Painting white

[D-Boy]

I've had a few builds recently that require significant surface areas to be painted in white(s). I've never had much luck getting good airbrush or hand brush coverage with Tamiya X-2 (gloss). The paint does not cover edges well and to get consistent brush coverage, I have often resorted to thinned, multiple coats.

Any techniques to suggest? Any alternative brands to recommend?

[MartinJQuinn]

Maybe prime underneath. Multiple thin coats. You'll rarely get white to cover in one coat.

[drasticplastic]

Maybe airbrush Matte White, then gloss clearcoat. Or airbrush gloss white over the matte.

[Admhawk]

Maybe airbrush Matte White, then gloss clearcoat. Or airbrush gloss white over the matte.

agreed, I find this usually works well.


Another option is the tamiya white primer spray can. A bit heavy, but covers nicely with a semi gloss finish.

[Timmy C]

White primers/"base" paints (e.g. Citadel's Ceramic White) might be better options. Alternatively, use a very very light grey, which helps tone down the intensity of the white for a more (arguably) scale appearance.

[wefalck]

Poor edge coverage means that the too much paint of a too high surface tension relative to the painted surface was used. The surface tension tries to pull together the paint, so that the 'blob' has an as low surface area as possible.

Glossy paints normally have a higher surface tension than matt paints due to high content of 'medium'.

Many plastic surfaces have slightly hydrophobic properties, which aggravates the problem, when using water-based acrylics.

There are several strategies to overcome the problem and some of them have already been mentioned, namely:

- roughing the surfaces by sanding it lightly and/or rubbing it with steel-wool

- careful degreasing (when using acrylics)

- spraying thin layers that dry up immediately - a thin film has less tendency to 'pull together'.

- first spraying on something matt (matt paint or primer - in fact on of the purposes of priming is to create a surface on which paint does not 'pull together').

[Fishermandave]

I use Design Master spray flat white and then add the sheen I want. The DM spray is ultra fine and covers extremely well and won't cover up fine detail even in 1/700 scale. IMO much better than Tamiya and cheaper too.