Scale Model Tips - How To Airbrush Nail Polish For Plastic Models & Gundam 

Wife: Honey, how sweet! You bought me lots of nail polish! Husband: (profusely sweating then runs to the basement)

Confession: Every time I watch and rewatch your videos I always stare and admire all the stuff on your bench. Long live the Obsessor of Tools Club! lol Great work as always! Happy 4th of July to you and keep safe!

Sixty-five years ago I built my first model, an F9F Cougar molded in dark blue plastic. After the decals I used mom's red nail polish on the engine intakes, and it looked wonderful!.....to an eight year old. It pleases me to no end seeing people finally catching up on my early, ground breaking research.

You absolute madman. You have transcended.

Great video. I always wondered how nail polish would spray, so many colors to choose from. That flat orange came out terrific!

First of the bat, Thank you for bringing these great and informative videos. You take the time to show what colours and products work best. I look forward to others up and coming soon. It's also good to see your new paint booth work's, Must invest in one sooner than later. Cheers.

I've been watching your channel for about a month now, I have been enjoying your enthusiasm and excitement about trying new things to get results that might seem outside the box. Thank you.

I think the issue you're having with the color not matching the bottle color is how thin nail polish is when run through the airbrush. When the ladies have their nails done it straight from the bottle and applied fairly thick. When its atomized with the airbrush you are spraying thin coats over plastic with a darker background on much of your spoons. All nail polish is applied thickly and with no thinner in a nail salon. Just something to think about.

Great review as always,! Thanks man! Love your channel

As someone who likes to experiment with their nail polish and make-up as an art medium this was amazing!

I do Airbrush Designs on Nails and i have learned so much from this video. This is the best in depth and informative tutorial/review/suggestion video I've seen so far. Thank you for sharing your great knowledge.

Thanks a lot for all your great tutoriais. We learn a lot and save a great bunch of time. Keep the good work!

Damn real excited for this series

Amazing, I will have to try and experiment on this. Thank you for the for this great how to vid, looking forward for more :)

Excellent video, very descriptive and super useful to see your process, the results and also your recommendations too. Great to see how excited you get with paints and finishing! Thanks very much :D

Your airbrushing skills are so advanced! I can hardly wait to see how you airbrush Liquitex acrylics and see if they can be used with detailed model railroad kits. Cheers from Wisconsin.

Another great vid, looking forward to the acrylic tube paint tests 🤘

Nice job. Great sleuthing! Really appreciated.

It was glittery nail varnish I used on my Moebius Catwoman. I did have to strain the larger metallic flakes out using a paint strainer, but it did give a lovely textured glittery finish, an ideal match for the Julie Newmarr Catwoman costume.

I went to a garage sale some months back and got a box full of these for $50. They are top end ones too and there is some 100 colors. They are great to play around with and used them last Christmas for my girl friends plaster tree hanger things she had and they worked fantastic. Saved me a ton of cash not having to use my expensive model colors...

I’ve seen people use them but never really seen results. Awesome review. Will be picking some up.👍

Another great video. There are some great colors right out of the jar.

Learn a hell of a lot from watching your videos

Great vid, thanks for sharing!!

I would have never thought in a million years in using nail polish! My wife is not going to be happy!😉 Thank you for sharing.

It works! I use these to paint custom colors on private planes & use pastel colors on high priority freight cars on my club railroad cars. Colors like white, orange, yellow were used for perishable goods RR refers. Combination paint schemes were used for fast freight (dry goods) cars. The colors made the cars stand out in a yard full of RR cars & identified the cars as priority moves without reading car order papers. I like being different & the club RR superintendent like that we stood out. Rolling stock was usually painted red brown, black, dark green or brown so the dirt didn't show much.

Taking notes for painting guitars, believe it or not...Thanks so much!

Good stuff going with the nails polish paint🎨 , nice video

Next week, "How to airbrush your favorite BBQ sauce" Love it, keep up the awesome work!

