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A bit of a weird one. I bought some Vallejo paints online here in China (the land of fakes), and having never used them before I'm not sure if it's the real thing.

I haven't painted in 10 years and only used GW paint before. So now I'm back and read that I should thin my paints with some water. So after thinning my Vallejo about 50-50 with water (on the pallet) I could barely get any red over my basecoat of black (gesso, not Vallejo). I kinda leave that alone and decide to try using the Vallejo Glossy Black to undercoat a model (washed it first, but it's resin not plastic). I try with a little water in it and it seems I get a bit of a weak effect. Then I try it just straight on and I still don't get a very thorough coverage with a single stroke, I still feel it looks "watery" on the model. It also seems to dry up on my pallet a bit quicker than I expected.

Is this normal? Is Vallejo more "watery" than GW paint? Is this normal for just painting straight on to the plastic (resin). Did someone just do a number on me here

Pop the nozzle off the bottle and give the paint a good stir. I find Vallejo to be more runny than GW paint, you won't need to water it down much. It doesn't cover very well in my experience (bloody red /gory red) so you may need a couple of coats.

And make sure you didn't accidentally grab an airbrush paint which is already thinned down.

The Game/Model Air paints are very watery as they are made for an airbrush. I think on average their normal range is still more fluid than GW paints.

Also, in my experience, even while airbrushing a lighter colour (like orange, in my case) onto a black undercoat, the coverage was very poor. It came out beautifully on a white undercoat but on black it was bleh. You'd think after 20 years of painting, I would know that... haha.

Vallejo makes a number of paint lines. We need to know which line you have.

Vallejo are like any other paint company in that not all of their range is all that great. I have some that I've never been able to use because they are so thin that it's pointless to even put water in them! I've never found their metallics to be any good either!
The one thing I would say is that it is generally tricky to get red to cover black;have you tried using a red foundation paint?

While the paint line is important, I think your main problem is trying to get a solid red over black undercoat... generally not ideal or recommended.

 Anfauglir wrote:
While the paint line is important, I think your main problem is trying to get a solid red over black undercoat... generally not ideal or recommended.

I agree, just recently I've found that Vallejo's copper over black is a poor combination unless you are planning on drybrushing the model. Your best bet is to do multiple very thin coats in hopes that it will give you decent coverage. I would also recommend picking up some grey, white and black primer as it is much easier to paint over than just bare plastic.

Also a nice trick that I learned from a friend of mine, if you're having trouble with your paint and are not sure if it is mixed properly buy some of the spherical fishing sinkers, put one in the bottle and shake it for a good 3-5 minutes, if it's not a nice consistency by then it's either a dud bottle or a poor paint line.

Hope it helps!

Peff,

I don't mix water in with vallejo paints until they've been on my pallette long enough to have evaporated a bit. Then they might need it otherwise they really don't need it.

 PeffGoesPunk wrote:
Also a nice trick that I learned from a friend of mine, if you're having trouble with your paint and are not sure if it is mixed properly buy some of the spherical fishing sinkers, put one in the bottle and shake it for a good 3-5 minutes, if it's not a nice consistency by then it's either a dud bottle or a poor paint line.

Do not use fishing sinkers. If they rust or corrode you'll lose the entire pot of paint. Your best bet is to use a non-reactive material for an agitator, such as glass beads.

Ghaz is 1000000% correct. Go to your local hobby shop and pick up a cheap bag of plastic beads. Make sure they have a little weight to them. These work great as agitators.

I use a lot of Vallejo and their paint ranges are pretty inconsistent is thickness and coverage. Overall reds, oranges, and yellows can be tough to get good coverage out of and you are making it harder with the black undercoat. The glossy paint makes it even worse. I also have seen a few issues with Gesso but I don't use it and can't help you there. Primer in grey or white. If you still can't get good coverage then paint with a beasty brown then cover with red.
The one thing the black undercoat can do for you is help with pre blending/pre shading but this will only work if you are airbrushing.

