I find Tamiya to be very airbrush friendly. Really easy to cut with water and it sets on surfaces nicely. Testors enamel paints are better for fine hand-brush work.
Yeah, Testors military enamels were discontinued when Rustoleum bought the brand, making lots of modelers veerrry angreee [/Marvin Martian Voice]. Tamiya rattlecans are great for most large applications. I'm experimenting with Tamiya laquers, trucolor enamles, and AK acrylics for my airbrushable mil colors now.
When you state "military enamels", were those the "Model Masters" range? If so, I long wondered why that "upsacle" selection was nixed. If I'm confusing the sets, what did kill the MM range?
Yes, sorry, I do mean ModelMaster. Rustoleum swore they didn't make enough money to keep making them after they bought Testors. I had a good stockpile of important colors, but I'm slowly running out of them.
I use Tamiya 90% of the time now, and its the one most available at local hobby shops, but if your looking for good other paint, Gunze, Mr Color paints are great, there is a Laqour based standard, the Aquious is similar to Tamiya, and the Acression is water based ( I haven't had any success with the water based one.. even with there thinner, still trying) Gaia is excellent, and Hataka is also quite good.
Just to clarify, I was not trying to "show you up". I honestly wondered if there were several Testors lines because I'm certainly not that knowledgeable on the subject. I just remember there existed a line that called "Model Masters" intended for the more dedicated crafters, something that that could compete with brands like Tamiya, Humbrol, etc.
Okay - Testors - in particular ModelMaster paints... Where to even start? First off - these were based on a similar Enamel formula to the classic 1/4 ounce square bottle paints that Testors started selling before I was even born. Those paints contain a variety of organic chemicals that have become...unpopular with various governments and agencies around the world. MEKO (Methyl Ethyl Ketoxime) Naptha etc. While most people building models aren't IDIOTS with such stuff, apparently, we must be protected from these chemicals so... They've been variously restricted or nearly banned in consumer goods (which includes hobby paints) but, not entirely so in industrial/commercial applications. Second - when RPM (Rustoleum's parent company now) bought Testors back in the 1980's (followed by Pactra and Floquil etc...) they had every intention of keeping them running and actually investing in Testors. The CEO at that time had some clues (unlike his son). Testors grew it's product line and even gained some market share. ModelMaster paints and Acryl (acrylic paints) came out and for a while were the go to paints for many modelers. Pactra eventually focused more on R/C paints and Floquil remained mainly Model Railroad focused (eventually loosing their military line). If you're interested in seeing how big the line became - check this old catalog out: http://mediacdn.shopatron.com/media/mfg/809/design_content/0/img/testors_catalog.pdf In the 2000's, more and more competition started showing up - besides the already ubiquitous Tamiya, Gunze Sangyo and Humbrol systems. Testors started loosing market share. When you add in the general decline in hands on hobbies (in favor of instant gratification) the market became smaller and more crowded. Third - and I found this out doing research a couple of years back - Testors was still running their paint shop as a small-batch operation wherein they would produce only a modest amount of a given color of paint for a given production run. They also appeared to be using more outdated production equipment that required quite a lot of manual labor. The stupid part being that they chose to close down the Acryl paint line first (when acrylics were easier to sell overseas with rising regulations) and then dumped the ModelMaster 1/2 ounce paint line (along with Pactra and Floquil - and almost everything else). Now, you are trying to crank out tiny 1/4 ounce bottles with manual labor for a pretty much purely domestic (and still shrinking) market... I think anyone with a brain can see where that story is heading...
With the exception of a few replacement minor decals that i'm waiting for, I'm pretty much calling her done. Pretty pleased with how she's turned out, considering I only used a single cheap set of string LED's. This build has certainly helped me to appreciate the design of the Enterprise-C a lot more than I did in the past. She's become one of my favourites. I'll certainly never forget the name.... Enterprise.