Thanks Andrea,
I had a look in the
Scale Model Shop and I'm sure that I can find something there (211 pages!) Lots of the paints seem to be acrylics. Are they to be preferred over enamel?
Aidan.
Aidan you've just hit another sensible issue: acrylics or enamels. I'll try to give you a very general outlook on the issue but consider that the opinions are as numerous as the heads involved. In the end, personal taste and experience is the paramount factor in choosing between acrylics or enamels.
As an introduction, the two terms, acrylic and enamel, doesn't fully classify all the modelling paints available now. The nature of thinners and pigments creates many sub-categories; moreover, every paint producer has its own way of classifying their paint in the two main categories and yes, if not a proper jungle, it's a wilderness.
Acrylics are easy to use but be careful to get the kind of acrylics fitting to your painting tool: brush or
airbrush. As a rule of thumb, acrylics dedicated to airbrushing can create some coverage problems when hand brushed while hand brush acrylics could be airbrushed after being duly thinned. Acrylics can be thinned with its related thinner but in many cases can be thinned with water or IPA too (
Tamiya acrylics are a well known example). Usually, acrylics do not stink and this is an advantage if you paint inside your home. Cleaning painting tools from acrylic paint residues is rather simple as in many cases water will do the main job; with
Tamiya acrylics I find useful to add to some mild bleach based home detergent to the water and then finish with clear water. Finally, acrylics need, as a minimum, a thoroughly cleaned and degreased surface to adhere properly to plastic but a good measure is to pre-paint the model with a primer (on those specific issues there are different approaches and you'll find something about washing or not, priming or not a model in this forum too).
Enamels are the historic modeller's paint. Many of us, in our youth, began to paint models with the famous Humbrol tinlets. Enamels adhere properly to the plastic surfaces, they can be easily brushed and
airbrush finely after thinning but there are more recent products that are engineered to be airbrushed without further thinning (MRP is a typical example). They can be thinned with their own thinner but many enamels can be thinned with white spirit too. Painting tools can be cleaned with thinner; water will not work.
As a general suggestion: start with acrylics: they are simple to use, cure rapidly, mix easily, usually can be thinned with tap water and do not fill the room with fumes SWMBO would not appreciate (and your lungs as well).
About the choice of the thinner, first test the thinner you are going to use with a small amount of paint; sometimes thinners and paints are not compatible and the result could lead to problems ranging from an unsatisfactory coverage of the painted surface to more serious problems like a swift separation of pigments from thinner or the creations of pigment lumps.
Probably (and this adverb is a blatant understatement) you'll find other modellers here on the forum that will give you more precise and focused advice than mine. As a "back to the hobby after more than 35 years" modeller, I'm still learning as the technical evolution in this field is so huge that I'm almost certainly missing something.
Enjoy your build.
Andrea
It seems to be a bit of a mashup of an Sd.Kfz. 234/4 with mudguards that try to resembles those of an Sd.Kfz. 231 (8-Rad). The box art is also highly fanciful, as it depicts a North African scene when the 234/4 came too late to be used there at all. I guess the artist confused it with the Sd.Kfz. 233.
End result's the same though!