Of Pigments and... well... Pigments

[Kharsin]

I haven't messed around with Testor's enamels for years. I think I have quite a few in storage... which most likely means they're reduced to shiny, slimy goop. The last time I did models was probably back in high school or early college. At any rate, I was still living with my parents. I really enjoyed learning acrylics through minis, and they don't require all of the thinner. It'd be interesting to mess with enamels now as I'm much better with painting in general than anything I can think of back then. I think I was even using krylon industrial spray primer at that time... if anything! Lol!

[Egg of Coot]

6 hours ago, Heisler said:

The only place I'm really familiar with painters that use both acrylics and enamels on the same model are armor modelers.

 

Aircraft builders do too.  I use oil paints exclusively for certain weather effects and camouflage types.  Oils are nice to use over acrylics principally because you can tweak an effect without destroying the underlying paint work.

 

The Egg

[Kharsin]

Okay, so I ended up making Lampblack instead of waiting to order pigments. Money's a bit snug right now, so freeish is much better! I ended up with this set-up:

 

 

My wick is a bit sketchy, but in the end I ended up with a good bit of corn oil infused lampblack... which smelled terrible. Note that I didn't burn ALL of that oil. In fact, I didn't burn much at all. Maybe a couple of minutes worth as I didn't need a ton to finish the Tiger.

 

Here's a before:

 

During:

 

And After-ish:

 

I say after-ish as after I took this photograph, I noticed a noobie armor mistake: there isn't anything on the part of the exhaust surrounded by the exhaust shielding. That's bare plastic glaring out from under that endcap! At any rate, I did my best to hit it with black primer to cover up the light gray color. 

 

I'm not sure if I did this correctly, but essentially I used an old brush to pick up the pigment (wearing a mask, of course!) and just dab it onto the tank. In places that needed more, I attempted to make a paste-ish substance using rubbing alcohol (91%). I essentially ended up dipping the brush in the alcohol and then dabbing or brushing the substance where necessary. The lampblack seemed to like sticking to the brush much more than the tank, but I'm pretty satisfied for a first time working with pigments that I had to make rather than purchase. I'd love input from those who know better!

 

I am planning on purchasing pigments soon as I'll need other colors than black to finish my 1/35 Matilda. The next step for this tank is to figure out a  diorama to stage it in. I'll get around to it soon.

 

As always, questions, comments, and suggestion are always welcome!

 

-K

[Cyradis]

I love that ingenuity in creating your own pigment! Looks pretty effective on that tank to me. 

[Pingo]

Just FYI, lampblack is a notoriously greasy pigment.  It's probably fine for this use, but I wouldn't recommend trying to actually mix it with acrylics or any other water medium.

 

If you're going to make your own pigments, please do due diligence first.  Many of them are okay, especially if you're, say, digging your own colored clay to make ochres.  But a lot of the old toxic alchemical ones are surprisingly easy to make in the home.

[Kharsin]

Yeah it was pretty sticky-sticky to the brush. This was only mixed with isopropyl alcohol... and was a pain to get off that Pyrex dish. Lol!