An First Look

Transcript*

Intro

What’s in the box? What’s in the box? What’s in the freaking box? Well, first of all, I assure you it ain’t Tamiya. It’s Vallejo’s new baby. Vallejo True Metallic Metal. Are these paints any good? We’ll find out today. Thank you, Vallejo, for sending us a sample. We are an authorized third party retailer, which does mean right now they are available for order on our website. links down in the description below. Within Vallejo, there is already a dedicated uh metallic paint line called Metal Color. It’s a bit more on the traditional side of things, and it’s also a hit or miss to some people.

Some people really, really like them, and some people hate them a lot. While these guys have been generating a decent decent amount of buzz online just because of influencers, we’ll see if they’re valid and we’ll see if this paint line is valid. We will be testing consistency uh comparing it to its nearer competitors, which isn’t quite a lot.

You’d think there be a lot of competition with a true metallic paint lines like this, but I assure you with the way their approach, there isn’t a lot of competition actually. Um, so props to them for recognizing a hole in the hobby, at least in the mainstream paints.

So, we’re going to be finding out if they’re consistent and if they’re vibrant. That those are my two main concerns. Durability is not much of a concern. These are water-based acrylics. At the end of the day, they’re not very durable. Even with primers, even if you clean up the surfaces, tape will still ruin them. Question remains, are they good? And are they worth your time, money, and effort? Let’s find out. There’s actually one more thing in this box. It ain’t paints, it’s a flyer. They’re quite helpful. And this one specifically is very helpful. Look at that. Unfolds. double-sided in four languages. And that’s not even the important part. That’s the minor stuff.

Vallejo True Metallic Metal Breakdown

So, each of these uh categories within the paint line have 20 paints each, making 80 total. 80 paints for a a new line of paints is quite comprehensive. And if you look at their color options, the range is quite diverse. Pause the video if you want to see the full range and their names and what they offer.

Then we have 20 for light, 20 for their shades, and 20 for their airbrush. Oh man, I am so so excited. Let’s break down what each of these lines have to offer.

Sapphire Blue – BASE

Up first, we have True Metallic Metal Base Paints. If you’re a Citadel painter, you’re going to see this coming. No surprise for the rest of you, a base paint is a high coverage paint, often considered to be the primary color of your model kit. You apply this immediately after priming. That’s the color. Yes, you panel line, yes, you detail this and that weather, etc. However, these are the colors that typically shine. Unlike the other paint lines though, which has their base paints have the lion share of the range, this one only has an even 20 with the rest of the line, which is a little strange on Vallejo’s part.

Typically, you would have more colors, but it’s probably because of this feature. The main feature of Vallejo’s true metallic metal base paints, they’re promising self-leveling. And what’s self-leveling, you may ask? This is something that if you’re a lacquer painter, you’re extremely familiar with. Self-leveling is when your paints dry more evenly. For acrylic painters to achieve something like this, you need to douse your paints in mediums, lots and lots of mediums. I’ll be using Plastruct Slab 9118 for this as the palette where we will be demoing all the paints today.

It’s only four. Um, it is a very small sample, but that’s okay because that’s all that’s needed really. Initially, I lamented that they’re all blue, but you’ll see why that’s important. There we go. Oh, yeah. Look at that blue dot. Very nice. Very vibrant. Not the glossiest, but we’ll see as I spread it around. Also, this is unprimed plastic. I’m just trying it on styrene and and the background.

Yes, it’s already been blue. I’m trying it. This is the monster brush by Army Painter. Let’s swirl it around. A little bit wet, but that’s okay. This is mostly going to be straight from the bottle. And it is smooth, guys. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. It’s beautiful. The coverage is nice.

Wow. Remember guys, this is from one single drop. Well, technically three micro drops to form one big drop, but
it is incredibly smooth. Yes, brush strokes are appearing because again, I’m applying it sloppily out the bottle with no thinning, but there is an immediate effect on the smoothness of the paint. And each, if you look at each brush stroke, it’s actually quite smooth. Look at that. Smooth. Smooth. Smooth. Have you guys ever been mogged by a paint job before? Cuz I just got mogged. Look at that. It looks so good. Oh my goodness.

