Revell Aqua Color

[Cop]

And my first review ever.

As many of you may have heard, Revell have now launched their new acrylic range of paints. They where a long time coming, but having given them a quick try seem to be worth the wait.

They come in a square jar, which makes storage much easier, than with the usual round jars we have to put up with. The lid cleverly doubles as a pallet which can be connected to the jar for added stability. On the top of the lid is a colour chip, the name of the colour, and Revells paint code. Great for identifying the correct paint when they are in your draw, rack, etc.

The lid also twists off which avoids the risk of the lid flicking across your workshop as you prise it of with a screw driver. (Don't ask!!!) The circular pallet in the lid also fits inside the jar avoiding the mess associated with paint running down the outside of it, it also stops the build up of dried paint around the lip.

So far so good. A lot of companies should take note of this excellant yet simplistic design. A good jar is a major bonus in my book. The only downside is that I have to return to the use of eye droppers to move the paint into my airbrush.

I gave two paints a quick run through my airbrush. Tank grey and Nato olive. I thinned them both to a ratio of 75% paint to 25% water. ( I use de-ionised water.) My airbrush is a Badger 360 and the air pressure was set at 10psi. The paint was mixed in the airbrush cup and was gravity fed.

Being a recent convert to Acrylics, I'm still in the, stumbling in the dark phase to some extent. I have used Vallejo model air so they were my bench mark. I have to say I was pleasantly suprised at the quality of these paints. The coverage was very good and could I obtain a constant line in the region of 1mm wide. I gave a bit of sprue the once over along with the pilot from my Tamiya 1/32 viper.

As you can see the paint went on very smoothly and was easy to control. I was able to paint the pilots boots and chest rig with minimum overspray. I`m sure I could get much better results with a bit of experimentation with regards paint consistency and air pressure. There was a build up of paint at the tip, but no more than what I get with the Vallejo air.

On the jar is states that the paint should be dry in about 1 hour but I found it dry enough to handle after just 15 mins. After an hour it couldn`t be rubbed from the sprue nor could it be removed with Tamiya tape. (As a side note, the sprue was unwashed and had been exstensively handled prior to paint application.) It could however be scraped from the sprue with my finger nail. But that does not reflect badly on the paint I just wanted to see how well it stood up to abuse. The instructions on the Revell website state that the paint is fully cured after 2-3 hours.

The whole of the acrylic range can be mixed together to produce any colour you need, which is a good thing as the range is, at the moment, limited to just 36 colours. Hopefully this will expand in the near future.

All in all I think Revell have done a fine job in the production of these paints and I for one will be purchasing many more. And at £1.50 a jar they represent excellant value for money.

Definetly recommended.

Hope this helps those who fancy giving them a try, but have shyed away from them because of the Revell logo. For a full colour guide along with RAL color referances have a look here.Aqua color range.

Nigel.

Edited April 15, 2006 by Cop

[Mikeew]

Wow, thanks for the review Nigel.

Its always good to hear from a fellow modeler how new products work "on the bench" so to speak.

These sound great, innovative use of paint jar!

regards,

mike

[David Walker]

I'm not an acrylic user but I really like those bottles. Very innovative design.

[Teun]

I bought some of these too. Not used it yet. It sounds good though!

Edited April 17, 2006 by Teun

[centuryfan]

I like them, too. But from my experience, you can thin them even more than "just" 3/4 to 1/4. Considering the high viscosity of the paint, that makes in the end quite much "sprayable paint".

This Voodoo was airbrushed with aluminium 99 from that Aqua Color range.

[canadian_camo]

that stuff sounds fantastic except for the fact it isn't available in North America except online. :lol:

[Spaced Marine]

that stuff sounds fantastic except for the fact it isn't available in North America except online. <_<

Where is it available online here in N.A.? I'd like to order some myself.

[canadian_camo]

I think its only available from sites like Hannats and other European online stores.

[karlwb]

Thanks for the reminder about this thread Cop, I knew I'd read is somewhere.

In fact it was the reason I tried them in the first place. I read how good your results were and I think that was why I was so disappointed when the results that I got were so poor.

I'll probably give them another go sooner or later.

Karl

[The Migrant]

Thanks for the info, Nigel. Have you tried masking it? I had great results with Xtracrylics- easy to airbrush, good opacity, great range of colours- until I tried masking over it with Tamiya masking tape. When I removed it, it ripped huge chunks of the Xtracrylics with it (and yes, I had cleaned and prepped the surface). I'd be interested to know if the Revell paints are a bit more permanent.

