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I have been painting this hoard of Tom Meier Goblins (both older Ral Partha and newer Thunderbolt Mountain).

And there is a fair amount of "brown" and "grey" in the color palette, as you might expect with Goblins that are not Green.

But I have discovered that there is a particular color of brown that is peeling off (like. Facial mask when it is dried.... Just in case anyone has seen or used a facials mask - they are great for clearing pores, BTW.... But back to the paint) whenever I go to do a wash over it.

I cannot recall if it is every instance of this color (because I did mix it with other colors for a few places) where it has been used as a base-coat.

But it has been enough that I can narrow it down to it having to do with at least one particular shade of brown being involved.

But I will go to put the wash over the color, and suddenly I will notice primed white showing beneath it, and a stringy, stretchy band of base-color stuck to my brush. When I go to clean the stringy-stretchy thing off my brush, it will then pull the entire area that had this base color off (see comment about facial mask... But I doubt the miniature is worried about its pores).

Is this an issue with the paint, or maybe the primer underneath.

I know that on a lot of the older Thunderbolt Mountain Goblins (older, as in, how long ago I bought them) had some really super-cheap primer used on them (about half of them have some bIzzare brand primer, and most of the rest have Krylon, and a few have Tamiya).

Any clue as to what is going on here?

MB

Nope, but you could try varnishing before you wash

What sort of paint is it? I've never had such a problem, if I did I think I'd just throw the pot in the trash and get a new one (maybe from a different company).

As always, make sure it's mixed properly. If it's mixed properly and still giving you issues just get rid of it. But I would be interested to know what sort of paint it is.

All of my current paints, save for one jar of red-brown, and two jars of some military green colors (all of which I used for 6mm miniatures only), are Vallejo (which I used for everything, 6mm to 120mm).

The Vallejo "Beige Brown" was what has been giving me problems.

I am almost out of it, so I may just trash the remaining and go buy more paints.

I have been toying with the idea of buying an entirely new set of paints, since most of the paints I regularly use are running out, and the rest I am pissed-off at how many additional mediums, flow-aid, thinner, and retarder I have to use in order to just get the paints to work properly . . .

Seriously!!! NONE OF MY Vallejo Metallics will work without adding 2:1 Thinning Retarder, and 2:1 Flow-Aid, And 1:1 of what is remaining of just plain Vallejo Thinner.

While this means I am likely to NEVER run out of any Vallejo metallics (considering how thick they are, and assuming they don't dry up in the bottle), it also means that preparing to paint anything metallic requires more preparation than .... Well... My metaphor would probably not be appropriate for the forum.

But as for the peeling paints....

I hate having to take extra-steps to do things that used to work straight out of the bottle when I was younger. I suspect that the paints we made for Genesis (and thus Ral Partha, Citadel, The Armory, and others, back in the 80's/early-90's) contained a completely different medium base than what Vallejo is using.

Maybe they think they are doing people a favor by not using a medium that already contains a retarder, or by not thinning their paints....

Who knows.... Maybe this is just due to the crappy primer that is on a few of the miniatures?

MB

Sounds like a primer issue, yes. Strip, clean and reprime. Could also be grease on the primer; you say these are old, have they been handled by pizza munchers?

winterdyne wrote:
Sounds like a primer issue, yes. Strip, clean and reprime. Could also be grease on the primer; you say these are old, have they been handled by pizza munchers?

No... But....

They have been around someone with early onset Alzheimer's who has OCD about cleaning, and they could have a dusting of furniture polish on them (I mean like the pledge with lemon oil stuff), or they could have big spray on them, or oil from fish frying in the kitchen that caught on fire...

Dammit! . . . Wel... Sort of "Dammit!"

Stripping them is a chore.

But they were not painted anywhere near to satisfaction, and I have since discovered a Vastly Superior Primer, as well as having re-discovered how to produce effects I used to achieve pretty easily (or maybe originally discovered, since the method to produce these effects is completely different than how I originally achieved them).

But, still... There are only about 36 of them, and I would prefer to feel better about their final paint job than I do right now (They are grainy, and blotchy, and just not at all up to my standards for even a gaming miniature).

So... Better safe than sorry,

MB