Sapphire Blue – LIGHT

Up next, we have the true metallic metal light category. Now, what’s the difference? This is basically the edge highlighting paints. That’s what they are. They’re made made to grab a sword and you just kind of just trace the outline of it to provide that extra oomph, extra sheen. You can also use this for blending in between the main colors. That is its purpose and it’s advertised as such.

What’s not advertised and we can very safely assume that it doesn’t have this feature is that it is not self-leveling. Nowhere does it say on the brochure or in the advertisements or in the bottles that they’re self-leveling. And it doesn’t even say they’re high coverage. Just give it a good shake. I’ve been shaking it for a little bit now, but there we go. So that’s again one mega drop comprised of like three drops. So, here we go. Let’s swirl it around. It’s definitely runnier.

Wow. Okay, I can see it’s definitely smooth from a firsthand experience. It’s not as smooth, though. You know what? You can still get away with making this your main color. I think there’s enough of a coverage here to justify that sort of behavior, which is using paints not intended to be the main color to be used as the main color. And of course, it’s quite vibrant.

Though, I will say it’s not as shiny as I expect, and it does streak a bit more. Each brush stroke isn’t as clean. So that’s the self-leveling at work there for the base. And the fact that it’s not here is somewhat apparent. But overall, both paints are quite smooth, guys. Incredibly smooth. Let’s edge highlight the sword. By the way, It’s okay. It’s a little thick, but that’s not too bad. We’ll blend it in later. It’s all good. And then we’ll go on the opposite side a little bit there. We’ll start here.

Start small and then go wide. It’s already providing really nice sheen when applied. And let’s provide it on the opposite side here. We’ll make the spine of the sword really, really shiny. And then just a small edge here. We’ll paint it as well. See those streaks right there where it’s not really perfect even though I tried to paint it perfectly like that. Um, that’s the paint drying faster than anticipated because it’s not made to spread out and go further than just basically blending and a edge highlighting.

So again, be warned if you’re trying to use them as main colors. However nice they are, they you will have to douse this in a lot of mediums. That being said, let’s continue this subtle effect. Oh, and by the way, just to add, I wouldn’t say insult to injury, but you know, just to emphasize the point, I’ve had to use water this time to fully thin it out and make sure it goes farther along.

Um, because it dries too fast, it doesn’t have the leveling feature. I didn’t have to do that for the main color, the base. And despite that, it provides a really nice effect. Oh wow. Now, the light paints are a little bit more generic than their base counterparts. That’s because it doesn’t have the leveling feature. However, it’s still quite smooth. Probably the smoothest paint highlights in the store. However, I can’t help that it’s missing something. And what would I be missing? Something to blend the two together.

Sapphire Blue – SHADE

Woohoo! The shades. Shades. They are made with the a similar formulation, not the same, but a similar formulation as Vallejo’s express paints. They provide more pigmentation compared to the normal shades as promised because of that special express formulation.

So, if you like Vallejo’s Express paints, these are the shades for you. Higher pigmentation than their normal shade line or wash line depending on the brand you use. So, the exact same thing. And washes again, just to reiterate, provide details or highlight the details that have been covered by the initial paint job. It’s like turning on the shadows in a video game. Comparatively speaking, a game without shadows look infinitely worse than a game with shadows.

So that’s the purpose of a shade. But I will say this one is the strangest part of this shade line. Um, see the name True Metallic Metal? Yeah. Um, they’re not metallic. Uh, caught me off guard, guys. I thought that being part of the true metallic metal paint line that every single shade, all 20 of them will be metallic. Zero goose egg. Nothing in that shade category is metallic.

