Dear all,

The question is pretty much what's in the title: I'm building a car, and would like to redo the chrome parts with paint after removing seams and whatnot. AK has some real nice Xtreme metal paints, but they are enamel based- and if it's possible I'd like to use acrylics.

The wax-based True Metal paints are OK I guess -easy to apply, at least-, but they only have silver in the shiny department. Not sure if this is the effect I should be going for. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Alternatively I could use a spray can

Try Tamiya chrome.

Tom

Thank you for the answer. I never even considered the "old school" paints- is it any good, then? Your nice, shiny, chrome finish?

I use Vallejo's model air paints for shiny metal, very finely ground pigments.

Do they give similar results as the Alclad paints? My experience with acrylic metal paints (Citadel, Tamiya a decade ago, Gunze) was that they are not really convincingly metallic.

I guess I'll just have to buy a couple of brands, don't I :/

Have a look at this if you're not sure:

http://www.pixelgod.net/massivevoodoo/metallic_color_comparison_chart.jpg

Andras,

You could try the method described in this tutorial:

http://www.mvpfigure.com/gundam-model-tutorial/airbrush-tutorial-how-to-create-mirror-chrome-effect-by-nanxnei-studio/

Cheers,
Joe

I'm with Spongya on this--never found any acrylics that gave a satisfactory metallic finish. On the other hand I just wrote it off as the trade-off for the convenience that comes with Acrylics. I really need to give the True Metal wax a try, as it looks like it provides a great finish with no hassle, but I just haven't gotten around to dropping the dough for the experiment.

That method is using enamel paints, he said he wanted to use acrylics if possible.

Dear Tim,

Thank you for the chart; someone really did go into some serious expenditure to do that chart. (Those plastic spoons don't buy themselves, ya know ) Seriously, though, it's amazing. And unfortunately this is what I was worried about: Alclad chrome wins hands down. The question is would I need it for Airfix's 1/12 Bentley, or not? (Only a couple of parts are chrome plated; the rest -engine, etc- are just metal colored)


Dear Joe,

That's one awesome tutorial... I'll save it because I might need it in the future. It's just mindblowing what you can do with pigments.


Dear Mark,

I have a couple of true metal paints: gold and iron. The thing is I have not been able to get as nice results as you can see in the videos. You can very easily paint on the wax; it goes on smooth (especially if you dilute it in turpentine), however when you start buffing it, you essentially rub a lot off. When I tried to do the ammo for my T-44, it just looked horrible. (https://butterfingeredmodelbuilder.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/miniart-t-44-build-review-p2-the-turret/) After gentle rubbing the ammo was not smooth and metal like- not like in the photos/videos on youtube. They say it's enough to let the paint dry for 20 min before buffing; it rubbed off even after a week.
I'll need to experiment with this paint before I can recommend it, to be honest.

Don't forget bare metal foil. With careful work, some great things can be achieved.

True, metal foil might work... (I need something to chrome the shiny parts of the 1930 Bentley.)

I don't think you will find any acrylic that provides you anything like the chrome finish parts on a car. Your best option is either GSI SuperMetallic chrome SUPER METALLIC or Alclad very carefully applied, or XTreme metal, or the mentioned BareMetal foil. None of these is acrylic though. Maybe Gunze buffable Mr Color metallics would work too. I tried all of these and these are the closest to real chrome finish. Good news is however that these finishes - while less shiny than real 1:1 chrome or nickel plating - represent chrome in scale very realistically.