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My idol, Lincoln Wright swears by Mr Color series paints, and I've been interested in them for a while now. However, the only local hobby shop which sold them went bankrupt, and now I'm in a position where I'd have to order the paints "blind" online. I am looking for user experiences, especially related to their H-series paints.

I know Mr Color is famous for their laquer based acrylics (G-series?), but I am specifically interested in the H-series as using them doesn't require smelly solvent-based thinners, and their odour is also supposedly much more tolerable when used indoors.

I wish I could get a separate painting room so as to be able to use the laquer based ones, but it's simply not an option right now. If the H-series acrylics are a step up in quality compared to AK/Vallejo et al, I am interested in upgrading my paints. Currently I am using AK almost exclusively, they are ok but fussy when it comes to airbrushing.. Especially keen to know how Mr Color range performs wrt the challenging acrylic colours, such as white and yellow, as well as their metallics. I also like the idea that one can control the glossiness of the H-series paints with the complementary mixing mediums, controlling shininess in modelling is something I like exploring more and more (decent "roughness" control in small scale is still probably too demanding for my current skills..)

TIA for any insight!

Nobody has used these? All right, I'll just have to take one for the community and test them out. I'll order a batch of these and will come back to this later when I've had time to test them

I for one would appreciate the community service! Definitely interested in the products but haven't picked them up for myself yet. The control over the finish is a big thing that caught my eye too...

The Aqeuous paints are great. Haven't used them on minis but have on Gunpla with great results. Keep in mind they are alcohol based.

So are you saying the H-series paints are identical in formulation to the now discontinued Aqueous range?

Holiday moneys are in, time to order some test paints! I also want to test out that 1500 surfacer, is it really as fine as some testers claim.. Thinnest possible primer layer means more leeway in caking up the other paint layers

The shipment arrived today, I'll try to make time for some tests during the weekend.

Oddly enough, these H-series paints were all indeed branded as Aqueous series paints.. I thought the Aqueous series had been discontinued by Mr Hobby, and that these H-series paints would have been something new, but seems like I was mistaken.

Quick sniff test tells me these have comparable smell to Tamiya X1 black, so somewhere between acrylic and enamel.. I just hope airbrushing these in domestic environment wont result in unbearable odour like enamels. Will find out soon enough.

I got two metallic colours as well, and the flat base for glossyness control

(I know - my test batch colour selection is a bit all over the place! These were the colours I need in my future projects + the green and yellows are just for testing coverage)

I painted a spare Primaris Lieutenant I had lying around (from Dark Imperium, I think?) with the Aqueous last night just to test the colors. I wanted to really push the paint, so I just slapped it on, on unprimed plastic, in large blobs with a large brush, mixed with about 50/50 with the 110 Aqueous thinner. Results were impressive in terms of coverage and smoothness, the paint levelled beautifully, and even piling on a couple of coats of different colors (leathery brown on top of sea green) didn't cause significant caking I normally associate with sloppy painting style such as this! The oaint dries to a thin, quite resistant layer, which doesn't feel as gummy as GW paint. The only brush stroke type of artefacts I witnessed happened with the metallics, but even there, the artefacts seem quite minimal considering how carelessly I worked with the metallics (applied them as sloppily as everything else).

A caveat emptor regarding the color shades themselves, I bought several "duds" (happens to me every time I try a new brand of paint LOL) because I read too much into what the names of the colors are, instead of looking at swatches. What I thought was supposed to be a Navy Blue color turned out to be a strange green/gray/blue shade that actually trips me eye up, looking different depending on the angle of light, but whatever it is, its a far cry from what one expects from a box of shoes labeled as "Navy Blue".. Their Rottbraun was also not what I expected, it looked more like Chocolate brown than any sort of Reddish color..

In terms of odour, these are halal for use indoors. I painted for a few hours and my spouse didn't notice any sort of offensive smell coming from the hobby area.

