Hi! I'm very excited to start the hobby this week, a few questions though.

[Guest]

Hi Everyone!
I bought my first model, brushes and all the paints I need.
While there's plenty of video's of people making models and airbrushing them, I'm desperately looking for some guidance on how to just use a brush with the revell aqua paints.
How do you thin, how much? Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Looking forward to talking with you all in the forums!

[Jim R]

Hi Miguel
Welcome to the forum. I am sure you will enjoy your time here. Modelling is a fun hobby open to all.
The only advice I would give regarding brush painting a model is to thin the paint so it goes on easily. Do not expect to cover in one go. It may need 3 or 4 thin coats to get a nice finish. Tiny details can be painted with thicker paint in less coats. Use the largest brush you can and for large, flat areas use a flat brush
Above all take your time and have fun.
Jim

[Guest]

Thanks for the advice! I read mixed opinions on mixing Revell Aqua paint, how much tapwater should I add?
And is it adviced to use thicker paint for tiny details?

[Wouter]

Jim's advice is the way to go.
How much tapwater (I use demineralised water, very cheap and much better) depends on how thin you would want your paint. Try it out a bit first. As Jim says 3-4 thin layers are better than one thick layer. So the paint needs to be quite watery.
Personally I don't have experience with the Revell stuff, for brushpainting I use Vallejo ones and consorts.

Oh, and buy good quality brushes and brush soap. If cleaned properly after each session they will last very long. And in the long run that will be much cheaper than buying cheap brushes which you need to discard much more quickly.

[Guest]

Jim's advice is the way to go.
How much tapwater (I use demineralised water, very cheap and much better) depends on how thin you would want your paint. Try it out a bit first. As Jim says 3-4 thin layers are better than one thick layer. So the paint needs to be quite watery.
Personally I don't have experience with the Revell stuff, for brushpainting I use Vallejo ones and consorts.

Oh, and buy good quality brushes and brush soap. If cleaned properly after each session they will last very long. And in the long run that will be much cheaper than buying cheap brushes which you need to discard much more quickly.

Thanks Wouter! As a first time painter in general, is it a good idea to practice on a piece of plastic? And about how thin I want the paint, that's hard to decide, how thin does my airplane like the paint? But I can assume it's better to be too thin than to thick? I'm afraid of messing up my first model in the first few days of working on it.
(groeten uit Gent!

[Jim R]

Too thin is better than too thick. Thick paint will obscure detail. There are no hard and fast rules regarding how much to thin paint. It depends on how thick the paint is, what colour it is, paint tend to thicken up as it is used - best to have a go and find out what suits you. Consider using a primer. Tamiya Fine Surface Primer is good stuff and comes in an aerosol. You only need a thin coat and it will make painting easier.
Jim

[Guest]

Hello Miguel and welcome to the forum.
This may help.

[Guest]

I'm desperately looking for some guidance on how to just use a brush with the revell aqua paints.

1. Open the bottle (tip: with the square plastic pots, you twist the cap like you would a screw lid).
2. Stir the paint with a cocktail stick, toothpick, or similar until it’s all one colour.
3. Dip the tip of your brush into the paint.
4. Put the brush to the model and drag it around.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you’ve covered all you want to with paint.

That’s really all there is to it (I sometimes think that this age of instruction videos is making people think things are far more complicated than they really are ).

The main things to note are first, you’ll need to develop a bit of a feel for how much paint to put on your brush, how much pressure to apply to it when painting, etc. — but you’ll get the hang of that soon enough by just looking at what you’re doing. Second, you may find the paint doesn’t cover perfectly well, and attempting to paint over it while it’s still wet won’t help. If so, finish what you’re painting, wait for the paint to dry, and then apply a second coat. I’ll steal some photos from Pete Low’s Curtiss Tomahawk thread to illustrate:



In this first one, he’s painted the darker brown but it’s not covering quite well enough: you can see the tan come through in some of the camouflage patches. After a second coat, this problem has been resolved:

[Guest]

1. Open the bottle (tip: with the square plastic pots, you twist the cap like you would a screw lid).
2. Stir the paint with a cocktail stick, toothpick, or similar until it’s all one colour.
3. Dip the tip of your brush into the paint.
4. Put the brush to the model and drag it around.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you’ve covered all you want to with paint.

That’s really all there is to it (I sometimes think that this age of instruction videos is making people think things are far more complicated than they really are :smiling3.

The main things to note are first, you’ll need to develop a bit of a feel for how much paint to put on your brush, how much pressure to apply to it when painting, etc. — but you’ll get the hang of that soon enough by just looking at what you’re doing. Second, you may find the paint doesn’t cover perfectly well, and attempting to paint over it while it’s still wet won’t help. If so, finish what you’re painting, wait for the paint to dry, and then apply a second coat.

Thanks for this! In a discussion on youtube someone told me I have to thin with water, Is this true?

[Guest]

someone told me I have to thin with water, Is this true?

To put it simply: gelul I use most paints straight from the pot/bottle/tin/etc. without thinning them at all. I only do that if the paint feels too thick to paint with, which again is a matter of experience, but pretty much any pot of paint you have newly opened will be thin enough to paint with just fine.

Once paint gets older after being opened, it also goes thicker (due to evaporation of the solvent), but this can take years if you keep the pots well closed. When it does get thicker, you may need to thin the paint with some water or alcohol to get it to flow well, yes, but you shouldn’t need to for newly opened paint at all. By the way, when you do thin paint, don’t do that in the pot. Rather, put a bit of paint on a palette (which can be as simple as a jam jar lid or a glazed wall tile) and mix the water into it there. If you do add it to the pot, you’ll probably find the paint going off more quickly.