[QUESTION] Enamel paints and thinners

[jawd500]

Hullo folks,

I'm looking to dip a tentative toe into the world of oil paints with Mig Ammo's Streaking Grime, but had a couple of questions.

First, I'm assuming that 'Streaking Grime' is just a brand name for some sort of oil paint that could be purchased cheaper, or not?

More to the point is the question of thinners. Again, there's Mig's brand of 'odorless enamel thinner', but that'll definitely be a generic product marked up for hobby purposes. I've used white spirit before and that stuff stinks to high heaven, so I'd definitely like something that doesn't smell, but I don't know what'll get the job done.

The two possible substitutes are Bartoline Premium Low Odour White Spirit and Bartoline Clean Spirit. Has anyone used either of these? If so, how low odour really is the premium stuff? Alternatively, could you use Clean Spirit to remove the streaking grime?

Thanks in advance!

[Fitz]

Odourless turpentine is a thing, and is popular with oil painters because of its lack of stench. It will thin and clean up enamels and other oil-based paints or varnishes just fine.

Personally I've never bothered with it, because I quite like the smell of turpentine.

[2010sunburst]

Windsor and Newton Sansodor odourless thinners works well with oils and enamels.  It is cheaper than the Mig alternative and available in much larger volumes.  A bottle of that, a few students oil paints and a ceramic palette and you’ll be set up for life. 

[Daeothar]

When I wanted to add the whole oil paints thing to my arsenal, I simply used a cheap set of ten small tubes from Action and a bottle of (odorless) turpentine I had still around after some house painting years back.

I obviously mostly use the black and browns in the set, but it's so ridiculously cheap, I won't mind chucking the other less useful colours when I need some new tubes. They're quite small, but they go a ridiculously long way!

I also kind of like the scent/smell of turpentine. When I was a wee lad, my father set me up in the attic one summer with a table, a stack of model kits, some small tins of Revell oil paints and an old mustard jar with turpentine to clean my brushes. This escalated into a full hobby till my teens, when I finally changed to acrylics, once I discovered the joys of miniature painting, but it'll always be the smell of my childhood*



*and Psychoorganic syndrome of course, but I like to think exposure never was to the level and duration to actually cause dainbramage

[has.been]

to actually cause dainbramage

 

[Bloggard]

hope you didn't do the old Bruce Quarrie (blimey, there was a character, now that I know a bit more [too much!] about him) thing of shaping a brushes hairs in your mouth / lips after cleaning in white spirit / turps  !!

"go on - it's never done me any harm" was his cavalier declamation, iirc !

my brother and I did, under the influence of his 'Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature'. Probably explains a lot ... 

[2010sunburst]

hope you didn't do the old Bruce Quarrie (blimey, there was a character, now that I know a bit more [too much!] about him) thing of shaping a brushes hairs in your mouth / lips after cleaning in white spirit / turps  !!

my brother and I did, under the influence of his 'Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature'. Probably explains a lot ... 

I still do that….it’s responsible for another hobby issue of mine…..keeping a jar of sweets on the desk top to take away the taste of the thinners.  Not necessary with acrylics, but some habits are hard to break…..

[Bloggard]

not sure I'd describe either as a hobby - more a serious threat to good-health (with the sweeties being the worse of the two  )

[2010sunburst]

To be fair I always give them a soap and water wash after the thinners clean.    

[jawd500]

Thanks to everyone for the responses!

Windsor and Newton Sansodor odourless thinners works well with oils and enamels.  It is cheaper than the Mig alternative and available in much larger volumes.  A bottle of that, a few students oil paints and a ceramic palette and you’ll be set up for life.

Thanks for the advice. Is the Windsor and Newton stuff actually odorless though? I brought myself some 'low odour' Bartolene white spirit, but I got to say, it's still pretty stinky. Ideally I'd like to grab something that doesn't give me a wanging headache!

[Captain Harlock]

Thanks to everyone for the responses!



Thanks for the advice. Is the Windsor and Newton stuff actually odorless though? I brought myself some 'low odour' Bartolene white spirit, but I got to say, it's still pretty stinky. Ideally I'd like to grab something that doesn't give me a wanging headache!