Hey guys thanks for all the replies

Ok looks like it's just the nature of Vallejo paint, I'm using the "Model Paint"

Time to get a new white primer I think, I was planning on painting an Imperial Knight in either red or yellow so *bleep* *bleeping* *bleep*. I'll need to do a test run on a crisis suit I think with a white primer (might stick with gesso, the undercoating is brilliant actually, no ruined details at all, it did much better than Vallejo Glossy Black at undercoating). Am I F'd in the A if I try to paint (no airbrush) an Imperial Knight in red or yellow with Vallejo? Will it get a clean look (with a white undercoat). Or do I need a different range for that?

Well yeah, priming with a gloss paint is going to be a disaster.

I like Vallejo paint, but one complaint that I do have is that the consistency, compared to GW and P3 paints, suck. And by consistency, I don't mean thickness or thinness, I mean bottle 1 being the same as bottle 2.

I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that it's not really Vallejo's fault, but actually that the hobby shop doesn't sell a whole ton of a lot of colors, making the less popular colors really old on the shelf. Unlike GW, there are no date codes on any of the bottles -- not that those are definitive, but with GW, you can at least tell what generation of product you're looking at. For all I know, I bought an 8 year old bottle of Scarlet Red. Then again, I've bought really old bottles of P3, and never had a problem.

It also doesn't help that there's only like, 2 places that sell Vallejo paints in my area, with one of them being a scale model shop that has very little I'm interested in other than testors and Vallejo paints.

The other complaint that I keep repeating like a broken record is that their airbrush and paintbrush paints don't have equivalent colors for a huge part of the range, or even worse, have the same name but are actually different colors.


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 Okuma wrote:
Hey guys thanks for all the replies

Ok looks like it's just the nature of Vallejo paint, I'm using the "Model Paint"

Time to get a new white primer I think, I was planning on painting an Imperial Knight in either red or yellow so *bleep* *bleeping* *bleep*. I'll need to do a test run on a crisis suit I think with a white primer (might stick with gesso, the undercoating is brilliant actually, no ruined details at all, it did much better than Vallejo Glossy Black at undercoating). Am I F'd in the A if I try to paint (no airbrush) an Imperial Knight in red or yellow with Vallejo? Will it get a clean look (with a white undercoat). Or do I need a different range for that?

By the way: Vallejo's bright reds are awful, in my opinion. And their yellows are beautiful, but so weak in terms of coverage. For example: basecoat white, paint red, now try to cover with yellow. You'll empty out the bottle before it actually turns yellow!

If you want a nice dark red, P3 is decent and Vallejo is usable; If you want a nice vivid red, I GW's mephiston is my runaway favorite. If you want a nice yellow, Averland Sunset by GW is by far the easiest paint to use for coverage.

I am not a fan of painting red on top of white (primer). In my experience, red doesn't cover that well, and it takes quite a few coats to have it turn out nice. It's made even harder because you need more white primer than black primer to cover the model. My top preference, of course, is to prime + spray paint red Failing that, prime black, then paint 2 coats of very thin Averland Sunset (a darkish yellow), and then about 6 coats of very thin Mephiston red. It looks quite bright and strong, in my opinion.

Make sure they're properly mixed. Vallejo paints separate especially when sitting on a hobby store shelf for ages, you need to shake the hell out of them and occasionally the first drop or two is crap because the stuff in the nozzle hasn't mixed in in spite of all the shaking.

Also gloss black isn't great as an undercoat unless you are undercoating for a realistic metallic finish. I know Vallejo make some gloss black primers, they are designed to be used as an undercoat for their "metal color" range, the idea being you airbrush a gloss back undercoat and then airbrush very thin coats of their "metal color" paints over the top to get a mirror like finish.

Other than that very specific use, you're better off staying away from gloss undercoats as paint doesn't stick as well to glossy surfaces.

Also be aware that if you're trying to paint a vibrant red, they all have poor coverage. At least I've never met a red that is vibrant and also covers well. Reds which have decent coverage all tend to be duller, sometimes with a hint of purple to them.

