Re: [Painting] Krylon Mystique - APR - [Long]

Hello All,

I've finished my first experiment with Krylon Mystique. I've arrange the
APR 
(After Painting Report) into the following areas so impatient folks can
skip 
to the punch line if they want.

1. What I used
2. What Krylon recommends you do
3. What I did
4. What were the results
5. My worth-what-you-paid-for-it comments.

Yeah, sure it's anal retentive, but you can't be an engineer for over 20

years without something snapping.

1. WHAT I USED:

I purchased Krylon Mystique Color2Color kit 1442 Magenta/Gold. It
consists of 
three 5.5oz (155g) aerosol cans: Base Coat Black, Color Coat, and a Top
Coat 
Clear. It cost $14.99US and was purchased from a Michael's Arts &
Crafts. 
Michael's is a chain store and was the only place I could find locally
that 
offered all three varieties of the Mystique line.

The subject was a 1/300 bio-tank produced by Gladiator Miniatures, pack
BW9. 
I had purchased these at close out prices from the ex-US importer at
ColdWars 
2002. It was the original post concerning Mystique that got me thinking
about 
knocking out an organic Dirt Side army fast.

You can see the subject at:
<A
HREF="http://members.aol.com/mxconnell/Krylon2.jpg">http://members.aol.c
om/mxconnell/Krylon2.jpg</A>

I apologize that this is a scan. I tacked two hulls to the bottom and
side of 
a jewelry box and ran it through my flatbed scanner. Anyway, this at
least 
gives you a top and side view with some idea how bumpy the pieces were.

2. WHAT KRYLON RECOMMENDS:

All metal or wood pieces should be primed prior to using the black
basecoat.

Step 1 is the black basecoat which should be done in 2-3 thin coats.
Allow 30 
minutes before putting on the color coat.

Step 2 is the color coat. They recommend 3-6 thin coats. Allow the color
coat 
to become tacky between coats.Wait 20-30 minutes before going to Step 3.

Step 3 is 2-3 light clear coats. Let it get tacky between coats. Dry to
the 
touch in 1 hour. 

3. WHAT I DID

I primed three hulls using Games Workshop black primer from a spray can
and 
allowed to dry overnight.

I set one hull aside and coated the remaining two hulls with the Krylon
black 
coat. I did this because the literature really emphasized the importance
of 
the black coat. I wondered if there was something in it that helped this

weird two color thing happen. I gave the hulls two coats. When dry it
was a 
matt black compared to the satin black of the GW primer. The Krylon base
coat 
did not seem as black.

I then gave one base coated hull and the bare GW primer hull 6 coats of
color 
coat. The remaining base coated hull got only three coats of the color
coat. 
I wanted to see how the number of coats affected the results. I cannot
swear 
that all coats could be called "light".

All hulls got two coats of clear. 

4. WHAT WERE THE RESULTS:

I could detect no difference between any of the hulls. There appears to
be 
nothing special about Krylon's special Basecoat other than it's black.
Three 
color coats seemed to be sufficient to get the desired effect. And what
is 
that effect? The color changes as the angle formed by the lines between
the 
viewer with the painted object and the painted object with the light
source 
changes.

Err, what?

When I look straight down on the hull with a light source above my head
(the 
angle is less than 10degrees) the color I see is a deep purple. As the
angle 
gets larger, the color changes to kind of a copper color then to a gold
color 
and finally, when the angle is about 120 degrees, a greenish gold (like
one 
of the GW paints whose name I can't recall).

All colors look like a metallic.

The color across the hull is fairly uniform. Because it is shiny,
engraved 
detail is darker, but of the same color. The contours of this hull were
not 
sufficient to have different parts of the hull appear to be a different 
color. 

5. MY WORTH-WHAT-YOU-PAID-FOR-THEM COMMENTS:

I was hoping to see a variety of colors on one model and have the colors
move 
as I rotated the model (kinda like the inside of some sea shells). This
paint 
will not do that, at least not on 1/300 models.

I placed all three hulls spread out on my gaming table such that they
were 
about 2 to 3 feet apart. There was no noticeable difference in the color
of 
the hulls since, though widely spread in game terms, there was still not
a 
big enough difference in the angle of the light hitting the hulls. This
may 
be due to the purely top down lighting of my table, but it was still a 
disappointment. Models will probably not appear to change color as they
move 
across the table.

I sprayed the hulls in a homemade spray booth made from a Rubbermaid
utility 
closet and a bathroom exhaust fan. I can usually prime several figures
in 
this booth and not smell paint a few feet away from it. When I used this

paint, my basement had a pungent odor I could smell 20 feet from the
booth. I 
think many brain cells died for this experiment.

The paint is like any gloss paint. Spray on a few coats and there is
some 
slight loss of detail.

Over-spray of the color coat onto a piece of white paper was almost
clear. 
Maybe the black basecoat is behaving the same way a piece of glass does
when 
its backside is painted black, kind of like a cheap mirror. Might be
some 
interesting techniques possible by painting on a basecoat of black and 
various shades of gray - an experiment for another day.

This is a time consuming paint. Two basecoats spaced 20 minutes apart,
wait 
30 minutes, 3 color coats at 10 minutes per, wait thirty minutes, end
with 
two clear coats spaced 10 minutes. That's 110 minutes start to finish
for 
what I think are probably the minimum number of coats (excluding
priming).

Any color variations seen in the posted JPEG are due to the scanner
light 
source moving during the scan. When I look inside the jewelry box, I see
two 
hulls of uniform color.

The color change is cool, but it needs something big. I think it would
look 
really cool on a 1/25th scale model car body, that might be big enough
and 
curvy enough to really play to the paints strengths. All the sample
pieces in 
the literature are things like turned candle sticks or tool boxes -
things 
much larger than you'd normally put on a gaming table. Hmm, maybe some
25mm 
scale LARGE scenery items would work.

Well, I'm sure this was longer than anybody was looking for, but I hope 
someone finds it worthwhile.

Regards,
Martin