Acrylic painting advice

I have painted numerous Ameri-Towne buildings(6-8) with Krylon acrylic spray paint.  No problems.  I think brushing the paint on the plastic may be an issue.  BTW I never use alcohol to wipe off the plastic.  I let my plastic air dry after the bath in Dawn and water.   Yellow is very difficult to cover well.  I used to paint war gaming figures and yellow never worked at all.

Thanks Dan. I usually air brush or use rattle can sprays but this project would require some very intricate masking, so I thought a steady hand and brush might be the quickest and easiest. It is of some comfort to hear that the yellow colour might be the problem, not something I am doing or not doing. The other kit components that have a red brick finish, take white acrylic wash just fine, with good coverage. I am betting you are right about the yellow.

Bob

Paint it white first.  Yellow is very transparent.

I agree with Boilermaker1, acrylic white is the best base coat for many colors check out some of the craft paints at HobbyLobby  make sure they are permanent after drying. These paints are not expensive and not viscus, I brush them. There are some articles on the web where plastic kit ( cars, planes and ship) modelers  thin this paint for airbrushing, do not thin with water.   

Thanks Boilermaker1 and John. Never would have thought of a white base coat first.

Bob

Bob:

The only way to get any paint to stick to the plastic is to brush it on once - don't go back over it. You will only be pushing the paint on the plastic. With that said when I paint OGR walls for my building flats I spray paint the whole structure the brick color, let it cure for a day or two then go back with a brush and the color I want for the trim. This way you are painting on top of paint which goes a lot better then on plastic.

If you don't want to go this route then try spraying the bare plastic with dullcote first to add some 'tooth' for the paint to stick to. The dullcote will not obviously affect sections already painted other than making the paint more dull.

Please let me know how it goes
Joe

I am wondering why you are using acrylic paint?   I use Testor's enamel model paint, and it sticks like heck to any plastic I brush it on.   Get it on you hands, and it will be on there for days.   It comes in both flat and glossy.  And, it is waterproof.

Mannyrock

P.S.  I just finished painting the mule head on my new oil pump yellow, to cover up the bright red original paint.  It took three coats with a brush, but totally covered it.

Mannyrock

Joe: Last night I put on the 6th coat of yellow and this morning it looks good. I wondered about the Dullcoat trick - I have used it prior to weathering with powders for better tooth and adherence. And now I understand that the bare plastic kit components require a different approach than the pre-finished red brick.

Mannyrock: I inherited a wide colour range of artist quality acrylics from my wife's extensive collection and over the last few years, I have added Tamiya air brush acrylics in an array of weathering colours. So I used what I had. BUT, you have got me thinking about the enamels and I actually did not know that they come in flat, my preferred finish. Off to the LHS on-line store to look at what's available.

Thanks to both for the comments. Maybe I will post a picture (when finished) to the existing thread on finishing the OGR Palace Theatre.

Bob

Bob O - I ended up spraying dull coat on my OGR theater after washing and drying. My intent was to get a better look to the mortar lines, but I do think it helped with the acrylic paint. It always took me at least three coats to get the job I wanted, but I could control where it went. Before putting the windows in, I sealed the acrylic paint job with dullcoat.

I recently did a Walthers Gas station which had fine line details at the seams. A single coat of dull coat was not enough to seal the plastic. After painting and washing, I was still left with a blue smudge on white. Since everything was flat I was able to 400 grit wet sand the smudge away to leave clean fine lines. I think it cleaned up pretty well.

ScoutingDad,

Thanks for confirmation of the dullcote prep that Joe Fauty mentioned. Good job on the gas station. Maybe not intentional, but I think you scored some nice weathering effects!

Bob