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Ok...so, last night as I am watching Robot Fighting League my lovely wife is painting her nails. She is actually using a nail polish that my 12 year old daughter got her cause...that's what parents do, you know? It's like the singing christmas tie that your son gets you and you HAVE to wear it at least once...you know?

Anyway..the nail polish is this really crazy cool stuff that after you apply it, you hover a magnet over it and the metal that is mixed into the nail polish lines up in these very distinct lines. My wife shows me this, and I immediately snatched the bottle from her and put this on the very first bit of an undone model that I had:



That is not shine from the light, that is what the dried polish looks like after you apply it>hover the magnet for 10 seconds or so>let dry


Just for reference...that is half of a cape of an IG sniper. My son, who is 10 and spearheading the IG army we are doing watched several episodes of Band of Brothers over memorial day weekend (of his own accord...cause it was a cool war show so he said) and he has the UTMOST respect for the 101st airborn from WWII and wanted the IG army to look just like them. So the base for everything is army green...with spade decals everywhere...

So...I have some bugs coming in soon. Been a LONG time since I did any kind of additions to my Nids, and picked up a boxed set of Starship Troopers to supliment my Nids with the intent of doing some really heavy conversions with a box full of nid bits that I have left over...

Anyone here every thought/tried to do this with any of their models? There are a BUNCH of different colors out there too...and I am thinking of doing this for my new nids.

What do you guys and gals think????

It looks like you might be able to do cool power weapon effects with it, hard to tell from the pic.

You might be able to get some nice mottled camo effects, but I assume it's glossy. Would work well for nids I'd think, but you might need to dull coat it for other uses.

Be careful if you magnetize your models...

Do you have a brand name or link for this stuff, in case someone else wants to give it a try?

working on the brand name right now...will update as soon as my wife texts me back

i don't magnetize any of my models...I don't play tourney's...just play for fun with a small local group, or at the battle bunker every once in a while. So, that is not an issue really.

Sorry for the pic...phone is not the best camera in the world

That is what I am thinking, this might be able to give some really cool power weapon effects or cammo effects. I KNOW that more testing will be needed. It IS gloss but dull coat should take care of the shine. As I said, MUCH more testing will be needed. I don't know, for example, how thick it needs to be to get that affect. i just took the brush from the nail polish bottle and brushed it on there once.

I will update as soon as my wife gets back to me.

Yeah man, some product info? I would like to do some quick research on it. It may be nice for stealth field effects, power weapons, and I think it would make for some nice looking buggers!


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Yeah man, some product info? I would like to do some quick research on it. It may be nice for stealth field effects, power weapons, and I think it would make for some nice looking buggers!

There are several different brands of this stuff out there it seems.

I did a quick google search for 'metalic effect nail polish' and there are a bunch of different brands out there AND a bunch of different effects as well. My wife did not remember the exact brand that she has, but I am going to jet over to walgreens at lunch and take a look at the selection.

maceria wrote:
Yeah man, some product info? I would like to do some quick research on it. It may be nice for stealth field effects, power weapons, and I think it would make for some nice looking buggers!

Tau stealth suits or eldar holofields could be awesome. Tzeench or Slaanesh demons could also be fun.

I wonder if you could get multiple colors down before it sets so you could run the magnet over it once to cause linked patterns over the whole model? If not careful repeat passes in the same direction might work.

Looking forward to hearing more about this.

I have attempted this.

Not that particular stuff (fiancee used it the other day actually).
I was at the beauty shop waiting for her to finish and I spotted color shifting nail polish.

I don't like it, because it's too thick and smells like hell (instant-headache for my super sensitive sniffer). You can thin it, but the thinner doesn't play nice with plastic (as in, I'm pretty sure it's acetone). So if you do try it, make sure to Prime well and give it a good coat of matte finish to help protect the mini from the chemicals.

I would see if their is a a paint equivalent rather than using nail polish, if able

@Nevelon Yeah...I just don't know. I am going to have to do a LOT of testing on it to see.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!! I love experimenting with stuff like this though.

I will make sure that I let you all know after I make a trip to walgreens at lunch. Going to pick up some in a few different colors and test them out on different things tonight.

The main company that produces it seems to be called "layla" but that is not the only company so i will let everyone know.

There is also this crackle effect stuff that might look really cool on bases <shrug>

workmance wrote:


There is also this crackle effect stuff that might look really cool on bases <shrug>

CRACKLE! Go hit Michaels or AC Moore or Hobby Lobby, they have an acrylic paint version. Save you some trouble

@fenrir Yes, absolutely! I thought of that right of the bat actually. The chemicals in the polish will play holy hell with plastic if not primered really well. As I said, I am going to do a lot of testing though. I also don't see this as something that will be a full paint coat on the model, just used on certain parts...like the cape of a sniper...or a weapon...or maybe the shoulder pads of SM <shrug>

Sorry about the over sensative sniffer, in the small test that I did, it didn't smell 'that' bad.

REALLY???? I didn't know that they had that...I will hit that up the local hobby store this weekend for the crackle stuff


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I picked up three different 'patterns' from three different companies so I will see how they work.



One is a crododile skin pattern, one is a wavy pattern and one is a star pattern. The crocodile is a green, the other 2 are blue but different shades. I will be experimenting with them tonight

Crackle effects are awesome!

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/435376-.html

Used Crackle Paste from Golden.

ok, so after testing and doing several different things (including the different magnets that can be used. It is the magnet on the top of the polish that makes the individual shapes by the way) I have come to the conclusion that in 'certain' situations this is going to be REALLY freaking cool. I will be using it as an accent for certain models on flat spaces (like rhino side doors, or the front armor on my sentinels, or power weapons) but as for large scale use <shrug> Seems to be very touchy and tempermental.

I will post some pics tomorrow of the sentinel that I am working on that I have used this for.

Idea that just dawned on me:

It's a metallic, correct? You can wash or paint transparent paints overtop your finished magnetic paint effect area to tint it the color of your choosing

Looking forward to your pictures.

This could be really cool.

Just watch out that acetone based nail polish can dissolve plastic.