Vallejo and other types of model paints -- tips and advice

I don't know much when it comes to the technical side of paints and varnishes, but it seems to me like the Vallejo varnish is somehow wayyy too thick and goopy. And unlike the actual Vallejo paints which tend to thin out once dried even if you apply them more thickly, the matt varnish seems to just cover everything very densely. :/

skywalkersaga wrote:I don't know much when it comes to the technical side of paints and varnishes, but it seems to me like the Vallejo varnish is somehow wayyy too thick and goopy. And unlike the actual Vallejo paints which tend to thin out once dried even if you apply them more thickly, the matt varnish seems to just cover everything very densely. :/

I wonder if you could mix it with a little paint thinner...

I will try to mix it with the Vallejo glaze medium and see what happens. But I'll definitely not be using it on any actual finished pieces again anytime soon...that was silly of me.

You can get airbrush flow improver or airbrush thinners by valejo these work really well with my air brush and ive used the 'thinned' paint to touch up bits where the brush just misted rather than covered.


not sure how they worked with varnish as i used clear

Thanks for the tip... I don't have or use an airbrush at present, though I'll consider it for future reference.

If you need to thin it I can highly recommend Lifecolor thinner, it works really, really well with Vallejo paints and varnishes.

CHEERS!

Thanks, that's REALLY good to know!|

Resurrecting this thread since I'm on a painting binge again.

I started re-painting a bunch of headsculpts, only to realize mid-way through that I wanted to do to rooted hair on some of them. Unfortunately, these are the type of female headsculpts that have the scalp glued on. So in order to get the scalp off, I'll have to put them in hot/boiling water. Would I be able to remove the scalps that way on the ones I already painted, or is that a no-go? I'm thinking if I were to make sure they were cured and varnished first, then the acrylic would be ok?

Alternatively, I could try to just cut off the hair and leave the scalp on when doing the glued hair, which is what I was originally thinking of doing, but I'm concerned I won't be able to do the hairline or part very well if I do it that way. Hard to explain, but I think I need to remove the scalp in order to make it work.

Just wondering if I can do that without ruining the paint, somehow...

Experiment on one that would be easier to repaint. I tried to soften a Darth Vader head in hot water once and it had a bad effect on the paint, but then again that paint was supposed to be metallic gunmetal black or gray, and probably not acrylic. If you remove the scalp, what will be your base for the re-hairing?

GubernatorFan wrote:Experiment on one that would be easier to repaint. I tried to soften a Darth Vader head in hot water once and it had a bad effect on the paint, but then again that paint was supposed to be metallic gunmetal black or gray, and probably not acrylic. If you remove the scalp, what will be your base for the re-hairing?

I'm definitely going to experiment on one that is less high-maintenance, first, for sure.

My plan was to remake the entire back of the head out of sculpting material, probably epoxy of some kind so that I can carve grooves into it where needed. Then to paint that, and then glue the hair to it.

skywalkersaga wrote:I'm definitely going to experiment on one that is less high-maintenance, first, for sure.

My plan was to remake the entire back of the head out of sculpting material, probably epoxy of some kind so that I can carve grooves into it where needed. Then to paint that, and then glue the hair to it.

Ok, just checking, makes sense. Why would you need grooves? I agree they are not always necessary to fill in/don't get in the way, but I wonder why they would be needed. Or are you referring to the area where you might want to go a bit deeper for hair parting? (Ovy also said something about that in a recent post.)

GubernatorFan wrote:

Ok, just checking, makes sense. Why would you need grooves? I agree they are not always necessary to fill in/don't get in the way, but I wonder why they would be needed. Or are you referring to the area where you might want to go a bit deeper for hair parting? (Ovy also said something about that in a recent post.)

Yes, I'm referring to the hair parting area. On some of the hairstyles, I don't know how I'd make a middle part work just by using the original plastic scalp with the hair cut off. I feel like the glue would show. I guess I could cut groove into the plastic, but it seems like more chance of things getting pretty messy.

Also, I want to remove the scalp so that certain types of hairlines will be easier. Because then I can 'tuck' the ends of the 'roots' of the glued hair underneath, so they don't show, and then I don't have to worry about the glue showing. ETA: I'm referring here to a hairstyle with hair pulled back.

skywalkersaga wrote:Yes, I'm referring to the hair parting area. On some of the hairstyles, I don't know how I'd make a middle part work just by using the original plastic scalp with the hair cut off. I feel like the glue would show. I guess I could cut groove into the plastic, but it seems like more chance of things getting pretty messy.

Also, I want to remove the scalp so that certain types of hairlines will be easier. Because then I can 'tuck' the ends of the 'roots' of the glued hair underneath, so they don't show, and then I don't have to worry about the glue showing. ETA: I'm referring here to a hairstyle with hair pulled back.

Makes sense. As I've mentioned before, for fixing glue that is showing (in my experience superglue can leave a bit of grayish fuzz at the roots), I strongly recommend using some acrylic marker (where the acrylic paint is turned into ink and will not clump up), provided of course that it matches the hair color closely enough. Molotow are great, but come in a very limited number of colors (I think), and I'm very happy with Zeyar's "Paint Marker"/"Acrylic Paint Pens" 32-color pack (but of course, even that might not have a specific color you might need).

