White vs Silver

Transcript*

Intro

Hey there. Welcome to Sunward Hobbies. My name is Paul and everyone knows Tamiya has the best clear paints in the entire hobby. If you aren’t aware, now you are. So, I’m going to teach you how to use them. It’s quite simple. But before we get started, every single item shown in this video is available on our website, sunwardhobies.ca. That is a real time inventory. Links in the description down below. Again, sunwardhobbies.ca. Now, back to the video.

Products Needed

For this demo, we will be using Tamiya X27. This is their clear red acrylic solvent paint, but you can use any of the clear family for this. They have a bunch, yellow, green, blue. Um, so yeah, just choose whatever. It will be the same no matter what you choose. For the demo, I’ll be using the DND Wizkids Marut because it is armored. Also, it’s advertised to be painted as silver anyway, so it kind of fits. Uh, a little bit of spoiler there. Um, but also I if I had it, I would use maybe headlamps of a car or sirens of a police car, etc. If you have those, feel free to follow along and use those instead. Otherwise, armor pieces are really good for this technique. And of course, thinners. Now, for this example, I will be using leveling thinner for the acrylics. Yeah. And it works really well. Acrylic lacquer acrylic solvents like Tamiya acrylics are basically almost lacquer-like. That’s why it works so well with the leveling thinner, which is primarily a lacquer thinner. And finally, grab yourself a chrome silver paint. This is X11, but any chrome silvers or silvers or gunmetals will do. So long as it’s metallic and kind of silver, it is very necessary.

Primer

First up, prime your miniature. Uh do be careful. Lacquers, you don’t have uh much work time. They dry extremely fast. They dry the fastest actually, even more than or even faster than water-based and solvent based acrylics. And they smell terrible. Just two thin coats, guys. Just spread it around. You don’t have much work time, so don’t overload your brush. And just spread it around. And so far so good. No terrible reactions on the water-based primer, but it’s better to react now than later when you uh decided not to put a primer and it reacts on the red or the clears. That would be tragic. Now,

Additional White Paint

if your paint application of the white primer isn’t splotchy, then again, skip this step. Move on to the next step. But if it is, make sure you apply an extra layer of this time XF2. This one is flat. It could be gloss. Completely up to you, right? Cuz ultimately it wouldn’t really matter. Just make sure you put a bunch on your palette. This one is a tin. So just a little bit. Just a little bit. Then just a couple of drops of the leveling thinner. That should suffice. and just mix the two together. And what you’re getting is an extremely buttery smooth white paint. And this is about the thinness that you want to apply.

Now, the reason why we’re using white is really a contrast between brightness and vibrancy versus chrominess and reflectiveness. So brilliance and vibrancy that would be the white paint underneath the clear paints giving this very bright effect. And then the other side you have the silvers, the gunmetals, the chromes that will be reflectiveness and chrominess giving this well reflective sort of effect after you apply the clear coat. You’ll see what I mean. So don’t overload your brush and just apply it onto the miniature. So, we’re only painting maybe just half of the front really. And then the other half, that’s where uh we will apply the relevant Tamiya paint. And again, it doesn’t have to be Tamiya paint. Uh right. So, I’m just using Tamiya paint cuz I love Tamiya paint. I don’t get to use it often as I paint Warhammer.

Silver Application

Spread it around so it doesn’t pull. Once it’s shook, just lit literally just one dollop is all it’s going to take. Maybe let’s add a bit more. And just a couple of drops of leveling thinner. Every single paint here will be thinned out with leveling thinner. Spread it around. And don’t worry if it doesn’t take the first time. We’ll apply two thin coats. So, basically, yeah, it’s dried. Um, it should look like this. If you are using a miniature and you want to do it side by side split basically in half, it should look like this. But if you have sirens or headlamps, then that’s preferred, of course.

Red Clear on Silver Application

Here we are at the final step. And it’s the clear red. That’s it. Very simple paint job. Uh all you got to do is apply this all over. And that’s about it. So, we’ll have a couple of dollops here because it is a big miniature, but if you have a headlamp, you don’t need this much at all, right? And of course, thinned out with leveling thinner as well. So, it’s buttery smooth. Should look like this. Like a Bernese sauce. If you cook, you know what that is. All right, here we go. Just don’t apply too much. and start the application. If it’s pooling, just spread it around. Spread the love. And of course, we’ll take this one coat at a time so it doesn’t get overwhelming.

Red Clear on White Application

On the first coat, I want to apply too much

Finished Mini

And there we go. We are done. The left hand side has the white undercoat. The right from the front perspective anyway has the silver undercoat. And you’ll notice immediately while the right undercoat with the silver has more shininess to it. And depending on the undercoat, maybe even reflectiveness, but that that’s not what we use today. The left is more vibrant, right? Um it pops out more even from a distance. Let’s zoom out. Yeah, it’s incred. It’s the first thing you notice.

Different Lighting

Uh but under certain lighting conditions, the script will flip. Let’s turn on the lights here. There we go. From a distance now, it’s a lot more even. But if we shift the script flips, especially on the back where the divide is a lot more apparent because of the panels. Yeah. Now the silver undercoat one is the one that pops out more. And again, let’s do the exact same thing. Let’s turn off the lights again. The script flips once again. Now the white undercoat is more vibrant.

A lot of miniatures are viewed from 2 to 3 feet away, typically from above as well. So you have to take that into account whenever you’re displaying. There’s always a piece of glass separating you from the miniature. So keep in mind what you’re trying to do, where you’re trying to display it, and the lighting conditions because ultimately there are no wrong answers uh in this scenario. Up to you. Here’s one last goound of the miniature so you can see it in full and you can decide for yourself which way to go depending on your needs. Let me just fiddle with the lights. this one. I’ll turn off the uh right overhead light. I’ll turn off the left one. So, no lights.

Paul’s Conclusion

Um before I go, I’m going to ask this really important question. Which route are you going? There’s no wrong answer. Choose your own adventure, of course, but ultimately no wrong answers. It depends on your situation. White undercoat or silver. You have too much light at home, too much sun or not enough light or sun? Huh? Depends, right? pick what you want. So, that being said, that’s it. And also down below in the description are all our socials. We’re active on all of them, even LinkedIn. Yeah. And also down below, you know, give us a like and sub. We’re trying to hit 20K. We used to be begging for 100.

Now, we’re almost at 20K. That’s really cool. Thank you guys so much for the love and support. We do really appreciate it. So, yeah. Peace out. Bye-bye. And also down below in the description are all our socials. We’re active on all of them, even LinkedIn. Yeah. And also down below, you know, give us a like and sub. We’re trying to hit 20K. We used to be begging for 100. An hour almost.

About the Author:

Paul Catindig As someone who’s been building model kits since he was 8 years old, Paul is very knowledgeable and adept at model kit building! When he’s not building or painting kits, he spends his free time cooking, playing video games with friends, or at a restaurant patio somewhere. Hopes to make his very own movie one day.

*Video by Paul Catindig
Video Edited by
Daniela Castellano
Transcript generated by youtube
Edited by Angelo Castellano