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My flag might not reflect it yet but I've move to New Delhi for work. Unfortunately many of my paints have dried up and so far all I can find here is one lonely shop that sells Revell's enamels.

Anyone used them?

How about the sort of stuff I might find at an art supply store?

I understand it's hard to order them from overseas due to customs and other issues so I'm limited to what i can get locally or pick up on my next trip to Japan.

Which reminds me... any thoughts on Tamiya paints?

Tamiya are excellent.

Revell Enamels are the same as Airfix and Humbrol, an oil based paint that needs to be thinned with white spirits and will take longer to dry than acrylics. I sometimes used to warm my figures in the oven to make them dry faster. You have to be very careful about this.

In the good old days everyone used enamels because acrylics had not yet been invented. You can mix different colours just the same as acrylics, but you can't mix enamels with acrylics.

Enamels work better on metal and plastic than acrylic, in terms of easily forming a good hard coat. I would still advise the use of varnish for wargame models.


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Arts and Crafts acrylics come in several grades. The cheapest which is like poster paint has very coarse pigment grains, so you want to go for the finest which will be light body artist paints if you can find them. If you can't find the light body, then either medium body or heavy body can be used with the addition of acrylic media to thin them and give them more flow.

Acrylic media tend to extend the drying time.

It would be surprising if in a big city like Delhi there are no graphics arts shops who would stock the better quality acrylic artist paints, media and inks.

Enamels are good if you need to achieve a very smooth result as they can be sanded and recoated many times. I tend to use black enamel for diorama case work / plinths.

You can also use thinned enamel in the same way as an oil wash - however it is not as forgiving as oils but can look a lot sharper.

Tamiya paints a generally good/the only problem I've had is with their metallics,I've not used their thinner with the metallics yet so I'm hoping that works.
The transparents are excellent for doing things like lights and jewels. Paint the light or jewel with a metallic then cover in their clear colours. The best result I've had with them is using the clear red on the blood drop emblems of the blood angels.
If you need colours to be really really matt then nobody does it like Tamiya! P.s.always use their thinner as the paint drys really quick!

 Kilkrazy wrote:

In the good old days everyone used enamels because acrylics had not yet been invented.

Acrylic paint was invented in 1934

Yeah but Killrazy was gaming Little Wars long before then.