"Brush strokes in my painting" Topic

How does one eliminate brush strokes from painting? I can't seem to find a solution to getting rid of them on armor, ships or planes.

thin your paint?
use a wider brush?

Yep, thinner paint will help.

Sometimes more than one coat too, just to even things out a bit.

Thinner paint. Better brush.

Thin paint and multiple coats, though no matter what you do, the paint will end up a bit rough, and maybe more thick than you want. If you're doing some dirty or weathered models that can be desirable, but if you're looking for something smooth like an airplane, you'll probably just have to live with a certain amount of roughness.

The only solution I know of is to use spray, whether that means a can of spraypaint, an el-cheapo spray gun like GW makes, or a proper air brush.

First use good quality paints, I recommend Vallejo. Second, make sure the paint is thinned using a medium, distilled water works great for acrylic paint. Third, use quality brushes. I recommend Raphaël Kolinsky Red Sable brushes.

Shep Paine thru one of his books taught me to brush on a couple coats of Future Floor Finish. Then dull it with a flat finish. I use Dullcote. It works!!

Better paint and water down

I use Vallejo 90% of the time and the 10% are usually good artist acrylics. My brushes are excellent artist brushes which I take care of very well. Cleaning, reshaping them and so on.

I will try thinning down the paint even more than I do and go for more layers.

The trick is figuring out how much thinner/water to use with your paints.

You want some, but not too much.

The trick is to allow the paint to "level off" once it is applied. If it dries on contact you will leave brush strokes. Assuming you are using a acrylic try using a "flow enhancer" or a "fluid retarder" (Windsor and Newton do both) they work in slightly different ways but may help you. The flow enhancer makes the paint runnier by reducing the surface tension of the liquid paint, the paint will settle better. The fluid retarder keeps the paint liquid for longer allowing the paint to have more time to level.

I use W&N fluid enhancer with my Vallejo paints and it works fine, it is better than thinning with water as you only add a very small amount and so pigment density is barely reduced. How much you need to add wil depend on the atmospheric condition where you live so trial and error is your best friend. I suggest that you do some test pieces on a plain sheet of plastic card recording what you add to the paint and inspecting the final result once fully dry.

Good luck!

As MetalMutt says

I have dropper bottles I have made up marked "Wet water" (flow aid mixed up) and "Slow water" (retarder mixed up)

I suggest that you do some experiments, start with the paint too thin, then see how thick you can get it before you see brush strokes. This will give you a feel for how much you need to dilute

You may need to apply base coats in more than one layer, depending on the colour you are painting and whether primed black or white

Artist acrylics I found harder to get the balance right than modelling paints

John

Thanks for the suggestions.