Paint Colors Buying vrs DIY Mixing

[durangod]

Rather than purchase every single color for every model, i thought i would mix some of my own. I been checking out the web on how to make different colors and i do have some empty jars. So i figured to save some money i would just mix them as they are needed.

I wish there was a quick guide online or chart of some kind that i could just find the color i want and it would tell me colors to mix and percentage.

How many of you mix your own colors (close enough kind of thing) vrs buying every color the model needs?

 

[TimM63]

I don't mix colors normally. Only when necessary or I want a color I don't have. I recently bought every X and XF color that is on the Tamiya color chart so I pretty much have every color.

 

[Pantherman]

Rather than purchase every single color for every model, i thought i would mix some of my own. I been checking out the web on how to make different colors and i do have some empty jars. So i figured to save some money i would just mix them as they are needed.

I wish there was a quick guide online or chart of some kind that i could just find the color i want and it would tell me colors to mix and percentage.

How many of you mix your own colors (close enough kind of thing) vrs buying every color the model needs?

I don't mix colours. I find that if I buy a few new colours that I need for a build I increase my chances of having the right colour for a future build. Pantherman

 

[BlackSheepTwoOneFour]

I don't mix colors either. Buy what you need for your subject. That's how I slowly built up my paint stash. Don't limit yourself to just Tamiya brand.

Aside from Testors Model Master brand paint - both acrylics and enamels (sadly Model Master paint line is now discontinued).

My paint stash is a kadiediscope of paint brands and colors:

Testors small square bottles - enamels
Aeromaster acrylics (discontinued)
PollyScale acrylics (discontinued)
Humbrol
Tamiya - acrylics and lacquers
Gunze/Mr.Color acrylics- I prefer Gunze brand over Mr. Color. Mr.Color paints needs their brand thinner to thin for airbrushing.
AK Interactive Real Color - highly recommended!!!
Mission Models acrylics - great color line but tend to scratch easily. Primer coat is a must
Vallejo - hate this brand of paint with a passion but mainly use them for certain application for handbrushing. I rarely use them except their off white. Why the hate? They leave a vinyl rubbery feel once dried. I may toss them out instead.
Believe it not… I have one single bottle of Pactra dark blue. Yes it's still good. Pactra been discontinued for years.

 

[blakeh1]

Most times I try to find the color I need before resorting to mixing

One exception is the Star Wars "white" color. For a long time there was not an real definitive paint for it apart from AS-20 being pretty close, but even then AS-20 got to be pretty expensive as it only came in rattle cans. So I have a mix using Flat White and Deck Tan that seems to get close enough and is much cheaper. Plus I can mix it by just dumping the Deck Tan into one of the larger white bottles and I know it will all get used eventually. The same off white also fits lots of other subjects like Space 1999 as well

But in general I try to avoid mixing for a few reasons.

One it can be a pain to get the right color you are looking for and I often waste way more paint trying to adjust to the shade I need than if I had just bought the pre-fab color .

Also, color mixing to swatches online is slippery slope as very few ever match the actual color they are supposed to represent unless they are literally white balanced pictures of the paint itself

For military modelling particularly, it is so much better to get the FS paint number you need then find your favorite brand that has that FS color.

But the biggest for me is consistency in color. i.e. if I wind up not mixing enough and have to mix again, it seems nearly impossible to get that same color perfectly matched. With pre-fab colors, I can generally be assured that if I buy a new bottle, it is going to match what I already laid down

 

[BlackSheepTwoOneFour]

Also, color mixing to swatches online is slippery slope as very few ever match the actual color they are supposed to represent unless they are literally white balanced pictures of the paint itself

Yup…

For military modelling particularly, it is so much better to get the FS paint number you need then find your favorite brand that has that FS color.

100% agree!!! There is a cross reference paint chart that lists all the Federal Standard numbers to the paint brand. Go: www.paint4models.com. This should be your bible when it comes to federal standard colors. I often refer to it everytime I build a kit if I don't have the color of the particular FS#.

Not all color brand are the same with the FS#. If I have say 3 paint brand of FS3479, I'll do a color comparison on a white index card and make my decision which looks better depending on the subject I'm building.

But the biggest for me is consistency in color. i.e. if I wind up not mixing enough and have to mix again, it seems nearly impossible to get that same color perfectly matched. With pre-fab colors, I can generally be assured that if I buy a new bottle, it is going to match what I already laid down

Its impossible to return to get the exact match should you need to do touch up of a custom mixed color you've done.

Like I said, I never mix my colors. Except one time I was looking for a different kind of silver for my Pucara prop spinners. I had some Tamiya Flat Aluminum that's almost gone and mixed it with some grey to get what I'm looking for. Once it's gone, it's gone. Will I make that color again exactly? No. It happened to be a one off color I created & chose to use. I still have very little of it left for any future application.

 

[durangod]

when i mix a color i write the percents of colors on the bottle for the next time i need to make more. I have not had to make more as of yet. Are you saying even with percents it wont be the same every time? Im not entering contests, for me it just has to be really close but nit perfect.

 

[TimM63]

when i mix a color i write the percents of colors on the bottle for the next time i need to make more. I have not had to make more as of yet. Are you saying even with percents it wont be the same every time? Im not entering contests, for me it just has to be really close but nit perfect.

When I mix colors I will weigh it. Example: A 5:1 mix would be 5 grams to 1. This way I get the same color every time. I use a digital scal that weighs to the hundredth gram.

 

[blakeh1]

when i mix a color i write the percents of colors on the bottle for the next time i need to make more. I have not had to make more as of yet. Are you saying even with percents it wont be the same every time? Im not entering contests, for me it just has to be really close but nit perfect.

I actually do write the formula on the bottle when I can, but often I mix as I go and once you start mixing 3 or more colors, on the fly percentages get hard to remember.
For example I recently was trying to mix a color for the SBD Dauntless I was working on.
I started out simple enough with a roughly 50 /50 mix of two colors, but it was not quite right, so I started adding a bit of another color to blue it out some more, but it wound up going grey, I then had to try adding a slightly more saturated color to the mix which was closer, but now too dark, then I had to lighten it with a bit more white, test, not quite right yet, add a bit more white, perfect, wait how much percent of white did I add total, what was the percent total of that tiny drop of blue I used etc... etc..

and in that case I actually did wind up running out of paint before getting a part done. I tried mixing up a new batch, got it close, but not quite right. With weathering I was able to kind of cover it up a bit and make it look more like a replaced or freshly painted part compared to surrounding panels