 Talys wrote:
By the way: Vallejo's bright reds are awful, in my opinion. And their yellows are beautiful, but so weak in terms of coverage. For example: basecoat white, paint red, now try to cover with yellow. You'll empty out the bottle before it actually turns yellow!

If you want a nice dark red, P3 is decent and Vallejo is usable; If you want a nice vivid red, I GW's mephiston is my runaway favorite. If you want a nice yellow, Averland Sunset by GW is by far the easiest paint to use for coverage.

What Vallejo reds have you tried? They make a ton of different reds. I've only tried a couple and have been reasonably happy with them, I have the Vallejo Model Color "Flat Red", which is slightly worse coverage than Mephiston Red but also much more vibrant. In general the Model Color ones have a bit better coverage than the Game Color ones (Bloody Red from Game Color is more of a replacement for the old GW Blood Red which was more vibrant but also had poor coverage). I'm not sure what in Vallejo's range would be closest to Mephiston, maybe 70.926 or 70.859, I don't have either of them to test.

Talys wrote:
I am not a fan of painting red on top of white (primer). In my experience, red doesn't cover that well, and it takes quite a few coats to have it turn out nice. It's made even harder because you need more white primer than black primer to cover the model. My top preference, of course, is to prime + spray paint red Failing that, prime black, then paint 2 coats of very thin Averland Sunset (a darkish yellow), and then about 6 coats of very thin Mephiston red. It looks quite bright and strong, in my opinion.

I've got a plan for at least 1 red and 1 yellow (primarily) Imperial Knights

I was looking at maybe getting "The Army Painter" brand Daemonic Yellow spraycan (it's a primer). Maybe it would be better painting either a yellow or red color on top of the moderate-yellow of that color, than getting a red spray and painting a red or yellow on top of that.

Anyone have any experience of "The Army Painter" brand spray?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Also be aware that if you're trying to paint a vibrant red, they all have poor coverage. At least I've never met a red that is vibrant and also covers well. Reds which have decent coverage all tend to be duller, sometimes with a hint of purple to them.

What Vallejo reds have you tried? They make a ton of different reds. I've only tried a couple and have been reasonably happy with them, I have the Vallejo Model Color "Flat Red", which is slightly worse coverage than Mephiston Red but also much more vibrant. In general the Model Color ones have a bit better coverage than the Game Color ones (Bloody Red from Game Color is more of a replacement for the old GW Blood Red which was more vibrant but also had poor coverage). I'm not sure what in Vallejo's range would be closest to Mephiston, maybe 70.926 or 70.859, I don't have either of them to test.

I'm actually using Vallejo Flat Red as my main red. I DID thin it out so covering black basecoat was an exercise in futility. I'm going to try it undiluted. As you said, red covers poorly, but I'm actually not going for vibrant, rather a darker red like a "Mechanicus" style, let's hope I'll be alright.

A bit off topic, but about washes:
Will I get a similar effect with a watered down paint?

Over my metallic skeleton and red I'll need to do a "black wash" or "nuln oil" style. Will watered down black work?
Over my yellow I'll need a "fleshshade" style. Will watered down light brown work?

I have a couple of sets of 'Game Color' and find them to be pretty good. Like the OP i actually had to learn to NOT immediately water them down as it would often be too runny (i don't mind doing multiple coats but i do mind paint running where it shouldn't.

However i have not had much luck with their metallics, they give a realistic finish but they are runny and diffuse even after more than enough shaking. I've only been able to achieve good results by painting a base layer of a similar non-metallic colour. I think i may invest in the current crop of GW ones as in my experience they are excellent.

Vallejo's Flat Red is reasonably vibrant, as such painting it over black isn't really a great idea, it'll probably take 10 or so coats before it's a solid vibrant colour. If you want a red as vibrant as Flat Red, you probably don't want to do it over a black undercoat (unless you intend to gradually layer it up to create a nice blend, but that's a very time consuming endeavour).

If you're going for a darker red anyway, try Mephiston from GW. It won't take any where near as many coats to get a solid colour. Vallejo may have something similar in their line up, but if they do I haven't come across it yet.

