Airbrushing LifeColor paints

General Discussions General Painting
1

Hi All,

I am building a Italian Eurofighter for the Twin Engine build.
In a hobby store I found on a visit to my friends I found the color I needed.
LifeColor Sky Grey 16 (22ml) FS 36280

The thing is the store did not have any LifeColor thinner.
I have looked online and found some suggestions on the best way to thin it but I want to open it up to this community.

Have you airbrushed LifeColor paints and what Best practices have you used.
What have you used for thinning the paint?

Thanks for the feedback
Jeff D

2

I use LifeColor and I use their thinner which I get thru Hobbylinc

3

Hi Jeff, I use a lot of LifeColor and really like them. You can dilute and clean them with water.

Using Life Colour

  1. Clean surfaces to be painted * For airbrushing, dilute the colour to a milky consistency using water or LifeColor Thinner.
  2. Airbrush at very low pressures (Iwata airbrushes give the best performance and atomisation at low pressures.)
  3. Apply colour in thin coats with a brush or airbrush
  4. Allow to dry completely between coats
  5. Clean your airbrush with airbrush cleaner and flush through with water

This is LifeColor’s brouchure from their company website: https://www.astromodelstore.com/media/fileexchange/life_catalogo_2019-2021_compresso_compressed.pdf

LifeColor recommends airbrushing at low pressure. Some LifeColors are thicker than others so I adjust the psi as needed. LifeColor also suggests multiple thin coats.

4

LifeColor thinner and cleaner work best but I’ve had success with water. To clean it, my experience is Simple Green works great. Just keep protecting your eyes and don’t aspirate it. I don’t know what it in Simple Green but it is not meant to be ionized and inhaled. :grimacing:

5

Nothing is… :sweat_drops: :mask:

1 Like
6

Try scalehobbiest.for Life color thinner.

7

Thanks all for the replies.
I will try using distilled water first and practice, practice, practice.

8

Ultimate thinner also works great, honestly Lifecolor are one of the best pure acrylics for airbrushing, after much experience with Vallejo, Scale75, AK and others :slight_smile:

Cheers!

1 Like
9

Life color paints are my favorite. They spray well and don’t lift off as does Tamiya when brushing, I think that I get better results using Life colors thinner tho I have used distilled water. I use IPA to clean my airbrush, spraying it into a cleaning station. IPA will also take off life color and Tamiya paint when needed.