using flesh color to make tan in acrylic paint

[Frank Burroughs]

So, my tan acrylic paint is delayed in shipping.  I am working on a plastic ship model that needs the deck painted.  The local hobby shop only carries flesh color acrylic paint.  Can I mix it with brown or black to make tan?

[Jim Rogers]

Are there any Wargaming shops around you? Go check out Citadel paints.

[Bob Cleek]

8 hours ago, Frank Burroughs said:

So, my tan acrylic paint is delayed in shipping.  I am working on a plastic ship model that needs the deck painted.  The local hobby shop only carries flesh color acrylic paint.  Can I mix it with brown or black to make tan?

You certainly can. A bit of burnt umber, some yellow, and some white and you're good to go. No need to bother with the "flesh" color at all, actually. (You may want to save the bottle for posterity. It will be a collector's item some day. "Flesh color" has become a politically incorrect "Eurocentric" term these days.  

 

Mixing colors isn't rocket science, although there can be some surprises using synthetic paints where the base color wasn't a "pure" pigment. If you don't remember from grammar school, a "color wheel" indicates which primary colors when mixed together will yield secondary colors and so on. See: Color wheel - Wikipedia

 

For your purposes, however, I would suggest you go to a local artists' supply or crafts store and simply purchase a small bottle of acrylic craft paint of a suitable color, or colors. It's the same stuff and probably a lot less expensive than the "model paints. You can also purchase higher quality acrylic artists' oil paints sold in tubes. A few small tubes of basic ship modeling colors plus black and white and you should be able to mix whatever you'd need for a ship model. Find out what thinning solvent is required for whichever brand of acrylic oil color you purchase. It will be water or denatured alcohol. Use this thinner to thin the oil paint which will be the consistency of tooth paste as iti comes out of the tube. You will probably find that your thinned paint may still have somewhat of a gloss finish, and you can obtain "flattening solution" from the same retailer you buy your oil paint from that can be added to yield a matte finish. You may also wish to obtain some "accelerator," which can be added to your thinned paint to make it dry faster. (Artists' oils are made to dry slowly so an oil painter can work on a painting over a a span of days without the paint on the canvas drying overnight.) Follow the instructions on the containers for the use of such additives or ask for assistance at the store. They should be able to advise you about these "paint conditioners." 

 

You will find that if you carefully replace the caps on your tubes of oil colors and keep the cap threads clean when replacing the caps, your tubed acrylic artists' oil colors will last practically forever without drying out.  As a plastic modeler, you probably already know the versatility of painting acrylics on plastics. Obtaining very realistic wooden effects using various weathering techniques are possible. You might want to watch a few YouTube videos if you aren't already familiar with these tricks of the trade. The war gaming figure painters have developed this into a fine art and there's much to discover in their videos. The YouTube instructions on the use of acrylic artists' oils on plastic models will also be helpful. 

 

The learning curve isn''t steep. Once you become comfortable mixing your own colors and your own paint for brush or airbrush, you'll never pay those inflated "modeling colors" again. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Frank Burroughs]

Bob, the first video struck the hammer on the nail.  I am heeded the rest of the advice.

 

 

Part of deck the paint went on too thick.  Can I use a thin flat black wash to even it out? Or, is it fine as is?