Immensely informative video. Thanks for doing this

Just subscribed, I'm in the UK and I'm recuperating after an operation so ive started trying my hand at doing up old Matchbox cars and airbrushing them, your videos have been invaluable, I'm amazed at the variety of of different paints you can use in an airbrush. You have inspired me and given the confidence to experiment especially after seeing the results you have have had with the nail varnishes. Cheers 👍💅

Another excellent video. I have been wondering for a long time how spray painting nail polish was possible. I never realised that you could use Mr Color Leveling thinner for this. It would seem that this is one of the best products to have on your modelling bench, without a doubt! But as a previous subscriber has already said, your videos are inspiring and give us the confidence to try new painting products and techniques. My spray painting using Tamiya acrylic lacquers and Vallejo Air paints has improved no end thanks to your intuitive and helpful videos. There's nothing worse than having a paint job ruined on a model, so a big thank you for your invaluble guidance.

Never even thought of this. That's dope

Blownaway....great ,fantastic tip,thanks and happy 4th of July...enjoy👌👌👌👌👌👌

Gundam Pros was great, i got to meet Walter he's a great guy, New Bedford is where I'm from, thanks to you Ill never have to order Mr color paints online ever again. I lived in New Bedford most of my life and never knew gundam pros was in my own city. I really like the the video on spraying nail polish. You do the the modeling community a great service,i've saved so much money by watching your videos and learned so much. I've been building models since 1971, when i was 8 years old. I'm 59 now and still love it.( Request).... it would be nice if you revisit the nail polish again some day. I would like to see how they come out if you spray over real nail color,the human skin tone is kind of like a tanish pink color that is what nail polish goes over in real life,a base coat of light tan or some type of natural skin tone would be awesome,if you ever have the time. SIDE NOTE... I noticed you like( FATES WARNING)..Me too i seen them 3 times live in Provedence RI. back in the 90's. met the whole band in person. Anyway keep up the great work.you have one of the best channels on youtube..... hope to meet you in person some day since we live so close together, HAPPY EASTER.

ONCE AGAIN, BARBATOS REX IS THE COOLIES DUDE AROUND!

Another fascinating video, I've enjoyed every second. If I had a tenth of your setup no one would ever see me lol. I'm trying to get a decent airbrush and compressor along with all the bits and pieces. In the meantime I'm enjoying watching your videos along with others painting lures etc. Do you have any ideas to gain different textures on small objects such as fishing lures? Thank you for sharing your videos I really appreciate it. Take care 👍😷👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Great demos!! Thx!!

wow seen this friday on a vid from another fiend you nailed it thanks dou scooter d

Great how too thanks for sharing by the way do you know anything about action camera if you can use it as a Webcam?

Reds are always very difficult to paint because they are usually very transparent (not clear like a candy, but have low pigmentation). The only way you can get the red to match what it looks like in the bottle is by spraying over a solid red basecoat.

Wow, awesome!! I just got an Iwata Eclipse. I hear it does well with thick paint. Im gonna sub!

The UV lamps they use at nail salons are for UV nail polish only. Those UV polishes are also great for small parts if you have a UV lamp. The dollar store polishes you bought were sheer polishes which is why you didn’t get as good results from them. Sheer polishes dry translucent. They need a base coat. Nail polish thinner works but not the acetone cuz the acetone breaks down the hardener in the polish. Nail polish thinner has no acetone it just has more of the clear hardeners and softeners in them kinda like some airbrush paints use brush lube.

Once you have the right viscosity it is super good to dip canopies in

Wow! Who’d have thought of using nail polish! You did good Rex!

As an addition, wonder what the gold color looks like over the darker silver

Thank you for sharing my friend 👋👍👍

Always pinching my wife’s polish she’s had enough I’ve got to use my own wtf 😂 ps the clearcote makes great waterfalls and oil effects. Great vid by the way👌😎

I MUST TRY TO AIRBRUSH NAIL POLISH ON MY NEXT MODEL!

