# Inspire Airbrush Paints for Rerfit Enterprise Aztecs



## Daniel_B (Jun 28, 2016)

*Inspire Airbrush Paints for Refit Enterprise Aztecs*

Hey guys. I know the popular options among modelers for pearl aztecing on the Refit Enterprise are Polytranspar paints and Pearl Ex pigments. I just wanted to let you guys also know about Inspire Airbrush Pearl Paints. The metallic pigments are very very very fine, so goes down smoother and in scale than Pearl Ex. They can also be used in the airbrush straight from the bottle. They are lacquer based though, so you need to wear a respirator and gloves when handling. I can't comment on a comparison to Polytranspar, because I've never used it.





































Anyway, just wanted to let you guys know there was another option out there. Pearl paints are hard to come across, so any additional options are welcome I think.

You can get them here...

http://usa.specialistpaints.com/collections/inspire-airbrush/products/airbrush-pearl


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## StarCruiser (Sep 28, 1999)

That looks really nice!


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## Daniel_B (Jun 28, 2016)

StarCruiser said:


> That looks really nice!


Yeah, it's good stuff. Unfortunate thing is, when looking for paints for the Refit, it's hard to figure out what paint will give you the look and which won't. Some paints are labeled Pearl, Iridescent, and Interference. Yet amount many manufacturers, these all mean different things to themselves than to other paint companies. It gets quite confusing.


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## charonjr (Mar 27, 2000)

I will have to check my Refit kit, I don't remember the Bridge looking that nice. The paints look great! Getting the guts up to start mine. Have to wait until after the move, though.


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## Nemesis86 (Aug 18, 2016)

*What is the main paint color?*

Hello! Is the main paint color silver or blue pearl?


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## Daniel_B (Jun 28, 2016)

Nemesis86 said:


> Hello! Is the main paint color silver or blue pearl?


Blue pearl.


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## larskseme (Sep 2, 2014)

Nemesis86 said:


> Hello! Is the main paint color silver or blue pearl?


I know your question was answered, but ever since I saw they make a silver pearl, I've thought about making yet another Wee-fit where I paint a light coat of silver over the entire ship and then do the blue "main" aztec. If i ever do -- and Daniel_B doesn't mind a bit of thread hijack--I'll let you know how it turns out. I wonder if the silver will make the model look more like it does on screen.

I did some tests with the Inspire blue/red/gold/green vs. Polytranspar taxidermy. My very untrained eye says that the Inspire needs less paint to get the nice light iridescent effect, and at least for me the gold and green Inspire look *much* smoother -- I've always found the Polytranspar green and gold to be "pebbly" -- though I live in central Arkansas and the humidity might have something to do with that.


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## Daniel_B (Jun 28, 2016)

larskseme said:


> I know your question was answered, but ever since I saw they make a silver pearl, I've thought about making yet another Wee-fit where I paint a light coat of silver over the entire ship and then do the blue "main" aztec. If i ever do -- and Daniel_B doesn't mind a bit of thread hijack--I'll let you know how it turns out. I wonder if the silver will make the model look more like it does on screen.
> 
> I did some tests with the Inspire blue/red/gold/green vs. Polytranspar taxidermy. My very untrained eye says that the Inspire needs less paint to get the nice light iridescent effect, and at least for me the gold and green Inspire look *much* smoother -- I've always found the Polytranspar green and gold to be "pebbly" -- though I live in central Arkansas and the humidity might have something to do with that.


Feel free to post any aztec tests here. I also found Polytraspar to be a bit pebbly, but I think it's more because the pigments are larger in size. The Inspire pigments are very very very fine, almost too small for the human eye to see. I'm working on the JJPrise this week and hope to use the Inspire paints more. I'll put some high res images of the pieces once they're painted.


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Lovely paint job you have there!


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## Daniel_B (Jun 28, 2016)

SteveR said:


> Lovely paint job you have there!


Those pictures are from someone else's build using the Inspire paints. I'm using them myself this weekend for the first time.


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Daniel_B said:


> Those pictures are from someone else's build using the Inspire paints. I'm using them myself this weekend for the first time.


Ah -- thanks!


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## Hunk A Junk (Jan 28, 2013)

Will be curious to see how translucent these are. Don't want no gummy or orange peely pearls.


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## Daniel_B (Jun 28, 2016)

Hunk A Junk said:


> Will be curious to see how translucent these are. Don't want no gummy or orange peely pearls.


I sadly didn't get around to doing this the past weekend because of a catastrophic airbrush failure while spraying primer on a model. Ha! You know how it is! :grin2:


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## larskseme (Sep 2, 2014)

Hunk A Junk said:


> Will be curious to see how translucent these are. Don't want no gummy or orange peely pearls.


I tried them this weekend on a 1/1000 Reliant I've been playing with, but there was a problem -- though they look good, it takes much longer to empty my paint cup than with the Polytranspar (or pretty much anything I've ever used in my airbrush). For example, an amount that, of water or most any paint would empty the cup in ~15 seconds wide open takes nearly a minute with the Inspire. I'm very much an airbrush novice, so I'm not sure if it's "just" that the Inspire needs to be thinned a bunch -- they claim to be ready to shoot right out of the bottle, and I certainly don't notice a difference in the skim milk consistency of Inspire vs anything else.

Their overall look is good, but I was so worried about over-doing it that I undershot my Reliant, which at least for me is an issue with the REfit colors. The difference between too much, just right, and too little is small and hard to be sure until you've removed all of the masks, especially since the colors really seem to only pop in contrast with each other.

I hope to start a refit soon and will update if I learn anything new.


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## Daniel_B (Jun 28, 2016)

Hey guys, just a heads up on some new airbrush paint I found. Always good to have options. I haven't personally used these, just ran across them online. Some people don't want to use lacquers because of their toxicity. I found these water based airbrush paints that could be used instead. The paint is non toxic, so I thought it might be of interest to those shooting water-based acrylic paint on their models. I'd love to test some out, but I gotta run out of my lacquer stuff first. It does come in Gold, Blue, Red, And Green, so that's good enough for starship hulls. There's other colors as well.

Auto-Air Colors 4420 - Hi-Lite Gold


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