thinner retarder

I never use thinner or retarder when handbrushing Tamiya paints. I paint straight out of the bottle.

Needs some opinions on above post please

With tamiya I have found that each color does not work the same.  Some work great right out of the bottle for brush painting while others I have had to add thinner, retarder or both.

When hand painting with Tamiya i add a few drops water, about a 60 pant 40 water mix or less. It dries to fast. for hand brushing i have founf Life Color to be great.

Even if their thinner does have some retarder in it, you may find that it requires more. I add both. I have a little bottle of Tamiya thinner that I pre-mixed some retarder at roughly 90 to 10 ratio (10% retarder). Then I add the premix to the paint until I am satisfied with the consistency.

I prefer not to brush Tamiya acrylic. It tends to not level well, but the retarder may help that. Additional retarder in the x20a is what i do too. The ratio mentioned of about 10% retarder to 90% thinner is where I use it. I really don't see a down side to adding it as long as you don't flood the paint on, it may cause runs with too much retarder.

route62

With tamiya I have found that each color does not work the same.  Some work great right out of the bottle for brush painting while others I have had to add thinner, retarder or both.

 

This is very true. Flat Black hand brushes well, while Flesh can be challenging. Your best bet is to experiment with what you plan to do. Both on colors and subject matter. Painting figures or detail items is different than painting a large area. If you have old builds, they make excellent "paint mules" to use for this purpose. Or go grab a cheap model from somewhere for this purpose. Use it like a med student uses a cadever.