Fire Scale Modeller paint first impression

[rob_van_riel]

As part of the continuation of my blitz DNF Starfighter, I picked up some paints from https://www.firescalemodeler.com/. I'd never heard of this brand before, but they have a lot of RAL colours, which were called for in this case. Apparently, I'm not the only one who'd never heard of them, so I'm parking the paint experiment here..

Bought what is essentially a test set of paints, the three colours required for the camo on a Dutch Starfighter, plus primer and thinner.

As near as I can tell, these paints are acrylic lacquers. The standard bottles contain 30ml of paint thinned for use with an airbrush. At the time of ordering, I had the option to pay a small surcharge to get glass bottles instead of the standard plastic ones. I took that option, and expect to be using the bottles long after the paints have been used.

As this is rather experimental to me, I threw them at a scrap plane first, just to see how much abuse the paints would take. The scrap plane was already primed, so I skipped the primer for now. Actual colours went on in order light grey, green, dark grey. Normally I would have swapped dark grey and green, but I wanted to see what the paint would do when shot over a dissimilar colour. Time between colours was about 90 minutes, nowhere near enough for a full cure (tests are supposed to be mean and nasty ).

All bottles contained a mixing ball, so a vigorous shake was enough to get the paints ready for use.





They paints behaved very well in the airbrush. Pigmentation is strong enough to cover whatever is there in a few thin coats in rapid succession. With the 90 minute pause between airbrushing and masking for the next colour, I had no paint coming off while unmasking. With these paints, one could comfortable do multi-colour camo schemes in a blitz context (I expect other acrylic lacquers would also work).

The little MiG is a small model, of course, but even so, I was pleasantly surprised by how little of the paint was needed to do the job.

The paints dry to a smooth semi-gloss finish. Instructions on the bottles say to coat with gloss varnish, but I suspect this is more because of the brands apparent origin in civilian vehicles than for any technical reason.

While I didn't use the primer on the test model, I did use it on the Starfighter.



Unlike the top colours, the primers dries matt, which is convenient for finding issues with the build.

That left the thinner untested. I never had any need for it; the paints work out of the bottle, and for cleaning, bulk thinner from the local DIY works just fine. So, just out of curiosity, I tried the thinner with MrColor and MrColor Aqueous, acrylic lacquer and alcohol based acrylic respectively. Both behaved well, so apparently the paints aren't that weird chemically.

[Stuart]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and the links Rob, they're a new brand to me too. They certainly look good, although Lacquers are a no no for me due to the smell. Nice to see another modelling company starting up though.

[rob_van_riel]

They certainly look good, although Lacquers are a no no for me due to the smell.

Not all lacquers are created equal. In practice, lacquer is just a shorthand for fast, very hard curing paints.
These are advertised as lacquers, and seem fast and hard enough to qualify, but they are definitely on the lower end of the smelly scale. If I had to grade them for that, I'd put them just above the water based acrylics, and roughly on par with the 'normal' acrylics from Tamiya, or Gunze Aqueous.
A far cry from, say, Alclad metallisers, which have your nostrils shut down instantly and your brain recoiling from the horrible chemical cocktail trying to rot it out of your skull

[Migrant]

That's useful info, thanks Rob. I wonder how they brush-paint?

[rob_van_riel]

I wonder how they brush-paint?

They handle well, but they are thinned to airbrush levels, so expect to need multiple coats.

Test shot, paint straight from the bottle:



Both the scrap fuselage and the figure had grey primer applied.
The figure received a single coat. Pretty good result, with shading thrown in for free by the thin paint.
The fuselage has areas with 1 to 4 coats. I waited about 20 minutes between the second and third coat, and again between the third and fourth, For the third coat this was enough, the fourth should have been given longer to cure, and the paint already in place was reactivated by the final coat, which greatly reduced the effect of the final coat. Had I given it two hours or longer, I'm certain a nice even coat would have resulted. Perhaps the third coat would have done the job by itself, had I allowed more curing time between coats.

[Migrant]

Thanks Rob, that's really helpful. I wouldn't brush paint a whole model but it's useful for touch-ups or small detail painting. I'm impressed by what you've shown us, and the availability of the RAL colours is a big attraction.

[rob_van_riel]

the availability of the RAL colours is a big attraction.

That was the reason I tried these paints in the first place. Nearly every brand seems to link to FS, several also do BS and RLM, but beyond that things get difficult, and to the best of my knowledge, no other brand is particularly interested in RAL. For Fire Scale, it's their prime subject, which gives some hope they're getting the colours correct as well.

I can't judge the quality of the colour matches, by the way. However several members of the local IPMS are much more into continental European stuff, and Dutch equipment in particular, and might be able to comment based on the Starfighter once that is completed.

[rob_van_riel]

I just ran a smallish test to confirm a suspicion: if you put a drop on a palette and let it sit for a while, enough of the excess solvent evaporates that the paint can be used to more immediate effect with a traditional brush. This trick will only work for small parts, due to the amount of paint involed, but then, this is mainly relevant for small parts anyway.

[rob_van_riel]

I found a minor niggle...

The solvent in these paints is quite 'hot'. Do not get this paint on any transparencies where it doesn't belong, because you won't get it off again; the solvent will have matted the plastic. A barrier coat of varnish might help, but I would say it's better to be careful and not need it.

[rob_van_riel]

I just did some touch-up on the starfighter. Acting on a hunch, I used a technique very close to dry brushing (the brush wasn't quite dry enough to call it true dry brushing). The hunch paid off; the light grey of the lower surfaces covered the much darker grey and green from the top almost on the first pass, the relatively dry brush made it possible to build up complete cover, almost as with an airbrush, in seconds, and the resulting colour is, to my eyes at least, truly identical to the surrounding airbrush work.

[rob_van_riel]

I've run the final test (that I can think of) on the paints. I put a scrap decal on the paint mule, and then hit it with a generous amount (for which read a puddle) of MicroSol, and I wasn't too careful with my aim, so the surrounding paint was hit hard. The paint didn't even blink. I'll consider that a pass.

So, unless someone here has an idea for some creatively sadistic, yet representative abuse to subject the paints to, this concludes by test sequence.

As far as I'm concerned, the paints have been approved.