You gotta try Jacquard Pearl-Ex mica pigment powders and the respective Pearl-Ex varnish. You can make them into a airbrush-able liquid and the pigments are simply amazing. Thins to a good consistency with water or their varnish for stunning pearlescent colours.

Hi Rex, a quick question for you and/or others. Any idea as to what I can use to thin automotive touch up paint? It's a bit too thick to run through my airbrush. Thanks and keep up the great content!

THIS IS AN AWESOME VIDEO! CAN YOU THIN THESE WITH REGULAR LACQUER THINNER FROM HOME DEPOT AND CAN YOU USE RUSTOLEUM CLEAR?

nice test!

when i was younger i just straight paint the nail polish on the gundams instead of airbrushing so that they could stick to the plastic and isnt too runny and the finish is pretty smooth albeit on the thick side but the colors remain true

Can you please suggest another thinner for nail polish I can mix for the spray Gun..... I do appreciate the videos, and you taking your time to inform people... Blessing and Thank you so much.... Ps , and where is a good place to purchase this one other that EBay or Amozon,in case you run out and need it quick.😊

Ethyl Acetate is a solvent to try. Its slower than acetone, .. I use a LOT of it with classic solvent model railroad paints

This might be amazing for stuff like qubeley which demands pearl paints

You can use/ mix laquire flow to lacquire thinner sir it will delay the dry of the paint,

I'm gonna go try some nail polish and use klean strip Lacquer thinner

I always use lacquer primer too

Been waiting for a series with nail polish. What clear do you recommend to go over ? I enjoy all your videos. Keep them coming I'll keep watching. Thank you, Bob.

Great.. one more option in our arsonal.. When you do your video on the Tube Acrylics, can you speak to the issue of Gloss or matt.. I was looking at these at the hobby store, but none of them really said if they were gloss or matt, and so I wasn't sure about trying them?

OK so you could use acetone to thin it if you wanted to? I do nails and airbrush nails, it drying fast works for me I just want to make sure there is no other reason not to use it. Also with what should I clean my airbrush with after using nail polish?

Be interesting going over to old mates place for a BBQ. They bring the pavlova out and pass the spoons around. Lol. Cheers Graham

Would enamel thinner, mineral spirits or alcohol work to thin them as well.

Thank you for this overview, it was very informative. Is there anything different in cleaning the airbrush after using nail polish ? Thanks again

Does your shaker thing work on the un-thinned nail polish

Is there any types of thinners or paints that will "craze" styrene? Thanks.

I really like your channel it's very educational helps all the modelers of all genres but you are crazy man airbrushing nail polish colors I'm not wasting my unicorn Tears For This but seriously there are some cool colors but I'm not a Gundam guy I'm straight-up armor modler I do to build planes occasionally not very good at it and build the cars again I'm not very good at it but I love me some armor I might my next build I might build this wooden Portuguese sailing ship

Ok I’ll get crazy here and ask a question. Since these are and can be extremely high gloss. Can you use this stuff as a new bases for Alclad?

would you recoment using spraying the top coat 50/50 as a final step for a painted figure? so that it doesnt scratch and such?

How good do these do for fine lines and details? I'm planning a guitar build where I want to airbrush the "Captain America" chopper from the movie Easy Rider on a relief carve on the body.

Try using the matte orange over white and top coat it with the more expensive gold leaf, you can also use the dollar store red and top coat it with the more expensive red metallic. I've had some really good finishes on the real cars using a cheap fleet color that is close to the finish color I'm wanting and then use the nice metallic as a mid coat and finish it with a good clear, if you want a little depth on your finish add equal clear, thinner, and the top color and lightly dust a couple of coats on. But make sure it's thoroughly dry before adding the clear finish coats so you won't streak or blotch the metallic in the color coats, that will make the final finish look a foot deep.

I love how that airbrush sprays....you said it has a larger needle? What size

AS I'VE SAYED IN THE PAST, BARBATOS REX IS A COOL DUDE!