There is  odorless turpentine by literally every art supply company. W&N and Talens is usually the easiest to get in any art supply store. There you can find also odorless white spirit. In my local art store they sell a no-brand bottle of 1lt for 7 euros and I still have it after 4 years. Im sure that I could get it cheaper in a hardware store but I didnt really bother.  That is completely odorless, unless you really stick your nose on the bottle. Having said that. What gives you the headache is not the odor but the chemicals. In fact the odor is added in order to prevent you from keeping it close and fry your brain or get really nasty allergies and respiratory conditions.  So always use it in a well ventilated area.

Another note. Mig Jimenez is a great scale modeler who pioneered the use of traditional art materials (at least on that level) on scale models because of his art background. Then he got the idea to take those commonly available materials, re-bottle and re-brand them with stupid names and sell them for 10x their actual value. Because karma is a bitch he basically had to set up like 3 companies with the exact same theme and products, because every time he was falling out or got scammed by his partners.
The latest trend was his ''weathering pencils'' which are nothing more than good old aquarelle pencils available from many reputable brands. I think that his are actually by Lyra which is not a bad company but with less money than the rebranded pencils you can get far better brands of artist quality pencils.
Those ''pigments'' and ''weathering powders'' are just the cheapest possible earth tone painting pigments. I happen to live in Greece where there is a very strong tradition of Byzantine hagiography and these pigments are very affordable from any art store. I mean like a 100gr jar (with the size of a smal jam jar) of earth tones goes like 2 euros. Actually its cheaper to use Sienna pigment instead of hobby shop sand for terrain.

[ced1106]

> I'm looking to dip a tentative toe into the world of oil paints with Mig Ammo's Streaking Grime, but had a couple of questions.

Any luck with it? I have a bottle, but, ugh, the fumes! Need to find some use for it (in generic fantasy gaming) that water-based washes can't handle.

> Mig Jimenez

2013 thread on Dakka: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/558616.page

[Nordic1980s]

Like many others I too took the inspiration to participate in the Streaking Grime meme complete with Tamiya panel liners and enamel washes made out of cheap basic enamel hobby paints. Ended up giving away it it all, could not stomach the fumes as I live in the same room I paint the models. My experience:

• do not use on soft-ish plastics like the excellent Simba toy dragons or Reaper Bones series
• works well on hard plastic and metal figures when primed correctly (use only acrylic primers)
• do not use on figures primed with standard hardware store or hobby store sprays, enamel thinner will lift it
• do use a soft painting brush to wick away the excess wash, do not use hobbyist cotton wool buds as even they're too hard.

In addition I would suggest as a standard operating prodecure not to drench the whole model in the Streaking Grime, but instead use it here and there selectively - wicking away the excess with a soft paint brush and enamel thinner will extend the paint further and can be at that point be spread for further coverage. Can give too muddy, too dark end result and when attempting to "fix" it the mechanical scrubbing with thinner moistened tool the prodecure will tend to remove all paint layers, not just the intented enamel wash layer (it can also seep through any intermediate acrylic layers). Do not cover a whole unit at time with the washes, but instead first try it out on a single model. This will protect the figures in case things won't go as planned.

And would further question if the whole enamel wash meme is a 50% good advice and 50% advertising for the paint manufacturing industry. Good uses here and there, but can be mostly replicated with carefully applied standard acrylic washes. If you have a painting room separate from the living room (where you eat, sleep and spend the day) all the enamel and oil paints can be so much a better deal for the hobbyist. Despite that can 100% recommend Molotow Liquid Chrome paint pens and the corresponding AK Liquid metal paint pens for all hobbyists as they are excellent non-water soluble metal colours. (AK 3rd Gen and P3 Formula acrylic metal colours are also rather nice and are water soluble.)

Below are images with 1) a Simba soft-ish semi-rigid plastic toy dragon that got a permanent limited stickyness to it due to the enamel wash (plastic used in manufacturing not really suitable for enamel washes and acrylic varnishing does not fix the stickiness), 2) Citadel hard plastic ogres where the soft thinned wash produced nice earthy tones and worked excellently on the mace handles and finally 3) a 3D printed modified balrog where enamel wash and black enamel panel liners were used to colour the skin contours and armours (Liquid Chrome beneath was varnished before given the enamel panel lining).