Question about airbrushing dunkelgelb acrylic paint

Having several yrs experience with Vallejo Model Air, and some time on my hands, I thought I'd toss in my 2 cents.

Stynylrez works great as a primer for all Vallejo paints, absolutely no worries there. And 20-25 PSI is correct for spraying it.

You said you also sprayed the Model Air neat (un-thinned) at 20-25 PSI, which is also spot on.

I have a couple of theories, but first I did a little test for you.

Here is my bottle of 71.025 which is Vallejo's version of Dunkelgelb:

Point here is look at the green at the top. My first guess is you didn't mix the Vallejo well enough. Don't feel bad, Vallejo can be a bear to mix properly. One method I learned is shake, shake, shake, then roll the bottle between your palms as fast as you can back and forth, then shake some more.

I finally gave in a bought a centrifugal mixer before carpal tunnel sets in.

Don't buy one, I am just wandering off track. I do a quite a lot of painting.

So here is the test. I primed the top 2/3 of a test spoon with Stynylrez grey, let it dry for a few minutes in the dehydrator while I cleaned the a/b, then sprayed the Model Air. Note I also sprayed the lower third, which was unprimed. I sometimes thin a bit with vallejo airbrush thinner (because the paint viscosity varies), but you sprayed yours OOB so I did too.

Note that the portion painted over the grey Stynylrez is noticeabley more green (even more so in person). Yellow is a goofy color to paint, and it is often suggested to use a white primer below it. Not sure I'd have thought it necessary over Dunkelgelb, but maybe so. I think the bottom third looks better, no?

Another idea is cross-contanimation in your airbrush. Nothing about Stynylrez (except when it is dryed on primer) plays well with anything Vallejo. The airbrush cleaners are different, thinners are different. After the Stynylrez, I cleaned the a/b then sprayed some Vallejo airbrush cleaner through, and backwashed it too.

Also needle size. Don't know what you are using but something .4mm or bigger is best for both the Stynylrez and Model Air. .5mm is best IMO and is what I used for the aforementioned test.

Hope this somehow helps you.

As a closing though, I've always found Dunkelgelb to be a weird color, and one that seems to bring up some debate from time to time. It doesn't look all that yellow to me, either.

For the easiest time,use Tamiya XF-60, you can lighten it with Buff if you like.Thin it with regular lacquer thinner not alcohol,you will get a smooth tough surface as a good base for weathering.Easy Peasy,don't complicate it

Vallejo paint has a learning curve lots of colors but it requires their thinner and flow improver.

Stick with easy "Tamiya"and move on later if you want to other paints when you have a better handle on it.

Your first!

 Your observations about your first few are par for the course. Somehow my first Cruiser and my first Model Car survived 1982. Geez they's UUgly! Glue Prints(I thought that was BluePrints? LOL.LOL.) and the Decaling and Painting,Yick! But See, we learn!

Don't sweat color differences.  I have been told that the German paints for field application were formulated such that they could be thinned with water, gasoline, or diesel oil.   Each thinner material imparted a different finish.  Remember too that units at the end of the logistics train, and paint stocks may be short mixed to get coverage. Then to there would be units painted on Monday vs those on Wednesday.  

Unless you are doing a documented replica, when the pigment hits the plastic, it is right.  Don't sweat the petty things - don't pet the sweaty things

ScaleModeler_1973

So my guess is that I will keep trying with the airbrushing, but just wondering: am I the only modeler who enjoys building better than painting? (I get the sense that most scale modelers get most of their satisfaction from being able to airbrush/paint better.) Thanks for letting me share and for maybe answering my embedded questions and sharing any observations that might stand out from my experience...

I was once that way too...HATED getting to the painting part, because that always seemed to be where things really went south.  These days, however, the painting part is the reward at the end of all of the hard work.  Over the last few years, I have learned a lot about different paints and primers to the point of pretty much having it down to a science, where I can get predictable results every time.  If you keep at it, it will eventually come together for you.

As for Vallejo Model Air, I tried that once because I had seen so many modelers on forums like this talking about how great it was.  It wasn't for me...tried it for the first time on an FB-111A project that is currently on the back burner...and the FS colors they had weren't even close to how they were supposed to look.  Ended up going back to Model Master Enamels, which ended up producing a SIOP camo scheme that was MUCH closer to the real thing.  Of course, the problem with Model Master Enamels now is that they don't make them anymore.  I still have those Model Master colors for the FB-111 when I get back to it, because I don't want slightly mismatched paint when I pick it back up again.  But, for military colors now for new projects, I tried MRP lacquers a couple of years ago and haven't looked back since.  They're fantastic in every way.

This Su-25M1 cockpit is mostly MRP lacquers, with some of the details painted with either Tamiya acrylics or MRP figure/aqua paint (which brushes and covers like a dream).  The wire bundles are Vallejo Model Color though, which also brushes and covers like a dream, so I guess they're not all bad.  

Greg,

        Thanks for taking the time to run that mini-experiment for my benefit. I could see just from your photos of the before and after shaking the Model Air bottle that it the before is much greener. And the results on the spoon are very apparent-can clearly see that the dunkelgelb sprayed over the spoon looks much greener than the lower 1/3rd of the spoon. I only shook the bottle for a couple of minutes and not in the manner you described(I need to do a better job of agitating). And you're probably right that I should have considered using a white primer-I guess I tried grey, because it is what I had available (I do remember reading that darker color primers are harder to cover with lighter paints). Oh, to be honest (this will sound really ignorant), but I am using a Paasche H airbrush and I don't know for sure which size needle I have installed-Ive always used the same medium size needle (I need to be more cognizant of what needle size I am actually using). One follow-up question: what is the standard airbrush cleaning fluid (brand or ingredients) that I should be using after spraying Stylnrez (I have Tamiya airbrush cleaner and Vallejo thinner, but I instead used Iwata, a detergent based airbrush cleaner (that i thought good for cleaning water based paints). Evidently, I need to use better cleaner. I may very well have been plagued by cross-contamination in this latest airbrushing session...

Tojo72, thanks for the tip about using Tamiya XF-60. I have some already, but unfortuantely I only have a supply of the regular X-20A Tamiya thinner. I'm sure I can order some of the lacquer thinner, though. I did not realize that Tamiya's lacquer thinner works well on their flat acrylic paints, too. I was going to ask you how the dark yellow will look if I use Tamiya X-20A in comparison, but I guess I probably just need to try using each thinner (lacquer and alchohol-based) myself for me to see the difference in how the finishes dry. I am just starting to appreciate that different thinners impart different finishes to the same paint (another variable I need to learn about controlling).

Ed, thanks for encouraging me not to 'sweat' over these difficult to measure  (especially in a historical accuracy sense) variations in color like with dunkelgelb. I get it that no one really knows for sure how these looked, and I am more of a novice just trying to do a decent looking job on my modest builds anyway. I should be more focused on building up my hobby skills...

Eaglecash, thanks for sharing about your experience with painting Vallejo Model Air and for encouraging me to keep with this and not get discouraged. If I try enough and remember my experiences from each airbrushing session, hopefully the airbrushing (including color control) will start to make more sense to me...    

Oh and Tanker-Builder, thanks for the humorous post and the sense of carmraderie. It is nice knowing that other can relate to gradually learning not to make mistakes like 'fingerprinting' one's scale models:) 

This is a great and friendly forum. Thanks again everyone.