Inconsistent Vallejo model color

[_Saracen]

I have been working on a Farsight Tau army recently and so far have been working off of one bottle of Vallejo Carmine Red for the armor. I love the purple-red color that it gives and it's been relatively easy to thin down and do multiple coats with. 

This weekend I decided that I needed to make sure that I had enough for the whole army after I attempted to use some game color scarlet red (the Internet assured me they were near perfect matches) and ended up with more of a true red than I wanted. I went to grab four more bottles from my FLGS to stock up, but when I got home and started trying to use the new bottles they all seemed off. The paint would look almost pink on the pallet and then dry more true red than the darker browny purple-red I was going for. I tried mixing really well with agitators in the bottle and withy vortex mixer and nothing changed the hue to be what I expected.

The wet looking dark red is the first bottle and the others around it are samples from the other bottles, all of which look way more pink than red. 

 

The texture also was super off when trying to paint with it. It was streaking and not laying down on the model where as the original bottle would go on fine. 

 

I'm sort of at a loss for what to try next or and I'm super worried that I will run out and be screwed for the rest of the army. I emailed vallejo but I'll be surprised if I even get a response. Has anyone else had trouble like this or have any ideas for some way to maybe fix it?

[andes]

I moved from Vallejo to AK because of inconsistencies, though due more to paint texture variation than color. I don't have a solution for you but empathize with your situation.

[Bouargh]

It is one of the issue with Vallejos batches. Yet I found that they have quite improved and haven´t faced any of this with their new range.

It is one of the reason why I only use Vallejo as a base coat that will then be intensively unified by means of washes, dry brushing... I never use them as a bare color.

 

This is however not an universal solution as Vallejo model colors sometimes (not always) show a strange  behaviour with other acrylics: they do not get "wet" properly. For example a washing with Citadel Contrast over a Vallejo base coat may pearl, as if the base coat was with Teflon inside, instead of making a nice coat. I solved it by brusing with a nail brush before applying the wash.

 

Otherwise I am quite happy with Vallejo colours, from economic point of view and from duration of the pot (This is really a long conservation paint - I have pots in perfect state for 15 years, dating from the time Vallejo was manufacturing for Ral Partha, and they are still OK). It makes them very suitable for colours that you barely use or the ones that have a low consumption rate

[Firedrake Cordova]

That is "impressively" different.  

 

I'm guessing it might be a bad batch? Most of the Vallejo Game Colour paints I've had have all been fine, and when I've bought multiples I haven't been able to tell the difference, with two exceptions which were "the wrong colour" and extremely watery. To be honest, other than waiting a bit and trying again, or looking at the Model Colour range to see if there are any alternatives which are similar, I can't really think of what to suggest? I think most companies will have the odd batch which sneaks through QC from time-to-time.  

 

[_Saracen]

I figured there probably wasn't much that could be done. I appreciate the replies. 

 

I was near one of the local shops today and decided to stop in to see if I could maybe luck into a near match with another brand or line. I got several to try and compared them on a piece of printer paper.

 

It seems like Game Color scarlet is probably closest but I'm a little wary of using the air version. When I tried it at the beginning of the army it seemed to give a more true red than I was expecting and stopped using it. Is it a known issue with airbrushing that sometimes it will end up lighter or less saturated to the level of not matching? 

[Bryan Blaire]

Yes, the Air color versions are generally pre-thinned, so they probably aren’t going to brush on in even two layers and end up the same, as they will be more heavily influenced by whatever they are put over.  Even with a brush application, I usually have to do like four layers with an air brush color (in almost any range that has them) to get an equivalent coverage to the non-airbrush version of the same.

 

Also, Brother Chaplain Kage and I had a conversation a while back about a couple of Vallejo air colors (can’t remember if they were Model or Game versions) that no matter what, when airbrushed, just looked different, no matter how many layers, than the normal brush formula color.  I’m not sure if it was the pigment load/different types of pigment used to “get close”, but they just never looked similar.

 

Have you looked at giving AK Interactive 3rd Gen a shot?  Their AK11091 Carmine looks to be a close match to the Vallejo Carmine Red 70.908.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Bryan Blaire

[Firedrake Cordova]

Game Colour Scarlet looks pretty close.  Personally, I wouldn't bother with the "air" versions of the paints, as you're basically paying for the convenience of not thinning the paint, rather than the paint ...

 

One colour I did wonder about was Formula P3 Sanguine Base, although I think it might be a bit too dark...

[_Saracen]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll add P3 and AK to the list of reds to try. I'm going to compare a bottle of Carmine red that Tyriks happens to have with my one good bottle to at least confirm that my 'good' bottle is what the color is supposed to be and not actually the outlier. He also has some Monument paint that might match that I'll try.

 

Unfortunately I think my lack of painting experience and color theory knowledge is biting me a bit. I've been trying 'red' paints to try to compare but I maybe should be trying maroon or something else to try to achieve the tone I am looking for. I painted a crisis suit with that Scarlet and it feels a lot further away from the Carmine red on a model than it does on paper:

 

Best comparison I can find in my collection is maybe Screamer Pink or Gal Vorbak Red from GW, but I'm not sure those really match the finished model in those pictures well enough. 

 

As far as air paints, I get the argument that it is just thinned down paint, so you're buying less actual pigment in exchange for not needing to dilute the paint yourself. I'm still new enough of an airbrush painter that that convenience still carries some value. I've been about 50/50 with thinning paints and having it work vs being a total pain and requiring a strip down of my airbrush. That said, if it turns out that Vallejo air paints or air paints in general are just not matched right I'll pretty quickly drop the whole category. Its too late to cancel the bottle of air Carmine that I ordered online so I'll test it out and go from there

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

Given how close they looked in the previous image, that's a surprising difference! The one painted with Carmine Red does seem to have a "pinker" leaning? (or the Scarlet one is "redder").

 

Hopefully the comparator bottle from Tyriks will give you an idea where the outlier is  

[Tyriks]

Is it the highlights that make it look so different? Maybe highlight a shoulder or something to compare?

[_Saracen]

Quote

Is it the highlights that make it look so different? Maybe highlight a shoulder or something to compare?

Unfortunately they are both highlighted. I thought that might help and threw a quick highlight on the torso of the redder one with the same color as the other.

[_Saracen]

Just to round out this saga:

 

I ordered more bottles from another source online and tried them against the one I had been using. No dice. Still didn't match. Seeing that it wasn't just a bad single batch of the Carmine Red made me think that it had to be my original bottle that was wrong rather than every other bottle I encountered. I took my original batch of four Carmine red's to my FLGS along with the original bottle that I liked so much and talked to the store guys. They let me switch out my 4 for others and I went to the paint rack to compare my original to different colors. In the end, it appears that my original bottle was a mislabeled bottle of... Vallejo Game Color Red.

 

Not sure why their regular Red is so... pink, but I think my problem with finding more paint is over for now.

 

Thanks again for all the help!

[Firedrake Cordova]

Well, that's an interesting turn-out! I'm glad you got to the bottom of it, and don't need to worry about finding further bottles  

 

Also, it sounds like your FLGS is run by good people, switching the bottles out