As for washes, watered down washes tend to not work as well as ready made washes or washes made using a medium. Mediums have some binding agents in them which helps the pigment hold together when you're thinning it down, water doesn't so it won't thin down as well. Water will also have a higher surface tension which will stop it flowing nicely, you can break the surface tension with just a (very small!) drop of dish washing liquid. If you aren't living on an extremely tight budget, I'd use mediums to make washes or just buy washes off the shelf. I'm sure if you google "miniature wash recipe" you'll find some links.

With Vallejo paints it is good idea to add a stainless steel nut to the bottle to act as an agitator. A nut is good as it won't block the paint as a bead or a ball might.

However it must be a marine grade or acid proof stainless steel nut, ordinary stainless steel will rust and discolour your paints. A4 is the grade to look for.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Make sure they're properly mixed. Vallejo paints separate especially when sitting on a hobby store shelf for ages, you need to shake the hell out of them and occasionally the first drop or two is crap because the stuff in the nozzle hasn't mixed in in spite of all the shaking.

Vallejo actually recommends rolling the bottle instead of shaking it.

2.7. I have a problem with Model Color, it does not seem to go on smoothly.
The pigment may have settled too much. Add two drops of Crackle Medium (70.598) and mix the contents of the bottle by rolling it between your hands.

2.8. I have some paint I purchased years ago, and pigment has separated from the binder. How can I best restore the original mixture?
The best way to stir the product is not so much by shaking the bottle, as by squeezing the bottle and then rolling it between your hands. Please use this method and try the color on some other surface first to see if the blending has been successful. Also see point 2.7 for trying to restore balance between pigment and binder...

That being said, I do tend to shake mine instead of rolling them

Rolling the bottle? Wow, wouldn't that take, forever? lol. Maybe attach to a high speed drill?

I have been told in the past that shaking acrylics can be a bad idea because if they get lots of bubbles they can be sites where the paint starts to dry and clump up... but I've mostly ignored that advice in the past and shake the hell out of them anyway

With no agitation inside the bottle, I don't see shaking being that much more effective than rolling. Both methods work by moving the paint in the bottle. Shaking just introduces more air into the mix.

 Ghaz wrote:
With no agitation inside the bottle, I don't see shaking being that much more effective than rolling. Both methods work by moving the paint in the bottle. Shaking just introduces more air into the mix.

Shaking is a far more vigorous method of agitation than rolling. Rolling you're relying on gravity to pull the paint down on itself, shaking you're only limited by the acceleration of your hand. Mathematically, gravity has an acceleration is 10m/s/s, if you shake a bottle with a 10cm oscillation at 5Hz in a sine wave, the peak acceleration is closer to 100m/s/s.

Rolling works along the lines of a blender, getting the paint moving in a circular motion. Shaking the paint only sends the paint a little way before it stops when it hits the bottle and also incorporates air into the mix which also inhibits integration of the paint.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
What Vallejo reds have you tried? They make a ton of different reds. I've only tried a couple and have been reasonably happy with them, I have the Vallejo Model Color "Flat Red", which is slightly worse coverage than Mephiston Red but also much more vibrant. In general the Model Color ones have a bit better coverage than the Game Color ones (Bloody Red from Game Color is more of a replacement for the old GW Blood Red which was more vibrant but also had poor coverage). I'm not sure what in Vallejo's range would be closest to Mephiston, maybe 70.926 or 70.859, I don't have either of them to test.

Before I did this current run of Blood Angels, I literally made sure that I owned every single red by every company that produces acrylic red that I can buy without mail order (so: GW, P3, Vallejo, Reaper, Army Painter, Daler-Rowney, and Golden), and I did tests with round paintbrush, flat paintbrush and airbrush of pretty much all of them (only did water-based paints in the airbrush) on test sprues or panels that were primed in 4 parts, with black, white, red (Vallejo Red Primer), and silver (Vallejo Chainmail Primer).

The one I liked the best for Blood Angels was Mephiston Red.

