i need help! ive been trying to paint my figures with Tamiya acrylic paints, but every time i paint it on ,it just comes right off with the next stroke of the brush. its new paint and ive washed it in warm soapy water and even sprayed it with grey enamel primer and nothing works! HELP!!

Tamiya paint is best airbrushed, I don't think it was meant to be brush painted.

Try Humbrol for brush painting or Vallejo if you want water based paint.

Paul.

It is the nature of the beast. I think it is partly because the Tamiya Acrylics skin over quickly and partly because it is a water reducible and there are no strong solvents to attack the plastic and adhere quickly. This causes the pick up you are getting. I use acrylics primarily for airbrushing or touch up. Solvent based enamels are much better for brush use.

If you want decent paint and cheap money wise....head to your local Walmart or local Home Depot, craft store, etc. and pick up the craft acrylics...they come in a variety of colors and are like 2oz of paint for like 99cents....works wonders.

I just use a cheap plastic pallet I picked up for a buck, shake well...squeeze out a drop or 2, mix in a drop or 2 of water, and then paint.

This seems to be an issue that comes up a lot, but from someone that uses almost all Tamiya paint, I've never had it happen (or, if I have, I don't recgonize it).

One fix may be making sure you stir the paint and get all that goopy stuff off the bottom and mixed in with the more liquid part, shake it after stirring. The paint can have a real poor consistancy if not stirred, even shaking won't always get the paint to mix right.

If you're doing a large area, go ahead and dip the brush in the goop, pull a little out, apply it to the figure and it will spread out nicely. While it may pool in some areas, that will go away once it dries. If you get too much, you can always wipe a little off the brush before applying it.

I use mine without primer on both resin and plastic figures. However there is one brand of figures that I need to use primer with due to the resin, but that's not a big deal.

Tamiya is a good brush paint and great out of an AB, I swear by it (and Testors).

Failing those suggestions... try another paint!

Hope that helps

Hi all, not to be a can opener, but ,Tamiya is one paint I will never brush on. Must agree with Paul, Vallejo is my first choice for brush and air. Its an all around great paint.

Like PorkChop I've had great results brushing Tamiya paints. All I do is make sure the paint is stirred up properly and then I thin the paint to a better consistency, as per the method described on the Vallejo website for painting acrylics. I have most of the Tamiya line in paints, so it would be a large cost for me to go over to Vallejo (eventhough I would like to try them sometime...)

Honestly I don't want to paint with anything else...

i had great results brushing using tamiya paints too. i do nt have a airbrush yet..hence nt sure of the results. by the way, is vallejo those paint that look like eye droppers?

I see from Porkchop and Huntercottage´s posts, they successfully use Tamiya paints. It must be possible then. I have tried it several times and the results are comparable to my 3 year old daughters attempts. I also tried games workshop acrylics, with the same results. Then I just go back to my tried and trusted humbrol enamels. I just cant get the hang of acrylics at all.
But now about 90% of my airbrushing is tamiya, and I find them hard to beat for this.
There must be a knack!

I work primarily with Tamiya paint and have had that problem only a couple of times, my best guess is that the paint is either "old" or has been frozen or got too cold during the shipping process causing the "carrier" to seprerate from the pigment). Otherwise Tamiya paints are of superior quality, the pigments used are the best. You might want to buy some BB's and drop 3 or 4 in the bottle, it will help mix the pigments well when the paint has sat on the shelf for a while.

I have the same problems with the Tamiya paint, but no worries, a super easy solution exists. Get a cheap pallete, and add two or three drops of paint, I use a toothpick for this, and then add one or two drops of Isopropanal alcohol and mix. It thins down the paint and gives it some working time. It won't "peel" off as if you were just painting it right out of the bottle. I takes a couple of coats for full coverage, but you won't lose as much detail this way. A 500ml bottle of the alcohol can be purchased pretty much anywhere, for like a buck, and it lasts for quite a long time.
And the Tamiya thinner is pretty much the same thing, but it's like 12 dollars for a 250ml bottle, so save the money and get the alcohol, the rest can go towards a set of figures!
Like Viper, I also use ALOT of the craft acryllics as well, I've even airbrushed them, and when airbrushed, the paint when dry is dead flat! Even has a slight texture to it, so it's great for drybrushing too!

20 years ago, Tamiya had an excellent formula. I knew a guy who did car models with Tamiya and a brush and got really good results. I loved their semi gloss black and used their flesh and brown to do my figures. Somewhere along the line, they changed formulas. The current stuff is terrible, especially if you are workingon figures where you pretty much need to hand brush. The skin problem is hellacious. Trying to mix a custom color is a joke. The stuff dries way too fast to use a palette.
For acrylics, you can use Model Master (a much better selection of colors and wide availability), Polly Scale (large bottles, good color selection and very forgiving to having wet paint touch semi dry paint) or Vallejo/Andrea, the King of Acrylics right now. These have excellent adhesion, the widest range of colors, mix well for custom colors, they thin well or can be used straight from the bottle (put a drop on a palette and you can use it up before it dries up) You can feather highligts almost as well as oils. Since there is almost no contact between the paint in the bottle and the outside air, drying in the bottle is virtually nil. The only downsides are not many stores carry them and they have to be seriously shaken before use.