How i use Tamiya Paint

i see a lot of people each week asking different things about different paints.

today i will cover how i go about using tamiya paint in an airbrush to get the finish i want.

first thing i have to do is define something.... most paint is not really meant to be opaque or solid . to get it to be more opaque you simply keep adding layers to the finish until it is no longer see through or translucent. this is why colors change their hues when sprayed over different colored base coats. ie: silver basecoat will give you a brighter top coat compared to a red or black base coat (or primer). this is why aircraft and armor modelers go through the trouble of pre shading after primer to help define panel lines.

for the sake of this article i will not be using primer ( yea i know i say religiously, prime everything, every time ) i am doing something different to demonstrate what i mean without actually priming.

the second thing this article will highlight is the amount of paint that is wasted . you can get a lot more bang for your buck if you use the paints properly.

ok this is what i am working with today, 2 brand new bottled of Tamiya copper XF-6

i will be thinning the Paint with X20a ( my home brew equivalent )

yea i still keep it in an x20a bottle as it makes it easy to identify when i need it

i am going to start out with one of the biggest internet myths i have seen over the past year.....
take a brand new 10ml bottle of paint

add thinner up to the bottom lip of the neck

and you will be "good to go" for basically anything you want to do.

meh, first thing i wanted to do is find out how much thinner it takes to get to the lower lip of the neck. so i grabbed one of my graduated pipettes

and found out it takes 5ml of thinner to bring it to that level.

this would equate to a 33.3% mix of paint to thinner or 2:1

lets call that a starting point to show you how much more flexible this paint is when it comes to thinning and how you are wasting money

here is how i am going to lay out this test
i am diluting/thinning the paint to different levels ranging from the 2:1 above all the way to 1:3

for each of those cups i added exactly 1ml of paint and finished the ratios by adding the thinner and stirring the resulting mix

my test mules for the day will be the alternate set of wing sections from my hellcat build. might as well get some use out of them.


it would not be much of a test if i just sprayed over single color bare plastic so i am going to add in a line of tamiya black across the test area of each wing.


i was going to use my new infinity airbrush but opted for the Neo instead because i wanted this test to reflect the mid level tools which are available throughout the world that dont cost an arm and a leg but still produce perfectly adequate results


it only took a couple minutes for the black to dry, i then marked each area with the dilution percentage with a sharpie


then starting with the base line mixture 33% or 2:1 i load up the paint cup, compressor is always set to between 18-20 psi


and off we go, this was after one medium pass with the airbrush, i was actually getting worried near the end of the spray that the 1ml was not going to be enough to cover the area that i had allotted to it but it just made it


once done spraying i ran 2 cups of thinner through the airbrush to flush it out and used a q tip dipped in thinner to wipe the tip area out

on to the next dilution..now this is 2ml of liquid, 1ml paint and 1ml thinner


same process but this was after 2 medium wet coats waiting about 3 mins between the coats for the first coat to flash off ( evaporate the thinner in the layer of paint so it no longer looked wet, failure to wait for it to flash can result in too much paint causing runs or drips ) before hitting it with another coat.

funny enough, i still had paint left in the cup when done.


same flush sequence between change overs

now time for dilution number 3

remember, this is the reverse of the initial "fill it to the lip" theory people like to spread around.
3 ml of liquid, 1 ml paint, 2ml thinner
this time through i sprayed 4 medium wet coats, 3-4 minutes in between coats waiting for the paint to flash before applying the next level.

i had probably a half ml of liquid left in the paint cup by the time i was done

flush sequence repeated and onto the last dilution

this is 4ml of liquid, 1 ml of paint and 3ml of thinner
i sprayed exactly the same way as i did the last lot except this time i built up 6 coats to get the depth i wanted.
this still left me with a bit over a ml in the paint cup when the session was complete.

you can see in the following pics that there is a definite difference in opacity.




if i am the one doing the painting, i am using the 1:2 or even the 1:3 all day, every day.
it allows more control over your finish, you control how much of your undercoat shows through.
you control how well your pre shading highlights all the details you have painstakingly added.

another way to think about it is by volume....
basic bottle is 10ml of paint
33% gives you 15ml of usable product
50% gives you 20ml
66% gives you 30ml
and 75% gives you 40ml of paint to use as you please.

hope this helps someone out, time to break down the airbrush and give it a clean.
never end a session and think a simple flush is enough to put the equipment away.
that is a sure fire way to make sure the next time you are ready to spray, you will most likely be stopped mid swing to break it down and clean it then because some debris got nocked loose or air wont flow properly.

not worth the headache to me.

cya in a bit