subsequent layers will not "reactivate" earlier layers that have dried, but if those earlier layers are not completely dried, the next layer will "drag" up clumps of partially dried paint ruining the smooth finish. Acrylics, even many layers (if properly thinned) will not obscure details. These multiple layers take more time to apply, though.

Hobby enamels can be applied in thicker layers and will cover in fewer coats than most acrylics. However, they also need to be thinned so that they don't build up and obscure details. Later layers can "reactivate" earlier layers and ca pull those up. However, this earlier, partially dried paint will often brush out smooth. Enamels can often be painted faster than acrylics - fewer coats, complete drying not absolutly essential, some more room for error if the earlier paint isn't perfectly dry. However, later layers of weathering, filters, color modulation, etc., if done with oils or other enamels can often cause even throughly dry paint to "left" and ruin the finish.

Excellent results can be achieved with either, once you learn how.

3. Thinners. For acrylics, I recommend the manufacturer's thinners for the same brand of paint. The formulas for acrylics vary considerably from brand to brand, and they're often not compatable with each other. Water is usually the universal thinner, but not always. For hobby enamels, you can usually use either the brand name thinner or ordinary mineral spirits.

4. Brush cleaning materials. Windex and water usually work OK for acrylics, and mineral spirits for enamels. I use Windsor & Newton's Brush Cleaner and Restorer for deep cleaning my brushes and follw that up with The Master's Brush Cleaner and Preserver. This last I leave in the bristles, wet, and reform them into points before storing bristles up in a jar. Rinse it out in your thinners (water, mineral spirits, etc) before starting the next painting session.

As for technique:

1. Generally brush "wet-edge-to-wet-edge" so that each brush full of paint is applied to the edge of the wet area from the last brush full.

2. Generally apply multiple thin coats of paint rather than single think coats.

3. Generally allow each coat to dry before starting the next one. Often by the time you work your way around a large area, the first part is dry enough - but not always.

You'll find that if you master hand brushing your models will ultimately look better as your other skills progress and develop. I can tell you that sloppy hand painting, especially on detail areas with "ragged" color demarcation lines, is often a big detractor to my eye. I see lots of otherwise very nicely constructed and airbrushed models with poor hand painting - very dissapointing.

What's even more surprising is that some of the guys who build these models are quite talented in most other areas of model building and painting and are often very experienced. To see a beautiful model spoiled with sloppy headlight lenses, pioneer tools with ragged edges between the wood and metal parts, or with rubber color all over the metal road wheels just makes me feel sad...

Anyways, that's my advice - Start with the basics and master those. Don't worry about mistakes as you're first learning. And then build on that success with more difficult and "advanced" skills. If the basics are good, almost everything else will be just that much more successful.

HTH,

Thank you so much for that info; will be sure to head to the hobby shop soon. Also, One more question. When I finish building a model, what procedures do I have to follow in order to start painting? Like priming the model?

I generally wash the model in luke warm tap water with dish detergent, rinsing well, and allowing to air-dry. I use a large natural bristle water color brush as a scrubber. Just be gentle and keep the sink plugged for the inevitable part that breaks off and drops into it - You don't want those going down the drain!

I don't normally prime as a separate step since I do a lot of post and pre-shading, so the earlier coats of paint pretty much work like a primer.

However, on my figures, I usually do prime with flat white paint.

If you want, you should get pretty good results using "rattle can" primer paints. Just be sure to use light coats so the paint doesn't build up too much and hide any details. A flat white or light gray are good colors, but I know a lot of guys who routinely prime with flat black.

(Go figure!)

Since there are so many variable and techniques with the whole "to prime or not to prime" question,I'd suggest that you try painting both ways and see waht works best for you and the paints that you're hand painting with.

HTH,

Do you wash the sprue before building, or after it is complete? And when you prime, would you prime tank treads, and every other area of the tank too?

It is easy to wash the sprues first to remove anything on them. You should still wipe down the completed model to remove any extra fingerprints, dust, etc that may have been acquired during the build process.

I wash the entire model (or subassemblies) once I finish the build. That's because by the time I'm finished, there's sanding dust, ordinary dust, finger prints, sawing and drilling swarf, soldering flux, etc, all over and in the model, to include the interior areas and down in the details. I'm way too messy to be able to wipe off the larger areas and paint after assembly.

After that, though, I'm careful to always wash my hands to remove any oil and dirt before I handle the model or subassemblies while I'm painting.

I don't wash the sprues before I build since I've never had any trouble with glue adheasion or any other problems that I can attribute to not washing the parts before hand. Maybe it's just the glues that I use or maybe I've always been lucky over the 45 years that I've been building plastic models. Doesn't make washing the sprues before assembly wrong; it just means that I don't.

An exception to this "not washing before" is that I do sometimes wash resin parts. I do this usually when they have so much mold release on them that they're greasy looking. However, if they look pretty clean out of the box, I just go with it.

In regards to priming the tracks, once again, I really don't prime in the usual sense (except for my figures). Again, some guys sware by priming and others don't.

I would still wash the tracks to remove any mold release and dust before painting, though.

A lot of all this could be rolled up and called a modeler's building style. Most of what each builder does is dependent on what works for him. Not priming works for me. On the other hand, priming does work for some other guys. One way isn't right while the other is wrong.

There are not a lot of absolute rules here except to do what works best for you. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't listen and consider advice from others or try new things. I would submit that it does mean that you shouldn't believe that any building or painting operations has to absolutely be done some certain way or it's not right.

The only right way is the way that works for you, even if that way "violates" all of the other rules and advice that you can find. In model building, unlike much of life, the end results do justify the means.

So, back to the question: to prime or not to prime? Since you're just starting, I suggest that you try it both ways and see what works for you.

HTH,