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So I've recently been hearing and seeing a lot more noise about this manufacturer here in the UK. I have not had a chance to try their vintage range as it appears to be no longer available, but I have been working with their Alpha range for about a month and a half now.

My problem is, I cannot seem to get consistent results in a decent amount of time. I'm using the water+ (which I really like) and Matte+ products, but they either seem to go streaky or they dry shiny and I cannot figure out a decent ratio of Matte+ and Water+ to achieve a consistent finish.

Now I'd be the first to say I don't consider myself a great painter, but here is an example of an Arco-flagellant I've been working on and it may not show that well on the picture, but even that mildly streaky coverage took me days (when I say day I mean 5-6 hours of painting and experimenting between other responsibilities and work) to achieve:



By comparison in the time it took me to achieve that skin, I had painted these using scale75 colours:



And for equivalent infantry see these:



Basically, I don't want to just write off the range, but I am struggling to find my footing with them, they seem to respond like no other paint I own and I wonder if anyone else has any insight into their usage?

I am wondering why are you using Matte?
Do you mean Matte medium for acrylic paint?

The way I understand it, it is for fine art painting where you have large impasto ammounts of acrylic paint and need to extend dry time to prevent the palate to dry on you.
And it will dry shiny.

 Mothsniper wrote:
I am wondering why are you using Matte?
Do you mean Matte medium for acrylic paint?

The way I understand it, it is for fine art painting where you have large impasto ammounts of acrylic paint and need to extend dry time to prevent the palate to dry on you.
And it will dry shiny.

I suppose I should have explained, matte+ is the name of Instar's matte medium for acrylics, alongside their water+, both are designed to work with their Alpha paint range.

https://shop.instarpaint.com/product/matte/

https://shop.instarpaint.com/product/waterplus/

They recommend 1 drop reduces shine on any paint brand, like most acrylic matt mediums and that water+ is their 'special' medium (which looks and smells like bubble solution) which does seem to work very well, just not with their Alpha range which it is recommended for.

At least not for me where I seem to receive either blotchy results as if I've added too much water and the pigment has broken down (and let me reiterate water+, is NOT water) or it dries with a strangely shiny sheen as if it has been laid on too thick, but is still a thin layer and I've mainly tried those additives to see how they fair since they are meant to go together.

Although I have tried some of my usual concoctions that I use for scale 75, Vallejo, warcolours etc... but it wasn't very successful either. And so I was asking for advice from those who have used the paints and those additives.

Have you tried messaging Supershandy to ask?

 ingtaer wrote:
Have you tried messaging Supershandy to ask?

I could try that, although email and Twitter didn't get a response, I'll see what happens, thanks.

Hi there,

We replied to your DM but we don't seem to have an email or Twitter message from you, if I missed it I do apologise, we do try to respond to every message we get

Though just to add here for the benefit of everyone else.

The Alpha paints weren't designed to be thinned, they were designed as a straight from the bottle application so you just put it on the palette and paint, the water+ should be used in conjunction with the Alphas, but if it's just for flow purposes, it should only be a very small amount, we usually recommend nothing more than a 00 size brushful or less.

However, you can turn these into Contrast, Glazes and Washes very easily using Water+ in the following ratios - 1:1 for Contrast Style paint, 1:2 for Glazes and 1:3 for Washes.

The semi sheen finish is one we couldn't avoid, though it's much less than the first variation which was a high gloss finish, to this end we have a product called Varnish+ (EDIT - Not released yet) that can be used both as a matt medium and as a brush on varnish to give a dead flat finish.

Matte+ on the other hand is an ADDITIVE, not a MEDIUM. This is quite an important difference as it's a super concentrated and a tiny amount goes a very very long way, it was more designed in mind for traditional paints to make them go as matte as Scale75 paints, yet retain all their usual properties, with Alpha, only a very very tiny amount is required, though it's usually better to paint without it and then varnish the model afterwards.

If anyone's on Twitter, you can ask the painters we sponsor (RedKitana, Grimbases, Wulfhildr and Purplemonkey790) who are using them on a regular basis

 Supershandy wrote:
Hi there,

We replied to your DM but we don't seem to have an email or Twitter message from you, if I missed it I do apologise, we do try to respond to every message we get

Though just to add here for the benefit of everyone else.

The Alpha paints weren't designed to be thinned, they were designed as a straight from the bottle application so you just put it on the palette and paint, the water+ should be used in conjunction with the Alphas, but if it's just for flow purposes, it should only be a very small amount, we usually recommend nothing more than a 00 size brushful or less.

However, you can turn these into Contrast, Glazes and Washes very easily using Water+ in the following ratios - 1:1 for Contrast Style paint, 1:2 for Glazes and 1:3 for Washes.

The semi sheen finish is one we couldn't avoid, though it's much less than the first variation which was a high gloss finish, to this end we have a product called Varnish+ that can be used both as a matt medium and as a brush on varnish to give a dead flat finish.

Matte+ on the other hand is an ADDITIVE, not a MEDIUM. This is quite an important difference as it's a super concentrated and a tiny amount goes a very very long way, it was more designed in mind for traditional paints to make them go as matte as Scale75 paints, yet retain all their usual properties, with Alpha, only a very very tiny amount is required, though it's usually better to paint without it and then varnish the model afterwards.

If anyone's on Twitter, you can ask the painters we sponsor (RedKitana, Grimbases, Wulfhildr and Purplemonkey790) who are using them on a regular basis

Thanks for the advice.

I initially tried painting them without any additives or mediums and I don't like that finish at all, and I had read that you only need a small amount of water+ so that's what I was going for in later attempts. The Matte+ I got completely wrong then, although I was using small amounts they may not have been small enough ratios to avoid adverse effects.

I'll have to take a look at the varnish+ product. Varnish is not something I've really used much outside of metals, since they are easy to get wrong. I'll also send a message to those painters you mentioned.

*EDIT* Sorry to be dim-witted, but looking at the site and searching I can't find your Varnish+, have you got a link to it?

There isn't a link because we haven't released it yet

It's an upcoming product

 Supershandy wrote:
There isn't a link because we haven't released it yet

It's an upcoming product

Ok, thanks. I'll probably wait for that before trying them again, then.

The emails definitely got sent according to my sent, but things can go wrong. As for twitter it was a public tweet because I was hoping others could weigh in with their advice too. But this is more than fine, thanks.