And they’re all semi gloss/ satin as well. That’s a choice. I don’t know what to say. um they are darker versions essentially of the base color. So proving uh the point further that they’re sort of reformulated express paints in a way. In a way that they’re still washes so they’re not as vibrant I imagine. But it does carry on that line. I just wish some of them not even all of them just some of them were metallic. This is sapphire blue. Quite dark actually for something sapphire. But we’ll see.

Let’s swirl it around. Oh, this is not cross contamination, right? No way. Let’s do that again on a cleaner brush. Let’s see. Cuz I like that effect. All right. This is a clean, flat synthetic brush by AK number two. Oh yeah. Okay. It’s not cross contamination. No, no, no. It literally is just like that. Okay. That’s beautiful. Let’s apply it. Oh, guys. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

This is not thin down or anything. It’s just the wash. Told you it’s missing a wash for blending purposes. Wow.
Now, I will say it does dry faster than what I’m used to with a wash, even when it’s not thinned. I expected it to dry fast, but that was it was essentially dry upon contact almost. So that is a negative a little bit, but it’s such a deep color that it almost doesn’t matter cuz at the very again you can just apply a little bit of water almost. So the coverage for light and shade aren’t as good as base and it is apparent. So that might be a negative to some people. And look at it. It’s already dry.

Vallejo wasn’t lying when they said that they based off the formula of these new shades on their existing express paint formula. Now, what does the express paint by Vallejo, Contrast by Citadel, Quick Gen by AK, and Speed Paint by Army Painter all have in common? You have to let them dry. Otherwise, if you agitate the surface while it’s still drying, there will be some surface tearing.

That’s what this spot is. Just to test the theory that there is similar formula, I agitated the surface about 30 seconds after it’s already been applied. It’s already drying and you can tell it left like a bald spot. Now, it doesn’t look that bad on camera to be honest. It looks much worse in person though. Um, so I will say that be careful. You can’t do the normal up and down brush strokes that you do with your normal paints. You for contrast paints, you have to go one stroke or down, doesn’t matter, but one stroke, move on to the next spot. One stroke, move on. One stroke, move on. Right?

And then when it when it dries in about 10 15 minutes, you go back to the same spot and then you apply again. Right? You can’t keep doing this in one spot. It will tear. It’s going to look like a crime scene with those like chalk on the ground. Yeah, it’s gonna look like that. Terrible.

Otherwise though, they killed it with the shades. They’re quite nice. The bar none probably the most pigment heavy shades, at least in the acrylic water-based market. I think their only competition in terms of pigmentation would be the new fanatic washes from last year. But I digress. Um, that’s also this might be a little cheating cuz again they’re basically contrast or close to it. So, who knows? But for my point of view, a paint is a paint and I like it. I like it. They’re quite nice.

Sapphire Blue – AIRBRUSH

Finally, we have the True Metallic Metal Airbrush line. There’s 20 of them in this line and we will be comparing it, at least consistency wise, to Vallejo’s old metal color line. And why am I doing that? Because in the back of this bottle of the old metal color line, it says water-based acrylic airbrush color. It says that in the back of the bottle, guys, I’ve dry brushed these.

We’ve also heard um granted it’s from like two people uh up front in the store, but we’ve heard reports that the metallics in them jammed their guns and they had to excessively clean. I I can’t quantify that. Um but again, I’ve dry brushed them. In theory, I shouldn’t be able to do that with any prethinned airbrush paint, which does imply that this is thicker than your average airbrush paint.

We’ll see if this is in a very similar boat, their new formula. Hopefully not. Um because if it is properly thinned out, I should have a terrible experience. I will be dry brushing it onto the mini that we’ve used. And if it even works remotely well, maybe it’s just a stick. Who knows? But if I have a miserable experience trying to apply this, then well done. And yes, obviously since I’ve dry brushed it, you could I’ve also applied it with just a brush. I shouldn’t be able to do that with properly thinned airbrush paints. They need the pressure and a brush stroke can’t provide you that pressure. Here we go.

