Scalecolor artist smooth acrylic paints

[Steve Edwards]

"From time to time I have to use a pair of pliers to get the caps off my oil paints!"

I used to pass them through the flame of a cigarette lighter. Not recommended! Try the hot water strategy; pour some boiled water into a cup then soak your paint tubes caps down for about 10-15 minutes.

When you're finished painting, give the tube and cap threads a good wipe with white spirit and rub on a dab of vaseline or airbrush lube and that will stop the cap from sticking in the future.

And when you buy new paint try unscrewing the cap and letting the tube sit on a wad of tissue paper. This lets those paints which seem to have an oily head a chance to leak out the excess oil. I believe that it is this rather than careless clean up which is the primary cause of stuck caps. Then you have a good excuse to get the vaseline out.

Does anyone want to hear my vaseline story?

 

[grasshopper]

Don’t laugh but try setting the tubes upside down on their caps..as with non homogenized peanut butter, the oil migrates ...learned from George O’hanlon, his oil brand Natural Pigments, and has a FB group Painting Best Practices...aside from heat, pliers, try gripping the caps with surgical glove...sticks well and usually works

 

[Steve Edwards]

Grasshopper, thanks a million. It's so obvious but dumbo here would never have thought of it.

 

[grasshopper]

My Darwin moment along same lines was simply squeezing harder when paint refused to flow...was a Rublev oil colour ..Prussian blue..it dries very fast..so was hard st the tube mouth...well, the stuff is hand filled..I squeezed, and the rolled up end unrolled and I had projectile blue all over...best of luck sir

 

[patmaquette]

"From time to time I have to use a pair of pliers to get the caps off my oil paints!"

I used to pass them through the flame of a cigarette lighter. Not recommended! Try the hot water strategy; pour some boiled water into a cup then soak your paint tubes caps down for about 10-15 minutes.

When you're finished painting, give the tube and cap threads a good wipe with white spirit and rub on a dab of vaseline or airbrush lube and that will stop the cap from sticking in the future.

And when you buy new paint try unscrewing the cap and letting the tube sit on a wad of tissue paper. This lets those paints which seem to have an oily head a chance to leak out the excess oil. I believe that it is this rather than careless clean up which is the primary cause of stuck caps. Then you have a good excuse to get the vaseline out.

Does anyone want to hear my vaseline story?

Don’t laugh but try setting the tubes upside down on their caps..as with non homogenized peanut butter, the oil migrates ...learned from George O’hanlon, his oil brand Natural Pigments, and has a FB group Painting Best Practices...aside from heat, pliers, try gripping the caps with surgical glove...sticks well and usually works

Great advice, guys, many thanks.
Steve - no, I don't think we want to hear your Vaseline story!
Cheers,
Pat

 

[Ronaldo]

Came in late to this thread .
I see a lot of sceptics here and raised eyebrows " heavens a new miracle paint "
Looks like we are heading the GWS route of rebottling and renaming paints to boost sales.
Like what's already been said I don't see any advantage in these as with the already saturated acrylic market.

As with oils and acrylics in the hands of top painters all will work .
I paint in oils but still have more than I need of acrylics so don't think I will be tempted as yet.

Grasshopper needs to know what's in them ; you don't tell your competitors your secrets ' I'm sure they will be safe ; more than I can say for some of my very old oils , esp my ancient tube of Naples yellow which you could use as a cosh

All looks rather pretty though

 

[grasshopper]

Nap asked I post this to illustrate usage of pigment, mixing
http://www.swintonsart.com/index.php/blog-articles/item/step-by-step-guide-to-mixing-matching-colour

 

[Ronaldo]

Nap asked I post this to illustrate usage of pigment, mixing
http://www.swintonsart.com/index.php/blog-articles/item/step-by-step-guide-to-mixing-matching-colour

Interesting info there.
Know I know why you want to know the pigment values if you are using this guide

 

[grasshopper]

It’s just an example..now, it does take skill to perfectly match a uniform colour..but with some effort...anyway, wanted to show why I am grousing..it’s a hobby horse of mine..I fully understand the use of convenience sets..but don’t market them as artist focussed, and it’s not a trade secret to show pigment..all art brands do..the secrets come in the carriers and driers etc and pigment load vs the actual pigments...and if you want heavy, try genuine Naples yellow, or stack lead white!

 

[oierlings]

From the Q&A Section on Kickstarter : Our paints contain organic and inorganic pigments. We will provide the list of pigments of each color very soon.

 

[grasshopper]

That’s excellent news..thank you

 

[gerryj199]

FYI. The pigment list has just been posted for those of you that are interested.

 

[patmaquette]

Nap asked I post this to illustrate usage of pigment, mixing
http://www.swintonsart.com/index.php/blog-articles/item/step-by-step-guide-to-mixing-matching-colour

A small aside, if I may. The step by step guide says that purple is a secondary colour and that violet is not actually a colour, but a descriptive term.
I always thought violet was the secondary colour, and that purple is a distinct tone, as is mauve.
No use typing "The colour purple" into Google, you get something different.
Thoughts, please?
Cheers,
Pat

 

[grasshopper]

Purple isn’t a colour per second..the violet tones are the secondary and tertiaries..red violet, blue violet...but am willing to accept langauge differences...another way to think is vial the munsel scale...and depending on where one chooses primaries, everything follows from that..