[Cop]

To be honest I haven`t tried any sort of masking with them yet, come to think of it I have yet to use them properly on a kit.

Like yourself I`m leaning towards the Xrtacrylix range at the moment. I think the secret to them is to let them cure for 24 hours before you mask them. Then if the paint does peel of its only in very tiny amounts and can be invisibly repaired with the quick dab of a brush.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

[karlwb]

I think the secret to them is to let them cure for 24 hours before you mask them.

Sorry, just makes a bit of a mockery of the much vaunted 'quick drying time' compared to enamels.

But point taken about the drying time for detail brush work such as figures and cockpits, etc. when you don't need to mask.

Just a shame I can't pop out to the LHS and easily pick up Extracrilics or Vallejo acrylics.

Karl

[CBREEZE]

Sounds promising. Has anyone tested the adhesion qualities? Would like to know how they take handling or masking with tape. Both with and without primer.

Thanks,

Chuck B.

Disregard this post. I didn't read through this thread thoroughly enough.

Edited November 14, 2006 by CBREEZE

[Julien (UK)]

Has anyone tried to hand brush this stuff yet?

Most acrylics dont really lend themselves to the brush, so would be good to know.

Julien

[Justin Davenport]

Interesting news, and thanks for the review. I notice there aren't any FS numbers or colors like Dark Ghost Gray, Light Ghost Gray, gunship gray, etc. But they do have RAL numbers as mentioned, I'm not too sure what those are, is this the German or European Union "federal standard"? What aircraft or subjects use these RAL standards?

Some of the brown or rust colors in that Revell Aqua Color page look like they might be interesting to me, as I'd like to see how closely they match the space shuttle's external tank. And I'd like to see how the gloss and flat base match up to Future or Polly Scale Flat (which I use), as well as how easy or hard the gloss colors (esp. white) might be to airbrush. When will they start showing up in American hobby shops (the brick n' mortar ones, thank you very much)??

Justin

[madmike]

Has anyone tried to hand brush this stuff yet?

Most acrylics dont really lend themselves to the brush, so would be good to know.

Julien

Notable exceptions being Vallejo, Citadel and Pollyscale

The Revell acrylics sound interesting. I am certainly going to ask the industry rep about availability at the club tomorrow night.

:D

MikeJ

Edited November 14, 2006 by madmike

[sweeney]

Wouldn't this have been an ideal opportunity for Revell to revise the frankly nonsensical colour range of their paints to include some authentic colours. Especially when the future of the Humbrol range is still a little uncertain.

It's fair enough that they only give colour references for their own range of paints in their kit instructions, but when you have to mix those paints with scientific accuracy to get any useful colours, it gets a bit annoying.

An opportunity only half taken IMHO.

[Erdferkel]

Interesting news, and thanks for the review. I notice there aren't any FS numbers or colors like Dark Ghost Gray, Light Ghost Gray, gunship gray, etc. But they do have RAL numbers as mentioned, I'm not too sure what those are, is this the German or European Union "federal standard"? What aircraft or subjects use these RAL standards?

Some of the brown or rust colors in that Revell Aqua Color page look like they might be interesting to me, as I'd like to see how closely they match the space shuttle's external tank. And I'd like to see how the gloss and flat base match up to Future or Polly Scale Flat (which I use), as well as how easy or hard the gloss colors (esp. white) might be to airbrush. When will they start showing up in American hobby shops (the brick n' mortar ones, thank you very much)??

Justin

RAL is the german equivalent for federal standart. litterally speakings RAL stands for "Reichsausschuß für Lieferbedingungen" (something like "Committee of the German Reich for Terms and Conditions of Sale"). Dates back to somewhere 1925. Its used the same way like the FS system. Dont know any examples were FS colours are used outside the military, but RAL also applies also to the "civillian" paint system

more on this http://www.ral.de/institut/en/index.html

Revells Aqua Color range has some FS colours iir, but they got no RAL or FS number, they are just named by the german translation of the english name.

Edited November 14, 2006 by Erdferkel

[Justin Davenport]

Thanks, Erdferkel for the link. I did some digging and found this at IPMS Stockholm:

http://ipmsstockholm.org/colorcharts/stuff...rts_germany.htm

This has a number of RAL colors and some of them have FS equivalents. In the Revell Aqua Color range, 36157 - Grey RAL 7000 is FS35237 (Medium Gray). Also Aqua Color Silk Matt Grey 36374 RAL 7001 is listed as equivalent to FS36375 Light Ghost Gray. Also the chart lists modern Luftwaffe a/c using their RAL schemes and some of those paints are in the Aqua Color range as well, so that's good to know.

Justin