painting after a looooong hiatus. can I get some tips?

Years ago, on the advice of an artist who sculpted and casted resin figures, I used some cheap craft acrylics, named "Ceramcoat" that were available at Wal-mart then.  They airbrushed well , thinned with water, and I made some nice resin figures with them.  However, I haven't seen that brand for several years, and do not think I would use them for any good styrene model work.

I have gone back to Testor's Model Master enamels now.....

well im trying without luck to post images to this site from photobucket like i have done so many times in the past but this site doesnt to be as mobile friendly as most others. no offence.

if you would like to see the picks look at my photobucket profile. username. russianfist

well im trying without luck to post images to this site from photobucket like i have done so many times in the past but this site doesnt to be as mobile friendly as most others. no offence.

if you would like to see the picks look at my photobucket profile. username. russianfist

ok so the first coat is on and it did ok. my airbrush was sputterinng when i was shooting the model so i think i had the paint to windex ratio alittle heavy on the paint side and probably should have mixed it better. the coverage was good except i was to ambitious to cover all the voids and oversprayed some areas leaving the paint abit on the thick side. in hind sight i should have just left it alone and shot it in 2 light coats insted of hitting it all in one shot. no runs to speak of and thats good. it doesnt dry as fast as a model type of acrylic but its also cold and raining here and im shooting in the attic. i will post some pics as soon as its dry enough to handle.

I use craft acrylic paint , I paint with a brush and find they work very well. I buy from "bargain bins" they are cheep and with the aid of an Artist Colour Wheel I find I can mix and match quite well.

I have tried some of the special paints and found they do not work very well for brush painting, especialy Tamiya; altho' I have heard that Vallejo ? paint is good for brush painting.

Certainly painting with a brush is not as good as to what you can obtain with an Air Brush but I cannot afford one neither do I have a place where I would be able to use one, so I must stay with what I have!.

I wish you luck and as always, practice, practice...cheers....Kenny

Why not try some experiments on some plastic pop bottles? It will save your antique model!

well i was thinking about it more in terms of an experiment. however i do live abot 60 miles from the closest decent hobby shop where i can get good model paint. if i drive down there for just paint it will cost abit more per bottle when you factor in the cost of gas but thats marginal. if i botch the paint job im really only out the cost of a 20 year old tamiya t 34 thats about 12 bucks.  i was thinking about using rubbing alcohol  insted of windex to see if it will dry faster and prevent runs but im wondering if that will even make a difference. i then plan to use a future coat for using oils as detail and decals then finishing it off with a model master flat clear. i would use my old model master enamels but its cold and raining outside so im confined to spraying in the house so i want to keep the fumes to a minimum for the familys sake. 

Using craft store acrylics is fraught with issues -- way beyond the few dollars you may save.  1) their pigment is no where ground to the fine level of most model paints.  You don't need to when it's a kid's school project or you're slapping a "garage sale" poster together. 2) since he's brush painting, he probably can manage some level of control -- your using a Badger 150 requires milky consistency of paint.  Plus you yourself have said that even with one smooth brush coat, it needed additional coats.

My question to you is this: why? I spend $3 on  a bottleof Tamiya Olive Drab, thin it with some blue Windex.  Shoot it through.  Clean my airbrush with more windex.  And I'm off to bed.  And I've not gotten runs or drips or issues with opacity on my model which I've spend 2 months super detailing.

It's pretty plain where I'm going with this.  Your inexpensive "solution" isn't much of one if the ruin potential is high and the labor is doubled or trebled. 

ps. please forgive my puncuation as im using mobile and i still cant figure out how to get my settings right. thanks.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Personally, I don't have any experience in using craft paints for model-building. I do know it's pretty thick though.

There's a fairly decent tangential discussion of it in this thread though: /forums/t/142303.aspx?PageIndex=1

Welcome back to the planet!