Your recommendation for best ("Shinest") metallic paint?

[FramFramson]

Right now, all I have is some of the old GW stuff. While I can get some decent effect out of layering and using the brightest paint, usually Mithril Silver, as more of an edge highlight, it really is no good for any wide area of clean metal. I can only really use the GW stuff for a realistic look with dirty, worn, or blued metal, using contrast to squeeze the most realism out of the paint. Most of the time this is alright, but it's not optimal for vehicles, machinery, large metal building components or anything of any real size.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a really good - I mean really good - modeller's metallic paint? I've heard good things about Alclad Metaliser paints, though this is from modellers with an airbrush (yes, that's something else I need to get working, but a bottle of paint costs less than a compressor, hose, fittings, and several other missing items, so for now brushing stuff on will have to do).

Has anyone use the Alclad Metaliser? Can you brush it on at all (I've head mixed comments on this from modellers, mostly coming to "Yes, but only on small surfaces... but is what's small to them small to us)? I've also heard a recommendation for Tamiya enamels for being more brush-on friendly, but the metal effect supposedly isn't as good.

Love to hear recommendations.

EDIT: Looks like even if you dab on Alclad with a brush, it still needs to go over very particular primers, which is no good for me, because I would want to work it into other things, blend the edges, etc. Hmmmmm....

[Westfalia Chris]

What kind of shades are you looking at, silver/steel or copper/brass/gold? For silvery metals, I have been a huge fan of the Revell Aqua Color "Aluminium" paint for almost a decade now. That stuff is plainly amazing. You can brush it onto large surfaces using soft brushes and thin coats, and it comes out perfect - you can dull it with greys, gunmetals or black, or wash it thereafter, or use gloss varnish to make it really polished.

The other Revell Aqua metallics are a bit hit-and-miss - the Gunmetal is decent, but may turn out a bit grainy, and the gold tones are poor to awful. I'd advise you to steer clear of those, but the Aluminium is magnificent.

[Jorny]

You could always try Vallejo Model Air Metallics. They are made for airbrushing but work fine with brushes. Especially Steel is amazing, covers like nothing else while still being thin. They are not to everybody's taste but they are worth a try.

[FramFramson]

What kind of shades are you looking at, silver/steel or copper/brass/gold? For silvery metals, I have been a huge fan of the Revell Aqua Color "Aluminium" paint for almost a decade now. That stuff is plainly amazing. You can brush it onto large surfaces using soft brushes and thin coats, and it comes out perfect - you can dull it with greys, gunmetals or black, or wash it thereafter, or use gloss varnish to make it really polished.

The other Revell Aqua metallics are a bit hit-and-miss - the Gunmetal is decent, but may turn out a bit grainy, and the gold tones are poor to awful. I'd advise you to steer clear of those, but the Aluminium is magnificent.

Mainly silvery, for things like machinery, car bits, aircraft hulls, steel plates, swords, armour, etc. and if it's good enough, maybe to replace my mithril silver in doing edges on small metallic objects.

At some point I will have to replace all my GW metallics, so I'll need gold tones too, but luckily gold is something I don't tend to apply in large areas. I prefer using it for smaller objects or trim, and the grainyness of the GW paints isn't a major drawback there.

[Westfalia Chris]

Alright, I dug up some examples of the RAqC Aluminium in use.











These all use the Revell Aluminium over various basecoats - for the Scifi stuff and the P-26, it's white, for the knights, I think its a gunmetal or dark gray base with some washes thrown in.

[Nord]

Scale 75 are highly regarded among the high end painters. I picked up a set of their metallics and skins, not fully tested yet but they are very densely pigmented. Glass bead in the bottle is an absolute must. My initial impressions are good, but I cannot say much more as yet. Might be worth a google.

[FramFramson]

That P26 and knight look quite good, though not as smooth as I'd hoped.

I'm sort of surprised there haven't been more comments, but I suppose most folks on these forums have experience primarily with the metallics that come in whichever minis paint line they buy (i.e. my guess is that if someone buys Reaper paint, they will have Reaper metallics, etc.).

[psyberwyche]

I have recently experimented with several brands of metallics, simply because the Citadel ones aren't as good as they used to be. I tried new Citadel, Coat d'Arms, Army Painter, Vallejo Game and Vallejo Air. After trial and error I discovered that the brightest paint-on silver is Vallejo Model Air Aluminium - very good coverage, and hardly any pigmentation due to its airbrush formulation. Works just as well with a brush, and can be thinned with water. They do slightly darker shades too.

An expensive experiment, but I finally found a paint that gives the result I needed.

However, if you want to get super-shiny, apparently the Vallejo Liquid Gold also comes in silver. This needs alcohol thinners, but is unsurpassed for shinyness!

Hope that helps.

[FramFramson]

The local hobby store has the Liquid Gold series, so I think I might give that a try!

[FramFramson]

I couldn't get Chris' Revell to experiment with, but I did get some Vallejo Model Air Aluminum and Vallejo Liquid Gold.

The Model Air was pretty good! Straight out of the bottle it was already superior to Mithril Silver, so that's a good replacement for the discontinued acrylic.

Then I tried the Liquid Gold and that's phenomenal stuff and is markedly superior to the Model Air. I would say it gives about as good an effect as the Revell Aluminum on the P26 and Knights in Chris' photos, only a little smoother. I don't think I can do noticeably better without using an airbrush with specialty paints like Alclad over purpose-made primers, which is way more complex (and expensive).

I'm glad I got both though, since the model air is good enough for those times when it doesn't really matter all that much.

[Golgotha]

For extra shine add a high gloss varnish?

[FramFramson]

Yep, that would give a nice smooth surface.

[maxxon]

The Foundry silver (35) and gold (44) highlight colors are very bright and seem to lack the "metal flake" effect often found in metallic paints. The other colors in the silver triad aren't so hot, but the gold ones are good.

I once had metallic enamels that had to be polished to get the metallic sheen... by Humbrol, I think.

[gary42]

How about buffed pewter?

[FramFramson]

Actually, I've held off for this long because you know what I often do on metal fantasy minis with armour or swords? I do ink glazes of buffed, unpainted metal!

Now that I'm doing more modern stuff, I need better metallics for modern machinery and steel and the like.