Greetings one and all,
Today I’m going to be reviewing “Vallejo Acrylic Metal Color Airbrush Colors Gunmetal Grey” (and yes, spelling colour colors hurts my poor withered soul). I found this paint entirely by accident, but it was one of the best mistaken amazon orders I’ve ever made.
The Vallejo Model Air brand is a selection of paints made to be used with an airbrush. The paint flows very well straight out the bottle, but I like to add a little Vallejo Airbrush Flow Improver, just to improve the flow even more. I find it gives really good coverage over black, and it helps to bring out the depth in the recesses of the sculpt of a model even more.
Despite this paint being made to work with an airbrush, it also works great with just a brush as well, and this is in fact the main way that I use it. It doesn’t even need to be watered down, as it’s already watered down well enough for going through an airbrush. A small bit of this paint will go a very long way, and the 32ml bottles I tend to buy can easily be enough to paint an entire army (though, use common sense here; I’m referring to a 2K army, not a 40K one).
Better yet, you can manipulate the paint so that it pools more in the recesses, giving it a shaded look (much like how Citadel contrast paints work).
Before finding this, I used to paint silver metals by applying a base coat of Abaddon Black, then Leadbelcher, a coat of Nul Oil, followed by a dry brush of Necron Compound. Now I just apply a black basecoat, then a coat of Vallejo Acrylic Metal Color Airbrush Color Gunmetal, and then a dry brush of Necron Compound or Stormhost Silver. It may not seem much, being able to skip one step, but it saves on the time waiting for the Nul Oil to dry. It also keeps costs down as a pot of Leadbelcher and Nul Oil comes out as £7.50 if bought from Gamesworkshop, while Vallejo Acrylic Metal Color Airbrush Color Gunmetal is £5.99. Only a small saving to be sure, but it’s good practice to save pennies.
However, now I’ve ranted about the good points of this paint, it’s important to note that nothing is perfect and that this paint does have a couple of slight down sides. The main one being if you slip or overfill an area and the paint runs as a result, it’s hard to restore the colour that it ran over by just wiping it off. The paint is thin enough to get into every nook and cranny, so when i make these little mistakes I usually have to repaint that whole area.
The other is the thinness of this paint. For an airbrush, it’s perfect. As this is how it’s supposed to be used, this is unsurprising. But if used with a brush, it can take a bit of time to get used to as it flows a lot more than you might be used to.
Overall, I love this paint. In fact, I’ve since bought an entire set of Vallejo Model Metallic Paints (which I will review at a later date). It’s become my go to paint for silver metals, and honestly, I still have three pots of Leadbelcher that I don’t think will ever get used now due to how good I think this paint is.