I’m curious - what about using the Klean strip lacquer thinner?

Hallo! New Subscriber here, I found your channel while researching mirror finish paint for my 1/100 Sumo Gold Type. I wanted to say that it is inspired to use nail polish as a paint for modelling! I was crushed because it made me realize that the out of production polish I had thrown away years ago, because I was afraid of putting it on my nails, could have had a second life with my gunpla hobby. Ah, C’est la vie. I hate to comment with a question but I really, really would like to hear your advice. As I mentioned above I was looking for a mirror finish that I could use to repaint my 1/100 Sumo Gold Type. It is a mirror finish gold already but back in the 90's under gating wasn't common, to my knowledge. Either way, it is crushing to see these dull and dirty spots of dark plastic where I have to snip away the gating. I was hoping you might have some insight into what I could do to cover these, if you are amicable to giving advice. Of course any comments or advice would be welcomed! I have had the kit sitting mostly unclipped for years, and I want to see it in its full glory next to my Turn A and Turn X. Edit: Oh! And I would like to make a recommendation, I worked retail for a few years in a Marshalls, and while I worked there you could get high quality polish fairly cheap. Most of my O.P.I polish came in at $4 USD, not so great if you need a specific color but a good way to get a deal.

Love your efforts to cover all the paint that could be painted on model.. really excited to see how it woud react to bare gunpla.. will it harm/melt a bare gunpla?

can use hardware thinner?

ps thanks fo sharring stay safe hope your holiday was great cooter out

That mint over black looks like som weathered steel.... add a little rust and perfect for props, ships or rat rods

So how would nail polish that's meant to be airbrush look than like OPHIR Airbrush Inks?

helpful !! thanks!!🌮🌮🍓🍓🍺 crafty use of colored materials!! I'm working on a chess board, I was look'n around in the community/village! & found this!! ''super'' helpful !!

hey not a topic for this video but for previous. i was just reding the Tamiya TS -79 semi-gloss can and Ts-80 can i purchased and there's a warning saying not to use these products on decals. I don't get it. i see people use gloss, semi-glosses, matt finishes over decals all the time, be it they come out via airbrush and not can. what gives?

did you make or buy your paint booth? Thanks for your videos they are great.

Barbatos, I'll spray anything, Rex.... thanks for posting this

A couple of weeks ago I tried with a reducer and that was terrible.

I would like to see a test with the crazier nail polish stuff. Imagine using holo nail polish to paint a model car to give it a pearlescent look.

Hi Rex, a very helpfull video thanks for that. Can i go with this thining ratio over vallejo primers? Greets 🤔

I may have missed it in the video but what size needle was in the patriot and what was your psi when trigger is pulled?

Hi! Nail tech here with TONS of colours and I'm starting to help a friend do fishing lures.. Would Varsol paint thinner work? (And acetone also breaks down the chemical compounds in the polish, sometimes separating the pigment from the base.. )

Did I miss what kind of primer to use for nail polish?

Can you post a link to that sweet booth?

Great video about using nail polish did you do a video on that MAD airbrush

I was just at Hobby Lobby and dollar general and Walmart and 2 had a huge discount discontinued

Hello I just wanted to let you know that Igel beauty carries a set of 1 gel polish and 1 regular polish for only $4.50!

It looks like its pretty hard to develop a solid color out of them, strong enough to match the depth of the jar color. That kinda turns me off because its the jar color that decides if I like it

Mr Barbatos what about testing acetone free nailpolish? I think they can be thinned with regular acrylic thinner.

You say a few times that you didn't like the dollar store one... But why not? In what way we they deficient. I'd also love to see how they work with some of the acrylic thinners you use like windshield wiper fluid or isopropanol/water mixes.... These aren't actually typical lacquers after all...

Can you suggest a very vibrant yet metallic or candy color orange paint I'm looking for a good color for the mg kyrios