So, as long as you use the intended Mr Color Aqueos thinner, and actually find color shades you like, I can recommend these paints for brush painting. Seeing how hard this paint "bites" into even unwashed, unprimed plastic (and therefore sticks inside an airbrush like crazy no doubt!), I am hesitant to test my airbrush with it however.. yet it must be done, for science. I will try to find the time for this soon, but I'll need to set it up properly (and will no doubt need to clean up diligently after the test)

And before I forget, I must express my enthusiasm for Mr Hobby SP Cement! I bought a bottle of it along with the paints, and I don't think I'll be using Tamiya Extra Thin ever again. The SP cement was a joy to use, has superior bonding, and even when I made a mess, the extra spillage of glue settled nicely and left much smaller artefacts than Tamiya's equivalent. I think I also want the black version of this SP glue, might come in handy for builds where I need to paint in sub-assemblies..

Thanks for reporting back on this! Seem to be worth picking a few up, I've has issues with paint adhesion to some metal elements so these could possibly help there...

I've also no used the black SP glue - I can't quite picture ion my brain what it would be used for? I'm used to the idea of plastic cement creating a mostly invisible join so I find it strange for there to be a dyed version of the glue. I'm sure there is a use for it that I am just not aware of...

shmvo wrote:
Thanks for reporting back on this! Seem to be worth picking a few up, I've has issues with paint adhesion to some metal elements so these could possibly help there...

I've also no used the black SP glue - I can't quite picture ion my brain what it would be used for? I'm used to the idea of plastic cement creating a mostly invisible join so I find it strange for there to be a dyed version of the glue. I'm sure there is a use for it that I am just not aware of...

I can think of two use cases off the bat:
• OCD modellers want to ensure that their airplane kits have perfect seams across the fuselage joints, so they use the black glue to visually aid them in the post-assembly sanding. Basically they keep sanding/refining the joints, until black disappears completely
• If you are working with a model and painting it in sub assemblies, when glueing the finished pieces together, any small glue spillage in the joints typically removes the paint coating, so perhaps the black colour will look less objectionable than bare plastic showing

Another sesh, testing yellow on top of navy blue. Unfortunately, coverage seems to be unsatisfactory, as with any other acrylic.. but the artefacts from brush painting seem slight, there might be some sort of levelling happening as the paint settles onto a model?

Tests are ongoing..

Still no airbrush test made, but will do it soon, as my Imperial Navy Valkyrie build is nearing completion.

New observation regarding these Aqueous colors - I started using a wet pallette along with a bunch of primary & secondary AK acrylic colors, and noticed that if I added Aqueous paint on the wet pallette, it dried out considerably faster than AK acrylics. If these Aqueous paints rely on slight solvent evaporation when drying, might explain why the moisture of the wet pallette isnt enough to keep the Aqueous from drying..?

 tauist wrote:

shmvo wrote:
Thanks for reporting back on this! Seem to be worth picking a few up, I've has issues with paint adhesion to some metal elements so these could possibly help there...

I've also no used the black SP glue - I can't quite picture ion my brain what it would be used for? I'm used to the idea of plastic cement creating a mostly invisible join so I find it strange for there to be a dyed version of the glue. I'm sure there is a use for it that I am just not aware of...

I can think of two use cases off the bat:
• OCD modellers want to ensure that their airplane kits have perfect seams across the fuselage joints, so they use the black glue to visually aid them in the post-assembly sanding. Basically they keep sanding/refining the joints, until black disappears completely
• If you are working with a model and painting it in sub assemblies, when glueing the finished pieces together, any small glue spillage in the joints typically removes the paint coating, so perhaps the black colour will look less objectionable than bare plastic showing

We actually use it as a seam filler. Then when you go to sand it down you know what’s left by its color. Works great, as it doesn’t shrink like other fillers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Aqueous is Mr. Hobby’s line of alcohol acrylics, or hybrid acrylics. They can be thinned with water, isopropyl alcohol, their own acrylic thinner or hobby lacquer thinner - in order of best results, lacquer being the best.

As they’re alcohol based they still do produce VOC (volatile organic compounds) so the correct respirator is recommended.

For airbrushing, certainly. Havent felt the need for one during brush painting yet