Brush painting

[mnwildpunk]

As I said before I'm new to this hobby. I'm starting with testors acrylic paint for the interior. I am having problems with the paints showing my brush strokes. Do I need to thin my paints down or is it how I'm applying them? Sorry for the rookie questions

[crazyjim]

I hate those testors acrylic paints and avoid them like the plague. Never had much luck with them and brush strokes. I'll stick with the enamels.

[MrObsessive]

As Jim mentioned, those Testors Acrylics can be a pain..............better to use Tamiya water based paints if you can find them in your area. Problem right now with Tamiya, is their thinner is hard to get right now due to it needing reformulated for the California market-------so I'm not sure when it will be readily available again.

When brushing on acrylics, it's a good idea for the previous coat to be completely dry before trying to put on a second coat.

I don't know if you have one or if you can afford it, but nothing beats airbrushing acrylics, especially for interiors. For flat colors, simply take your finger and rub it on the side of your nose (there's some oil there) and rub it out on the seats for instance to give a nice sheen. It's an old trick but it works.

[Guest]

I use Model Masters and some Testors acrylics and a little trick that helps me prevent brush strokes showing is dipping just the tip of my brush in water in water before I load the paint onto the brush. It thins the paint just a little and makes it flow a lot better.

[Zoom Zoom]

I do not like brush painting acrylics in general, aside from small detail items.

That said, I'll go against the grain of what everyone is saying in regards to recommending Tamiya over Testors acrylics for brush painting, at least in regards to black colors.

I find Testors Acryl flat black (regular flat black, interior black, any shade of their flat black), and their semigloss black, to be far better than Tamiya for brush painting. The key is to use a good quality brush and apply it in a fairly heavy coat. It covers so much better than Tamiya black it's not funny It levels out as it dries. Kind of like "shrink to fit", much like Tamiya sprays. No having to wait for it to dry and go over it repeatedly, the pigment is much denser than Tamiya's.

As for other brush acrylic colors...I don't use 'em. I airbrush 'em. But I do a lot of small detail painting and touchups w/flat and semigloss black, and I absolutely love Testors Acryl for those tasks.

[mnwildpunk]

I bit the bullet today. I figured the only way to prevent brush stokes was to buy an airbrush I got a beginner model the badger 200-3 deluxe (comes with accs I guess lol) I hope to have it up and running soon.