 

[grasshopper]

Just went thru the com-ositi0n sheets..and I’ve never seen anything purporting to be artist quality with only a couple of pure pigment paints..it’s a reconstituted version of dropper bottle brands..mixing these will be difficult to control so really it devolves to buying little sets of flesh and red etc...I know I will be killed for saying, but totally not artist material..nor any improvement on existing hobby brands. I am not suggesting artist materials are necessarily the best for miniatures..but control,over mixing is important no matter..and this won’t give that..but clearly the demand is there..more power to them..just not for me

 

[grasshopper]

In terms of mixing, limited palettes work fairly well with two reds, a blue, a yellow, black, white...or two blues a red etc..this has the two red angle..but thereafter it’s all over the map..buy those pigments in any artist acrylics, add a couple of earths...a burnt sienna, raw umber...and in 8 tubes will have a good start...applies to oils, acrylics...the pigments they choose are all modern..glossier and slower to dry in oils..so would propose an oil palette driven off some cadmiums

 

[oldtrousers]

I am definitely interested in trying the skin tone set and leaning towards supporting the single paint set offer on the kick starter page. I generally mix flesh tones from dropper bottles, so this set makes sense to add to my paint inventory. As for the other sets, I'm a bit reluctant to leave the dropper bottles behind and return to mixing each color needed on a project as I once did with oils. I'm not opposed to it, I just feel that the advantages of the dropper bottles in both convenience and eliminating initial color mixing time for each painting session are more beneficial to maximizing my time and enjoyment at the bench.
Scott

 

[Ong]

I have Vallejo and Scale75 paint sets. Personally, I like Vallejo paints better.

These Scale75 tubes make SO MUCH SENSE for the following reasons...

I found that Scale75 paint colors are unique to the paint palette. There are some colors that other companies can match, and some colors that are mixed to produce unique hues and shades specific to Scale75.

The issues I have with Scale75 paint bottles is that the paint is too thick in the bottle. One can't shake up the paint inside the bottles...the bottles don't have enough thinner inside them for viscosity...and the bottles don't have enough free space inside to shake anything up. Shake them and nothing happens...nothing mixes...so it's hard to squeeze out the paint from the Scale75 bottles unlike Vallejos where one can hear the paint liquid shaking inside. As such, Scale75 paints come out like a goo, not as a liquid, so that affects how they paint on. Notice that these tubes squeeze out paint goo? The tubes just make more sense for Scale75 paints.

Secondly, Scale75 paint bottles are NOT opened, unlike Vallejos. One has to literally punch a hole in the eye dropper plastic bottles' tops to open them. Now one can say this is an advantage to avoid paint drying out or spilling into the cap, but sometimes trying to bullseye the top of the dropper bottle isn't my idea of fun. It's dangerous. I used my sprue snippers, but imagine drilling an Xacto knife into the top. Xacto just produces a little slit...you need a hole..and you don't want to snip off the tip either. So I understand the need for Scale75 tubes with screw on caps.

Those issues out of the way, once Scale75 paints are mixed well, there are no other colors that quite match them. Vallejos don't have that rich deep dark or light bright colors like Scale75. If I had to buy all of this over again, I would buy these tubes instead of the Scale75 eye dropper paint sets.

As for the Kickstarter, WOW, Scale75 EXCEEDED their goal immensely! I would suggest that they devote some of that funding to producing more figures, personally for me, Sci-Fi like the Fallen Frontiers line or another original Sci-Fi, perhaps in 120mm. If it cost $700-$1,200 USD to sculpt one 120mm figure, then Scale75 is totally set to produce a whole range of new large scale model kit figures. I mean it's a dream to raise that much amount of money and I hope it doesn't all go towards making paint tube sets.

One can even sell these Scale75 paint tube sets at art stores, colleges, art museums, art classes, and tourist gift stores as these places sell paint tubes and don't have hobby paint racks for paint eye dropper bottles.

This just goes to show that this hobby won't die. It's alive and well in Europe and elsewhere.

Kudos and cheers to Scale75 for this Kickstarter idea and the immense success!

Peter

 

[Huw63]

I'm baffled by the vast selections of paints to be honest. I did a course about pigments a year ago and recently got a book of painted pigments from L Cornelissen in London (along with a book of Impressionist Artist Palettes). I'm going to study more about pigments and colour theory before I buy any more paints.

That said Scale 75 have got their marketing very well organised (as have Kimeira with their new range).

Cheers

Huw

 

[grasshopper]

Don’t get too wrapped up trying to use materials and colour palettes from canvass painting for miniatures..the requirements are different...mainly in terms of handling..but also to Pigments..thru art history artists used materials available to them..the Old Masters used rather poor stuff, but their work around where of course incredible. The impressionists had wonderful new bright, opaque cadmium..the 20th century gave rise to loads of organic stuff with inpronouncable names that tend to slow drying, gloss..but more transparency..acrylics are often amended to get around some of this..adding say talc, matting agents..but still the basic pigment nature will apply..its fun..I am fascinated by it..to play with palettes from the past and there is so much to learn..and be in awe of how artists got what they did ..and how spoilt for choice we are now..