Hi ;
I write this with some sadness .My favorite paint is no longer available at my Local Hobby Shop . Yup , Modelmaster from Testors .Enamel that is .Not acrylic either ! You know over the years I have seen some darned good brands go belly - up ! Sad too .I have never understood what the problem is either .
Sure Polly -S was an acrylic and as to Brushability , the best I ever used ! Now Floquil was more like a lacquer , But it was favored for the hot hard finish it imparted to Model rail projects . Pactra was a straight enamel .It advertised " No Brush marks " and lived up to that claim too ! I painted many a Revell Multi-Piece bodied cars with it . They always came out looking like they were sprayed by a master !
I am not going to short Testors here as the little square bottles show up here and there . It's the sudden and industry wide change to acrylics that has me concerned . Not only are most acrylics lousy for brushability but the color range ( Unless you buy a specific set ) Is not what Pactra or Testors Modelmaster or even Humbrol had !
Oh yeah, argue with me here . I know there's all kinds of colors because of Gamers and Fantasy gamers and figurine Painters . there's washes and all kinds of others .But , and I am serious here . Why should I have to Buy Windsor and Newton oils to get the weathering on my model done right ?
Washes are fine for Figurists and others ,But we hard machine modelers have had it kind of shoved down our throats .Buy these or sequester the model to the unfinished pile . Why do they do this ? I had a sequence of paints I used on ships for instance . They were the Model Master regular gloss and flat line and then their flat specialty line such as Anthracite , Magnesium, Gunmetal , Prop Bronze etc . for my work .
Now I have to buy these ridiculously little squirt bottles of water thin stuff that everyone seems taken with . Vallejo comes to mind . What's up with that ? It takes twice as much and more time because of airbrush set-up and breakdown and cleaning to use them right .
I will grant that there more colors than you could shake a stick at . How about just one good brushable acrylic that shows no brushmarks Like Polly-S . I brush painted , hard edges camo on my first Revell 1/32 Mosquito aircraft .I was so impressed I bought a whole supply of their basic and specialty colors .Now of course it's all gone and no -one has filled the Gap .
In closing - Not everyone has an Air-brush or wants one and there are those whom have no place to use them . Paint still has to be brushed quite often on a model . That's my dilemna and it's a fairly common I am sure . Bye - T.B.