Oh yeah, there it is. The watery disaster. It’s so thin. It’s actually ridiculous. Okay. Okay. To all my airbrushing boys in the comments, you’re good. This is so thin. Let’s see if it even affects. No, it doesn’t do anything. It needs the pressure for sure. Yeah. Oh, Vallejo did their job properly this time. Oh, yeah. Okay. Great job, Vallejo. There won’t be any airbrushing here, but rest assured, guys. This is quite nice. And no, it didn’t do anything there. Um, it just provided a little bit of sheen. Otherwise, this is it dried. It’s basically unaffected. It needs the pressure for sure. This is the old metal color paint line. Let’s just apply it.

Vallejo Metal Colour Paint Comparison

A little bit of paint contamination there. It’s all good. So, it is still thin, don’t get me wrong, but it is definitely a fuller experience. That was just two drops, by the way. Two and a half. And this will definitely affect my mini. Let’s paint it a little bit on Let’s see. Where do I paint it? Right there on the button. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There we go. Fully dry brush.

Oh, fully brush paint. Sorry, not dry brush. Don’t need a pressure. These are just base paints that are watery. So obviously, if you weren’t aware, metal color, you can brush paint them. A new paint line has just opened up for you. But if you’re primarily a airbrusher, a new a paint line has closed for you. Though granted with the addition of these new 20 metal colors from the True Metal paint line, a new avenue has opened for you as well. So, it kind of cancels out.

But yeah, you can’t really do this with the true metallic metal airbrush colors. You just can’t. Now, obviously, my it didn’t do anything is a little hyperbolic, but as you can see, it takes a lot to just coat one. It definitely needs the pressure. Been going at it for quite a while now, about five, six minutes. So, it’s not advisable for you to use airbrush paints to paint entire surfaces without an airbrush. It’s doable, but yeah, terrible surface coverage for sure.

Closer Look at the Bottles

Just so you guys are aware, all four of these paints have the same name. Go figure. It’s called Sapphire Blue Paint Set after all. So, it’s the sapphire blue light, sapphire blue base, sapphire blue shade, and sapphire blue airbrush paint. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It’s that’s advertised. You can’t blame them for false advertising cuz hey, they’re all sapphire blue, just different shades of it, I guess.

Other Brand Metallic Blues

Guys, metallic blue was hard enough to find. This is the only water-based metallic blue in the store. Yes, Acrysion is water-based, not solvent based like Aqueous, which is, by the way, banned in Canada now. Unfortunately, this is the only metallic blue in the store. That’s water-based. How is that possible? So, props to Vallejo for providing us with the most diverse range.

I was going to compare them to paints of its ilk or the same sort of paints, but as I was going through the store, I realized they’re one of one. They really have no competition. Yeah, I showed you the metallic blue from Acrysion, but guys, even that doesn’t have a self-leveling feature. And the the metallic paint section of Acrysion is small. Acrysion as a whole isn’t a metallic line.

So really, there’s no comparing them. the it will automatically lose on the smoothness and how far the coverage goes because Acrysion mainline paints are base paints. There’s really nothing to compare them with in the store. They’re a one of one. They’re unique and props to Vallejo for that. They’re a pioneer.

Final Product

Look at that. And I turned off the light, by the way, to give you um a fairer point where there’s no light shining. So, it’s not as reflective, but even then, it’s still quite poppy and vibrant. And this is me with the agitation, right?

Uh as previously mentioned with the wash, despite that, the pigment count is through the roof. This is the one I painted as an extra. But look at that. the little mouse that could with a beautiful dagger painted in the exact same way but in a smaller scale. The back of the box and therefore Vallejo wasn’t lying.

Paul’s Conclusion

It is that vibrant and I sloppily applied them. They airbrushed it probably. So guys, believe the hype. That’s it for today. Thank you guys so much for watching. Have a wonderful and blessed day. If you like what you saw here and you want to see more, please click the descriptions down below.

Down there you’ll find our website, which is our real time inventory, all our socials, which we’re incredibly active on.

And thank you guys so much for watching. Have a wonderful day.

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