Well some of my polyscale paints are now over 15 years old and many of my favorites (like Tarnished Black) are running low. Despite me sealing each bottle well (flipped with seran wrap under cap) they are starting to get clumpy. I only have a small handful of usable paints of 40+ bottles.
Testors at one point was going to pick up a lot of the older colors. But I only see a few. No Boxcar red, tarnished black, DRG&W Brown, etc…
So what’s the best acryllic replacement these days?
Go to hobby sites, like Micro Mark, modeltrainstuff, etc, and look at craft paints. These days, Testors, Vellejo, and Tamiya will/ought to satisfy your needs, but you’ll need to look at their colour palettes to see.
Color does not need to be all that accurate…
They fade, they come from different batchers and or vendors.
Look at the LIONS, are they the same shade of color?
Just so it looks good to you!
Micro scale decals. Website has a color match chart
shane
Modelflex, TruColor, and MicroMark do still have many of the colors, and many colors from hobby brands like Tamiya & Vallejo are either identical or extremely close.
Another model railroad site for us hobbiests ([;)]) has a conversion chart from Floquil colors to acrylic, and many Pollyscale were Floquil matches. Some are direct 1-1 matches, others are mixes of 2 to equal it.
I’ve never been too concerned with the colours of paint, as it’s pretty easy to mix the colours you want.
I had hoped that when Testors bought Floquil and Pollyscale, that they’d drop their line of Model Masters paint, and replace it with Pollyscale, which was an all-around better product, both for brushwork and airbrush, too.
I consider myself fortunate to still have a fairly good supply of Pollyscale, although black and white are almost gone. I can replace them with Scalecoat, but it’s not my favourite to use.
Wayne
Pollyscale were great paints. No fumes, good colors and very good adhesion to plastics and even bare metal. The closest I found is Protopaint, but it’s airbrush ready if you don’t mind that. Apparently, it’s from the same shop. But they tend to be hard to find for some reason.
Vallejo is my second choice. According to a source quoted by Terry (PennCentral99), Vallejo Model Air 71.251 is a good match for engine black and Vallejo Model Air 71.055 is a good match for grimy black.
I also use craft paints. With a good primer, they seem to have OK adherence properties. I always cover it with flat varnish to avoid it from rubbing off. I weather everything so color is not too critical. I usually buy 3 or 4 bottles of various color tones and do some color testing to get a proper match of what I am looking for. I always use a strainer, and dilute the paint with distilled water. If adherence if a problem, I add a few drops of alcohol to the mix.
Simon
Thanks guys. Paint matching isn’t so much a concern as the quality of the paint and how easy it is to work with and clean up.
I guess I’ll have to try out a couple of the brands listed and see which I like.
I have used a bit of everything.
I had used Model Master but that is now gone as well.
For basic black, white, weathered black, rust and silver, Humbrol has worked well for me but as of late with the pandemic, it is a bit hard to find. (Silver is one of the colors for my protolanced road.)
I have found that Vallejo works pretty good. My only complaint is that a good chunk of the line is pre-thinned for airbrushing and I am one of those people that brush paint. The paint is thin enough that it takes at least two coats to cover properly. As mentioned, there are mixing charts out there for making just about every color.
The only color that I really miss and haven’t found any mixes for is MEC Pine Green. As that is the other main color for my roas, I need it for painting my equipment. I found a few bottles and carefully hoard them.
I thought that Vellejo had Model Color and Model Air. One for brushing and one for airbrush.
They do, but from what I’ve found, they don’t have the Model Air Colors in the Model Color line.