From the Vallejo line, my two favorite colors at the end were Gory Red and Game Color Scarlet Red (which I use now). I do agree with you that model color ones seem to cover a little better, but the game color paints have nearly-matching Vallejo air paint, which is valuable to me.

All of the paints performed well on top of red primer, by the way.


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 Okuma wrote:

Anyone have any experience of "The Army Painter" brand spray?

They work just fine, and as a bonus, army painter paints are a 100% match for them. They are also very GW-ish colors, in the sense that there are colors which are an obvious match for Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Ultramarines, etc.

The one downside: they come out really glossy. I mean *really* glossy, and paint tends to slide off of it. The best way to use them (I think the way they intend) is to wash the whole piece after, which will have the benefit of the wash running into the recesses really well (because of the glossy finish), and leave a thin film that will roughen up the surface to paint on with a brush.

 Ghaz wrote:
Rolling works along the lines of a blender, getting the paint moving in a circular motion. Shaking the paint only sends the paint a little way before it stops when it hits the bottle and also incorporates air into the mix which also inhibits integration of the paint.

A blender will always have something to forcibly move the fluid, a blender which just rotated the vessel would suck I'm pretty sure it's the rapid movement of the paint around the air bubble that makes shaking quicker.

Well being the man of science that I am, the sure fire way is to test. Luckily I have 4 bottles of almost identical vallejo metallic paint that have both been sitting for, ummm, I guess about 2 months. I know they were mixed at the same time because I last used them when spraying colour swatches to find the right one for a model I've been working on. Took about 2 minutes (and now rather tired arms ) to mix one of the pots by rolling. The other one took about 30 seconds to mix by shaking. Repeated on the other 2 bottles and got the same result.

I also have a pot of English Uniform which absolutely loves to separate. After quite a while rolling I could see it still was mixing very gradually, I started shaking and it obviously mixed much faster.

Shaking is definitely quicker but introduces more bubbles. I've been told bubbles can cause clumps but after so many years shaking I have only had a couple of pots that got clumpy and I'm not willing to bet it was the shaking that caused it.

Some pots where I have a spherical agitator I sometimes move them in a rapid circular motion which gets the ball rolling around the perimeter of the bottle rather than banging back and forth which seems to work quite well. Most my pots don't have agitators though.

By shaking the paint, you're moving the entire volume of the pot in the same direction at the same velocity. Without an agitator, shaking is no more effective than rolling and has side effect of working air into the paint.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
Rolling

shaking

For the love of the Emperor, I'm going to shake you guys until your heads roll off

Talys the glossy effect of The Army Painter's spray would worry me a bit. But I guess a rust wash over it before I paint red or yellow should do the trick.

@Okuma - in my opinion, the glossy finish is intentional, as AP likes to quickshade (dunk) their models, and really, shades twork best against a gloss coat. It is therefore not my preference, as I rarely drown my models in shade, preferring instead to shade only the recesses. However, you can always coat red (or yellow) primer with a very thin coat of paint brushed on.

@Ghaz & Skink - in my opinion, the optimal way of homogenizing the paint would be to roll it, then shake it, then roll it while shaking it

You can automate the process by taping the paint to a drill to get the rolling motion, and to a reciprocal saw for the shake g motion. Tape the saw to the drill to get both.

By the way, I have Vallejo metallic paints that you could roll til beavers built Donald Trump's wall before they were usable. The only way I can get them to work is by popping the lid and using a stirring stick. It also happens to some of my custom airbrush pots of paint, which use Vallejo airbrush thinner. I suspect it is Vallejo's medium, as most GW and P3 and AP paints don't separate to nearly that degree.

 Ghaz wrote:
By shaking the paint, you're moving the entire volume of the pot in the same direction at the same velocity. Without an agitator, shaking is no more effective than rolling and has side effect of working air into the paint.

Not that i want to inject myself into this ridiculous argument, but you are also introducing compression forces, thereby actually mixing more effectively. Additionally, air is an agitator with this compression.


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E: when shaking

PAINT SHAKERS MASTER RACE