Back to the hobby, with bad news

If you loved the Model Master paint, try these.

https://www.truenorthpaints.com/

They are VERY close to the MM paints. 

I've used a few of their paints with very good results.

Our local HL has 0 Testors short of the little Testors sets of paint. They carry some Vellejo Model Color and some Createx. Course outside the model department they have craft paints and artist paints. But that store has a very limited hobby section anyway....

What Testors really did is change the role of MM.  It is no longer oriented towards military colors.  It if more broadly oriented towards a general hobby/craft market  Right now there is little difference between the MM brand and the just-plain-enamel basic line.  I do see signs that MM may trend to favor car modeling.  Testors enamel is still the same old stull from previous decades, with some new metallic colors and more semi-gloss colors.  The company has retained their acrylic line, and is moving into more lacquer paints.

If you do not like to mix paints but want one bottle military colors you will have to change brands.  But the good news is that there is a great surge in the number of hobby brands now, but you have to buy them at hobby shops or online.  if you are not a purist about color accuracy, Testors paints areastill there.  Hobby Lobby stores carry big racks of Testors paints.

Online stocks of mm enamels are still out there. Buy it while you can.

Bill

Eaglecash867

MRP makes a lot of the FS colors now.

Dark Sea Blue-FS15042 is sold under their part number MRP-A072

Out of luck on ADC Gray-FS16473 it looks like from them.  They have a few "aircraft gray" colors though, so you could probably color match it with a little clever work with a photo editor program.

 

I still have a lot of MM bottles but I'm slowly loosing them. I replace them with Vallejo,  Tamiya,  lifelike, Revell and Mission Models. Like Stick said, there are a lot of manufacturers taking up the slack. I've heard MRP and Mig are very good but have not tried them yet.

I like Mr Color.  Use their leveling thinner.  

Like you, I have had to "relearn" my painting skills after cutting my teeth on Model Master enamal paints, although I did love the old Floquil enamals - they seemed to spray so much better, with finer pigments. Once Testors bought them and shut them down, then the MM paints became the mainstay.

Also like you, I was away for many years, and returned later to find many of my paints had dried up and had to be replaced. I was then away for a time again, and when I returned the second time, I found that some of those paints had dried up, but this time there were no replacements available in the MM line! One big problem was a 1/72 scale Monogram B-52 (like I said: BIG) that I had started with a SAC (Strategic Air Command) color scheme already started with no paints to replace bad ones. I only managed to find some of the tan I was looking for in a rattle and and learned to decant paint into bottles.

Why would Rustoleum buy Testors only to shut them down? Who knows? A lot of things in business make no sense to me.

Sorry to hear about your loss, one of my absenses was due to caring for an ill parent.

By the way, welcome to the forum!

Jim

Welcome

Pretty old news you will probably find some recent threads on that.

Look at Mission Models,Tamiya,Vallejo.I like and use them.

Others have mentioned AK,Hataka,I have not tried.

Also familiarize yourself with the diffrent forum sections.

Welcome to the Forums!

Hi Darth. Welcome to the forums. As has already been said there are lots of other options. Check out the paint forum for more info.

There are other paint lines out there, old and new, to pick up the slack. Humbrol, Vallejo, Mission Models, Mig, AK, and Gunze all come to mind for companies that do FS matched colors. Tamiya paints are good, but not FS matched. You have to mix those to get the proper shades. If you’re gonna use Model Master acrylics, make sure to use a good primer, not their acrylic one, in order to get proper adhesion to the plastic.

Welcome back.

MRP makes a lot of the FS colors now.

Dark Sea Blue-FS15042 is sold under their part number MRP-A072

Out of luck on ADC Gray-FS16473 it looks like from them.  They have a few "aircraft gray" colors though, so you could probably color match it with a little clever work with a photo editor program.

Welcome to the Forums! Glad to have you with us.

Check the "Painting" section of these Forums. The members there have loads of info about all types of paints and are ready to help you.

Hope that this helps.

Jim 

Stay Safe.