Acrylic paints – how to thin and airbrush them.

Acrylic paints are the most popular paints on the market now. There is no doubt about it. Along with that, acrylic paints are among the troubling tools in usage among modelers. Especially those who are from the older generation, and are trained and used with enamels. Even me – back in a day I started with enamels. They are of course – more tedious to work with. They smell bad, take more time to cure, hardly any repairs can be done after spraying. But when I was first introduced with acrylics, I had almost no trouble at all. And that was because I already know what to expect from those paints. Of course, still, I struggle with Revell paints, and even with AK/Vallejo/MIG from time to time. But nothing major. Usually the moisture is the problem, and if you are ready to clean your needle every once in a while during airbrushing session, acrylic paints won’t be a problem at all.

The thing is, that they say – acrylic paints are less harmful for your health. Well, not exactly. They are bad of course, and you gotta be prepared to paint with a mask and transparent glasses if you want to be safe. Nevertheless I rarely do that, and I intend to change it for good. Mask is mandatory when spraying paints, acrylic ones too. Acrylic paints are somehow spreading across the room when airbrushing, especially with long airbrush sessions, with high compressor settings.

Acrylic paints are not that bad of course. You can see that Tamiya, Gunze, AK Interactive, Vallejo and MIG are selling mostly these. Other companies got into that game as well. That is not without a reason. Although Tamiya are not exactly acrylic paints per se /their XF line/, they are still sold as acrylics and they are still less harmful for your health. Whatever the case is, the most you can get out of the different colors nowadays comes from acrylic paints.

So in order to try and help you out, sharing my experience, I give you this small video to see how I work with Acrylic Paints, why do I like them, and which ones I prefer: