Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I found and bought a can of this from my now local art supply store. I have a couple of questions before I go using it:

-If I were to spray this over metal, do I want to spray over Silver or Gold?

-If I have a scheme that will be black and orange, do I want to base the areas that will be black before I spray this on or after? (Highlights will obviously be after)

-As a second to the above, how difficult is it to paint over these Tamiya Clear sprays?

-If I've sprayed this on and then mess up on another part of the model, what color would I use to reapply the clear orange? Specifically, would I need their jar paint of clear orange or could I get away with a thinned GW Contrast or Army Painter Speed Paint?

I've used most of the tamiya clear line and they coat very well over metallics.
I'd recommend a layer of their chrome silver as I've had much success with power weapons glowing using the blue as a light thinned coat.

The same would go for their orange, I just have not needed it for a project so haven't grabbed a bottle. Green, blue, purple, red all kick ass when thinned using successive coats.

Racerguy180 wrote:
I've used most of the tamiya clear line and they coat very well over metallics.
I'd recommend a layer of their chrome silver as I've had much success with power weapons glowing using the blue as a light thinned coat.

The same would go for their orange, I just have not needed it for a project so haven't grabbed a bottle. Green, blue, purple, red all kick ass when thinned using successive coats.

OK, so do get the pot paint. Got it.

Follow up questions:

-do I need anything special to paint over it? Again, looking at a predominantly orange and black color scheme.

-what kind of thinner do you use for the pot paints of the Tamiya Clear?

Tamiya x-20 thinner if your airbrushing. Thinned you need to treat it as a glaze, where many thin coats achieve a much better result. Typically 3-4 if doing solid & 4-5 if gradient.

Returning to this after a few weeks for a bit of a PSA regarding the Tamiya Clear Spray Orange:

1) This Spray requires multiple thin coats to get to an orange color. A single coat comes out yellow (which is great for painting Imperial Fists!).

2) This Spray also comes out in a gloss coat. Which is fine if that's what you're looking for, but beware that...

3) That makes it tricky to paint over. You can do so with several thin coats, but you WILL want to seal it afterwards to ensure the paint stays.

I'm attaching an example from what I was trying to do.

As someone currently painting with clear gloss over metalics, doing a lot of tsons 30k, i can help you out here.

If you wanna get a good look the undercoat will greatly determine the mood of the clear coat.
If you base in silver its going to be colder, if you base it in gold, its going to be a very rich warm orange.
If you have an air brush, the best thing you can do is this order of priming
1. base black
2. base gold from the can
3 (Optional) shoot from the bottom up a shadow of burnt umbra ink
4.(optional) shoot a highlight of a pale gold from above
5. wash in nulin oil, not glass, just regular nullin, 2nd coat is optional for deeper shadows
6. apply clear coat slowly.

Now in order to paint ontop of this, you need to slowly build up your layers and it takes many many thin coats to do so.
If you want to paint a metalic over this clear coat, first paint the area in a regular paint, for example if you wanna paint gold, paint the area in a none metalic gold color, like a light brown, if its silver paint the area in a gray first, THEN paint the metalic ontop of it.

That first layer of nonmetalic paint will give something for the mica flakes in the metalic paints to cling to, otherwise it will be like painting with glitter.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
As someone currently painting with clear gloss over metalics, doing a lot of tsons 30k, i can help you out here.

If you wanna get a good look the undercoat will greatly determine the mood of the clear coat.
If you base in silver its going to be colder, if you base it in gold, its going to be a very rich warm orange.
If you have an air brush, the best thing you can do is this order of priming
1. base black
2. base gold from the can
3 (Optional) shoot from the bottom up a shadow of burnt umbra ink
4.(optional) shoot a highlight of a pale gold from above
5. wash in nulin oil, not glass, just regular nullin, 2nd coat is optional for deeper shadows
6. apply clear coat slowly.

Now in order to paint ontop of this, you need to slowly build up your layers and it takes many many thin coats to do so.
If you want to paint a metalic over this clear coat, first paint the area in a regular paint, for example if you wanna paint gold, paint the area in a none metalic gold color, like a light brown, if its silver paint the area in a gray first, THEN paint the metalic ontop of it.

That first layer of nonmetalic paint will give something for the mica flakes in the metalic paints to cling to, otherwise it will be like painting with glitter.

Thanks man, that actually helps a ton!

I was wondering why this turned out more of a coppery brown color. Looks like gunmetal->steel->silver was a bit too dark.

Yeah, I've got a method of doing Gold that I think will work out. I don't yet have an airbrush as I'm waiting until I get my shop/shed cleaned out enough, so in the meantime I'm Drybrushing using Artis Opus' method.

This model was a test model I was painting alongside an Imperial Fists dude. I was trying to decide between going Imperial Fists and a custom chapter ("The Sun Kings" and experimenting and timing how long each took to accomplish.

Now that I see that one thin coat of this orange spray actually comes out yellow, I think I'll go with Fists for my Primaris army (although it will take somewhat longer to paint).

However, The Sun Kings aren't going anywhere; provided the new edition of Horus Heresy allows for Blackshield armies, I'll be making them an 11th Legion splinter faction. I'll use your suggestions at that time for them.

If you are going to be getting an air brush i would strongly suggest getting and using alclad II Candy paints, thye have a candy orange that you use throgh an airbrush and it will give you more control. You also will have the ability depending on how heavy you are on the trigger/paint to end up with either a more matte metalic, or if you lay heavy on the trigger with the alclad paint, a very high gloss shine coat.

Do note though, they are enamel paints so ventilation and proper respirator is a 100% must when arosolizing enamel paints. Also get a bottole of mineral spirits to clean the paint out after using it.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
If you are going to be getting an air brush i would strongly suggest getting and using alclad II Candy paints, thye have a candy orange that you use throgh an airbrush and it will give you more control. You also will have the ability depending on how heavy you are on the trigger/paint to end up with either a more matte metalic, or if you lay heavy on the trigger with the alclad paint, a very high gloss shine coat.

Tamiya have both a spray and a bottle version of their paints. How does the alclad candy compare to the tamiya bottle candy? I've used the Tamiya red candy and was pretty happy with it, though it does need to built up pretty heavy if you want it to look like a candy (versus looking like a tint).

Do note though, they are enamel paints so ventilation and proper respirator is a 100% must when arosolizing enamel paints. Also get a bottole of mineral spirits to clean the paint out after using it.

I think alclad paints are lacquers rather than enamels? Unless the candies are different, I've used their metals and primers and those are lacquers.

My understanding is lacquers are even more unhealthy than enamels (containing methanol, toluene, acetone, among others), so I only spray lacquers if I'm using a powerful spray booth that 100% exhausts everything to the point where I don't need to rely on a respirator.