GubernatorFan wrote:

Makes sense. As I've mentioned before, for fixing glue that is showing (in my experience superglue can leave a bit of grayish fuzz at the roots), I strongly recommend using some acrylic marker (where the acrylic paint is turned into ink and will not clump up), provided of course that it matches the hair color closely enough. Molotow are great, but come in a very limited number of colors (I think), and I'm very happy with Zeyar's "Paint Marker"/"Acrylic Paint Pens" 32-color pack (but of course, even that might not have a specific color you might need).

Thank you, those are helpful recommendations, I'll bear them in mind!

skywalkersaga wrote:Thank you, those are helpful recommendations, I'll bear them in mind!

Glad to help, hope it works for you too.

Ive seen folks do a couple different things for a part.

Here’s a link that could be useful from the Old Site:

https://www.onesixthwarriors.com/forum/sixth-scale-action-figure-news-reviews-and-discussion-/850761-tutorial-applying-hair-1-6-head-rambo-daryl-dixon.html

Thank you, Stryker, also very helpful!

I feel like maybe we need a hair rooting thread, if only to collect all these resources together... so much great info out there, but all spread out....

Interesting step by step explanation from OSW -- before my days on there. Pretty useful stuff, but the method seems a little too messy for my taste. Then again even my method can be a bit messy. Other than using glue directly on the head (as I usually do) or preparing hairlines in advance (like the OSW thread), one could cut thin strips of two-sided tape (I used the Allene fabric tape), place them on the head, then attach the hair to those; it works ok, but it can be a bit messy too (although cleaner in theory).

Update: I was able to remove the glued-on scalp from one of the already-painted headsculpts without too much issue. I did it by only submerging up to the hairline to loosen the glue, and just not submerging the painted face area in the boiling water. The hair piece came off pretty easily doing it that way. All I had to do was just double check that it hadn't left any limescale residue, since I'd had to use water from the kettle to do it. 

But all in all, I answered my own question -- yes it is possible. Probably depends on the headsculpt and how strongly the scalp piece is glued on, but in this case it worked without ruining the paint.

I'm happy the experiment worked, Sky.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good way to mask various small, hard to reach areas while painting? I'm wanting to do some [re]painting and sculpting on some headsculpts, and some have areas I'd like to keep protected while doing so -- mainly the eyes, maybe the lips in some cases. I've currently been using Tamiya masking tape, and it is good in the sense that it doesn't leave a residue behind, but it's a bit tricky to shape properly to cover the specific areas, and tends to end up covering either less or a lot more surface than what I require. 

Is there some kind of putty that one could use that wouldn't leave residue behind? That way I could cover the eyes and lips more easily than with the tape, which is hard to get into more organic shapes. I've heard of blu-tac being used, but also heard that it has chance of leaving residue. I've also heard of Vallejo masking fluid, but been informed that you have to work very fast in order to use it, as it becomes harder to remove after about 20 mins. I'd be interested in knowing any alternatives?

Years ago, when I used to assemble and paint resin models (of Anime figures), I used this stuff:

https://www.amazon.com/Microscale-Industries-MI-7-Micro-Mask/dp/B0006O028U/ref=pd_sbs_21_2/134-3891424-1939308?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0006O028U&pd_rd_r=4d463b1c-4cd6-492d-95ca-83bdbfe54f10&pd_rd_w=u2DCd&pd_rd_wg=mWk3M&pf_rd_p=7cd8f929-4345-4bf2-a554-7d7588b3dd5f&pf_rd_r=MRG4ZJEMJ4DSSS6TWZD3&psc=1&refRID=MRG4ZJEMJ4DSSS6TWZD3

If you read the reviews and “questions and answers”, you should get a good idea if this would work for you. I haven’t done anything at this scale for so long, I can’t really be of further help.

I just use regular kneadable eraser, something like this.

https://www.amazon.de/Faber-Castell-127220-Knetradiergummi-Eraser-grau/dp/B01EFPZHOO/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?adgrpid=73727817080&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgNWL94Tq5wIVhumaCh1eUAHwEAAYASAAEgJH_vD_BwE&hvadid=352858008701&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9044477&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=15991506966188703518&hvtargid=aud-840099857932%3Akwd-488651130232&hydadcr=8372_1743038&keywords=knetradierer&qid=1582542159&sr=8-1

Stryker -- thanks for the rec! That could have potential for certain areas, I'd of course have to experiment on practice surfaces first, like with anything. 

Ovy -- interesting! I hadn't realized it could be used in that way. Have you used it to mask eyes before?

skywalkersaga wrote:Stryker -- thanks for the rec! That could have potential for certain areas, I'd of course have to experiment on practice surfaces first, like with anything. 

Ovy -- interesting! I hadn't realized it could be used in that way. Have you used it to mask eyes before?

Not exactly eyes, but I like to use it for masking when spray priming. It leaves no trace and can be taken of without messiness.

Ovy wrote:

skywalkersaga wrote:
Ovy -- interesting! I hadn't realized it could be used in that way. Have you used it to mask eyes before?

Not exactly eyes, but I like to use it for masking when spray priming. It leaves no trace and can be taken of without messiness.

Gotcha, that makes sense!

I've got a few head sculpt painting experiments coming up, this would come in handy, thanks.

I've always used Maskol to cover small parts of irregular shape it's paint friendly

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Humbrol-AC5217-28ml-Maskol-Bottle/dp/B006ZY3KZW/ref=asc_df_B006ZY3KZW/?tag=bingshoppinga-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=&hvpos=&hvnetw=o&hvrand=&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584345017124246&psc=1

Thanks, Delanie -- so many good tips here! You guys have helped me with something that was holding back a lot progress, so I greatly appreciate it. :')