FAQ’s

1. General Questions

1.1. What is the difference between Model Color, Game Color, Model Air and Premium?

Vallejo offers four different water-based chemical formulas in these colors lines, each one created for a particular segment of the hobby market, but all compatible with one another.
Model Color and Panzer Aces are creamy, highly opaque acrylics formulated principally for brush application: the two ranges total some 246 matte colors and mediums, and 8 brilliant alcohol based metallic colors.
Game Color has been developed for tabletop games. The range consists of 119 acrylic colors, washes and inks; designed for painting small figures, the formula has a lower viscosity than Model Color and a resin more resistant to frequent handling. The colors provide opaque coverage without loss of minute detail.
Model Air is a line of 129 colors which have been formulated especially for airbrushing, although they are also frequently used for painting small details with a brush.
These product lines are further augmented with a line of Washes, and a complete assortment of Medium, Varnishes and auxiliary products.
Premium Color, a new range of 51 colors and 8 auxiliary products, developed with a new hybrid acrylic-polyurethane resin of extreme strength, has been designed principally for use in an Airbrush and for surfaces exposed to handling and exterior conditions.

1.2. Can I mix Model Color with Game Color and Model Air?

Yes, all our acrylic colors can be mixed with one another and with our Mediums and Varnishes.

1.3. Can I mix Vallejo acrylic colors with other brands of paint?

Our acrylic colors can be mixed with all waterbased acrylics.

1.4. Is Model Air to be used only in airbrushes?

Model Air has been formulated especially for use with an airbrush, but it can be applied with a brush, and is especially useful for small details and shading.

1.5. Can I apply Model Color or Game Color with an airbrush if I dilute them with water or a thinner?

Yes, but it depends on the colors. Please consider that Model Air and Premium have been formulated especially for airbrushing, while some colors in Game and Model Color are not suitable for being dispersed in the air, see please points 2.11 and 15. Health and Safety.

2. Model Color

2.1. Who invented Model Color?

Spanish model-painters, having worked with solvent based paints, began to use some of our fine-arts acrylics in the 1980ties; they eventually suggested changes and modifications in our formulas, and we designed a product in accordance with their needs. After some years of development, this was to become Model Color. The product has a complicated chemical composition, and formulas are revised constantly in accord with new developments in technology, availability of new resins and raw materials, changes in pigments, and updated regulations and environmental concerns.

2.2. Was Model Color the first acrylic color used for models?

Model Color was the first water-based acrylic used for model painting. Some other acrylic brands were available, but they were solvent based. Not all acrylics are water based.

2.3. What is the advantage of acrylic colors over solvent based products?

The most important considerations are health and environmental factors.

3. Panzer Aces

3.1. What are the Panzer Aces Colors?

Panzer Aces colors are 48 shades especially selected by the editors of the Panzer Aces magazine (www.euromodelismo.com). The Editors of this magazine specialize in WWII weaponry and uniforms, and considered these colors essential for the correct painting of WWII uniforms and certain camouflage patterns of the Waffen-SS in World War II.

3.2. How are these colors different? Are Panzer Aces Color not the same as Model Color?

They have the same chemical formula as Model Color, i.e. the viscosity, opacity and other chemical properties are the same, but the colors are different: based on historical research carried out by the editors of the Panzer Aces publications, they are a very true match to the originals.

3.3. I bought a set of 16 Panzer Aces Camouflage colors which has both the name Model Color and Panzer Aces on the label, is this part of the series?

These 16 colors were chosen by the Panzer Aces editors for some additional camouflage patterns, but since they already existed in the Model Color line, they were only given a special label. You will also find these colors in the complete Model Color series, but the set indicates how to use them in the camouflage patterns of Panzer Aces.