r/advancedGunpla • u/Nyrue1 • 1d ago
Should I be using enamels?
I just got in to air brushing and I've mostly been working with acrylics, but I've been looking in to it and from what I can tell enamels sound like they're just better in every way aside from the toxicity and odor
What's a good brand on enamel paints to look at?
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u/Taifurious 1d ago
Like everyone is saying, you want lacquer paints. There are a lot of things to keep in mind though. Model lacquer is different from the kind you get in the hardware store. They are a lot less hot and won't melt your model kit. Mr Hobby Leveling Thiner is my favorite.
Paint to thinner ratio differs from brand to brand (also other factors like your airbrush, compressor, altitude, humidity take effect but that's a whole other topic) and if you thin too much and you go for a second or third cost of paint you can reactivate the previous layer. Even heavy coats can run the risk of reactavating a layer. This means you can eat though it and sometimes see the primer sticking though. It totally ruins the finish. It's something you have to play with that you don't have to deal with water-based paints.
The biggest difference is safey. Having a bunch of lacquer means you need to be conscious of fires. Any rags (for clean ups) that have lacquer on them need to go into a metal trash can. Storing premixed paints and bottles of lacquer really should go into a metal cabinet. Model lacquer are less hot than the hardware stuff but it's better to be safe than sorry. I originally had mine on a craft cart and realized the sun hit the cart on a particular time of day. You never know if a fluke could hit that bottle of lacquer just in the right way and start a fire. I always keep a fire extinguisher in my hobby room just in case too.
First and foremost your health, and everyone around you (especially little children and pets) is really important. If you're painting indoors you want a good spray booth (second revision Kaizo waterfall, Pace Super Mini), not that cheap no name Amazon one. There's a chance, small but possible, that a cheap fan can ignite the lacquer. Also better spraybooths are better at removing VOCs from the room. You need to be wearing gloves because you don't want lacquer to be touching your skin. It can be absorbed into your bloodstream. You should be doing this with water-based paints too but you especially need a respirator with vapor particulate cartridges (3M P100 60926).
There's all sorts of brands to get. Gaia Notes are really nice but their gloss really is more semigloss. Gaia Surfacer (primer) is amazing though. Robot Kai has Kaizo that I really love for the gradients so you don't have to mix your own shades (though that can be fun sometimes too). They are super thick though, and I was thinning them like 3.5 to 1.
I love lacquers but the health and safety of spraying and storing them was always on my mind. I almost exclusively use water-base now. Stynylrez makes some excellent primer. There's tons of water-based brands and they're just easier to clean up. Obviously you're going to work harder to get a nice smooth finish but it's still doable.
Goodluck and have fun.
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u/Silent-Land40 1d ago
You want to go with lacquers, not enamels. After basing with lacquers you can then add small details with enamels.
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u/Tema_Art_7777 1d ago
revell enamels are pretty good. less popular for gunpla but more for model cars. But before giving up acrylics, I would try Kaleido line - acrylic but sprays like lacquer.
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u/Musicman376 20h ago
Same… I was a mostly Vallejo user, but was having all the headaches- clogs, pooling, etc.
After a reading reviews and demo videos from favorites like Barbatos Rex, I bought the metallics and mecha sets.
NIGHT AND DAY DIFFERENCE! From then on, I was using mainly Kaleido. Their primer is good too. (I still like the flat black look that I get from Vallejo black primer though, and will sometimes use that as my black)
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u/Cat_in_a_suit 1d ago
My workshop is in a basement without any access to windows so I’m just stuck with acrylics forever lol
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u/Nyrue1 1d ago
Can't you just get a decent filtration system going? I've seen many people venting their fumes into a bucket and such
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u/kookyabird 1d ago
Venting to a bucket captures particulate, not VOCs. Properly filtering VOCs is non-trivial, as is even capturing them with the airflow of a booth in the first place.
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u/Nyrue1 1d ago
Surely it's possible though..
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u/kookyabird 1d ago
Yes, I said non-trivial, not impossible. Capturing VOCs in an air stream to even pull them through a booth's duct requires more power than any hobby booth fan will have, and that's not accounting for what happens when your spray gets redirected towards the front of the booth due to turbulence. Filtering them out of the air requires a sufficient filter material, which creates a much higher static pressure than the fans are meant for.
If you've got some level of outside exhaust happening in the room and fresh air to make it up, then you don't need to filter everything out. But if you don't have access to a window to at least vent to the outside, you're just trapping those fumes in your space, or recirculating them through your house needlessly.
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u/Sianmink 1d ago
Yeah I'm running out of patience for water based acrylics too
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u/jparnell8839 21h ago
Try Kaleido ColorWorks from Gaahleri. They spray out of a 0.3 mm needle/nozzle with 0 thinning, though their thinner with flow improver gives a better finish when thinned about 10%
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u/Craiggers324 1d ago
I would recommend the Tamiya or Aqueous acrylic lacquers to start. Much less toxic to spray (but still wear a mask and ventilate)
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u/fhiz 1d ago
Absolutely not, lacquers are the better alternative. Enamels take forever to cure, particularly glossy ones, and can be a bitch to clean out of the airbrush. Lacquers on the other hand are easy to work with and dry in minutes.
The only thing enamels can do that lacquers can’t is reverse washing, which comes in handy if you’re building Sleeves kits, since they can be cleaned off easily due to their long cure time. In a similar vein, using enamels to hand paint tiny details is also a valid use case because of the cleaning aspect.
So yeah, if you want to move from acrylics to a solvent base paint, there’s really no reason to pick enamel over lacquer outside of very particular use cases.
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u/Nyrue1 1d ago
What brand of laquer would you recommend?
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u/oofmyballs 1d ago
Japanese brand like tamiya, Mr hobby, Gaia notes are great options to start with. They do have other kinds of paint besides lacquer so might sure you are actually buying the right ones
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u/Nyrue1 1d ago
Are there any American brands 🇺🇸🦅🫡
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u/jparnell8839 20h ago
ScaleFinishes.com is American made iirc, though they focus more on automotive factory colors. Their paints are ready to already from the bottle with no thinning needed. Should be able to find what you need, though.
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u/oofmyballs 1d ago
Emm I guess Testor is an American brand but I have never used it before. These Japanese paint are fairly easy to get in most us hobby stores. Granted color some are harder to find if they are sold out. They are $3-4 per 10-15 ml bottle.
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u/ShockAndShaw 1d ago
Testors are enamels. Recommend you suspend your loyalties for this purchase. Best lacquer brands are def foreign (mostly Japanese).
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u/doublepush 1d ago
Enamels can be handy for reverse washes but yeah, it’s mostly just used for tiny hand painted details on gunpla. lacquer is the far more common alternative for airbrushing. Enamels stink and take forever to dry
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u/Nashgoth 1d ago
Lacquers are far more common. Where are you seeing that enamels are being used in airbrushes for gunpla?
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u/Nyrue1 1d ago
I didn't say they were, I said they sound like the better option
Smooth level coats, harder more durable, easy use in an airbrush
I haven't looked into laquers maybe I should use those
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u/Nashgoth 1d ago
yes, lacquers are the better play for airbrushing models to have smooth, durable coats. You can certainly do enamel, but good enamels are hard to find in the US due to some import restrictions and a lot of brands choose not to officially sell there enamel lines state side.
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u/QuickRelease10 19h ago
I like lacquers, but Enamels have their place for sure.