Enamels vs. Acrylics

[WBCenobyte]

Hi everyone,

I am a Tabletop-Player and have painted miniatures for sale for some years. I have always worked with acrylic colors (mostly Vallejo Model and Game Colors) doing that and have now read through the forums and flipped through some Youtube tutorials on painting props. You guys seem to use enamels exclusively to do that. Would you mind telling me why? From my point of view the waterbased acrylics should be far easier to work with and should resist wear and tear as well as enamels when using a hard clear coating followed by matte coat.

Here is an example on a modified 28mm miniature from the Warmachine/Hordes Game of Privateer Press. It's Dawnguard Scyir and I let a sculptor make some Mandalorian helmets, which were then cast. I swapped all heads of an entire army and will paint them up in the Death Watch color scheme. So this helmet is about 3mm high.




Do you have any experience on this?
Also: What kind of masking fluid do you guys use?

I ordered myself an unpainted Bo-Katan Helmet and plan on getting a Jango Helmet to paint it up as a Pre Vizsla helmet just for display purposes.

Thanks for any information on this!
Tim

 

[Necronaut]

I think enamels tend to be favoured for hard parts simply because they are a more durable finish. Wearing a costume will impart a little wear on hard parts, with all the little dings and bumps that can happen when you're out and about. Enamel paint will better resist scraping and chipping, compared to an acrylic. I know exactly where you're coming from, though. I use acrylics for laying down paint on models myself, but I started weathering them with enamel products (like AK Interactive's excellent line of enamel weathering solutions). To each his own.

 

[WBCenobyte]

Okay - but this isn't a strict No Go, yeah? For display purposes this should work pretty well then. I will definitely check out the weathering solutions. Got some pigments from Vallejo now for weathering - what I will definitely use are the enamel metallics. Acrylic metallics have always been a mediocre solution for me.

 

[Necronaut]

Yeah, you should be fine with acrylic for a display build. And myself, I'll be using buffable metalizer enamels for my raw metal bits on the suit (flamethrower, gauntlet rocket, etc.)

 

[ICEmonkey]

First off nice figure , I use acrylics for figures but I also use them for my 1/6 rc tanks , I always finish with a few coats of matt varnish, and the paints been very durable, and seeing they get driven on all terrains including driving through bushes it seems to of lasted well , a lot of its down to personal choice

 

[WBCenobyte]

Sounds good. What kind of varnish do you use? As you are from the UK, do you use Testors?

 

[ICEmonkey]

I've used testors before, now I tend to use lifecolor acrylics and varnishes, , but I also use future floor polish after the paint , it gives you a good hard semi shine finish that's good for applying decals to, then lay on the weathering , then finish with the mat varnish

 

[WBCenobyte]

Sweet idea! Do you brush it on or so you use a spray?

 

[WBCenobyte]

*do you (Autocorrect fail)

 

[ICEmonkey]

I use a airbrush , the future floor polish used to be called klear floor polish over here but I use it neat through the airbrush

 

[BobaFiend]

Enamels will hold up better. If you don't plan on wearing the costume then you can use what you like, so long as your displays are taken care of.