04-26-2009, 03:49 PM
nachoman Wrote:I have always been a strong advocate of petroleum based paints for airbushing. But more and more I am considering acrylic alternatives and have been having more recent success with acrylic. Perhaps the acrylic paints have gotten better, or it has to do with my technique. I have been wondering about the possibility of spraying acrylic matte medium as a dullcote alternative. Has anyone tried this?
I'm of the same opinion as you, Kevin, and have always used lacquer-based pints for airbrushing. My occasional attempts to use acrylics were somewhat frustrating, and clean-up was much more time-consuming than with lacquer-based paints. Recently, I've been working on rolling stock, and decided to give acrylics another try. You may be correct in assuming that these paints have been improved, although this time I also decided to more closely follow the manufacturer's suggestions. I used PollyScale paints and am extremely pleased with the results - almost no clogging in painting 45 various freight cars, and the finish is very even and durable. The low odour is also nice, even with a vented spray booth, and it also brushes very nicely. Clean-up, however, is still a pain. The other annoying characteristic of this paint is seen when trying to mix it to achieve a particular colour: even when using colours similar to their Floquil equivalents, the resultant mixes were nothing like that achieved with Floquil. I often mix the paints as I'm painting, doing several cars in a colour, then adding other colour or colours to alter the original mix, for the next few cars. This way, those 45 boxcar-red cars are in varying shades and versions of the original, making them both more road-specific in colour and also showing the different effects of age and weathering in the basic paint - all cars, of course, will be weathered to varying degrees after lettering, too.
Some of these cars were lettered with dry transfers, some with decals, and some with a combination of both, so I needed both gloss and flat overcoats of clear finish. Since I couldn't find PollyScale in clear at my LHS, I used Dullcote and Glosscote, thinned with lacquer thinner and was able to do this airbrushing in the garage, as the weather was finally warm enough.
I'm told that the PollyScale clear coats aren't as "good" as Dullcote, etc., but I'm going to try some other water-based ones which I've seen at the hobby shop, and perhaps have them order-in some PollyScale, too.
I guess you could try spraying the matte medium - after all, it is used as a protective coating over artwork, although I'd be sure to clean the airbrush thoroughly, and immediately after spraying.
Wayne