Paint brand recommendations - Military

 They all can do a good job if you know their ways and product line. Also we need to know, are you airbrushing or brush painting or both ? Are you open to solvent paints or only acrylics ?

While I have heard good things about Mission Models Paint, I have also read that their proper application needs their proprietary materials (thinner, etc).  This adds to the final cost   If cost is no object ...

Tamiya, Ammo/AK, and Vallejo use more common stuff ( water, alcohol).  This comparatively lessens the cost

Ive moved away from ModelMaster to Vallejo  supplemented by Reapers MSP Core Colors.  I'm also using some Scale Color paints by Jeff (former FSM editor) Herne.   All are acrylic

Military Models is a rather large field. Do you have any particular genres (Aircraft, Armor, Ships, Figures) and eras (Current, Cold War, Vietnam, Korea, WWII, Arab/Israeli) that you tend to concentrate upon? Some lines cover some eras and genres better than others. Tamiya colors are mostly generic, so you will likely be doing some mixing if you stay with them.

The issue of hand brushing vs airbrushing was touched upon. Some lines hand brush better than others. Hand brushing Tamiya can be challenging, especially for the beginner. But they airbrush beautifully! 

I haven’t tried Mig Ammo paints, so I can’t comment on those. I do like Mission Models, but they are a bit on the pricey side. Their color line started out very armor centric, but it is slowly expanding to aircraft colors of a few nations as well.

Of the several brands I've tried, Tamiya acrylic is my favored one. It's a no drama paint, thinner can be water, alcohol, lacquer thinner, or their X-20A or their lacquer thinner. I use mostly X-20A, or their lacquer thinner.

Once you get the thinning ratio worked out to what works best for you, Tamiya produces a very smooth painted surface. It adheres very well, I can't say I've ever had any lifting when removing masking tape.

I thin 50/50 at the start, usually settling on 60 or 70% thinner after spray samples dictate. Using Badger gravity feed airbrushes, I spray at 15-20 PSI.

Cost wise it provides a larger bottle than most, and for very little money comparatively. If your hobby shop can't supply you with it, you will find several on line dealers.

I recommend always giving the bottles a complete stir to blend the ingredients, just shaking the bottles does not thoroughly bring all of the settled materials off the bottom.

Hope you like using it, if you try it.

Patrick

patrick206

I recommend always giving the bottles a complete stir to blend the ingredients, just shaking the bottles does not thoroughly bring all of the settled materials off the bottom.

 

on the stirring and not shaking. You are gonna have to experiment and try a bottle or two of various brands to see what works for you. 

I'm still mostly an enamel dinosaur. I'll keep using Model Master as long as I can get it.

Color match is important to me, and they generally do well there.

I still use Humbrol, which seems to last on the shelf forever. And I'm faithful to my collection of Colourcat enamels until they run out.

I'm now trying AK. It paints well, but I'm not comfortable with the color matches. I may try Vallejo as well.

I use Tamiya selectively. It is easy to use, but I don't think the color matches are useful for my favorite subjects. How many posts start with "whats a Tamiya match for 5-N Navy Blue?".

Bill

GMorrison

I'm still mostly an enamel dinosaur. I'll keep using Model Master as long as I can get it.

Make that two dinosaurs! I love using my MM enamels. I have tried Vallejo and I don't have the control I get with enamels. Tamiya paints are very good and spray like enamels.

Humbrol dinosaur here... 

I've, like so many others, been a solvent based painter for 60 years, both in models and as part of my living for 30 years in commercial fleets and private refinishing. Two + years ago now I decided to just bite the bullet and start experimenting and learning the ways of acrylic in a few forms, model paints, craft paints and artist acrylics. I've done a lot of testing, painted a couple of models in acrylic and can get good results now. But if I just want to go the no brainer route I revert back to solvent paints lol. However I'm confident enough with acrylics to say if I was starting specifically into military models now and wanted acrylic paints, I'd go Vallejo. And Model air for airbrush and Model Color for brushing. They have the color palette and several theaters of sets etc.. I'd do the whole line in terms of colors I needed, thinners and accessory products like retarder and flow aid. But the primer, there I would use Stynylrez as I do now anyway. Over time I would just acquire what was needed. That's not to say it's the only paint I would use but acrylics are kind of system oriented and if you use Vallejo's system you should get good results. This of course included excellent stirring and simply getting to know the product line.

It would be my choice is all I can say, doesn't make that choice 100% correct for anyone else. I also like Model Master acrylics but with my own thinner blend, I don't care for it with theirs. And this is subject to them getting their paint line squared away. But I have a few of their colors I use actually in automotive modelling, painting engines and such and to me it does a good job over Stynylrez primer.

Tamiya is what it is, fool proof to mix for spraying, super easy lay down on the model, you might get close on color but otherwise you're into mixing your own blends up. And really to me this paint really is more of a hybrid lacquer than true acrylic, though can clean up with water borne products. Strange/mysterious stuff but good if you don't mind color mixing and learning how to brush paint it as the need arises..... Nuff said, just my take.