I am just starting into air brush painting. I will be using the Paasche Double Action VL air brush. I will be primarily air brushing turkey heads and fish. I see that the two most popular brands of Lacquer Type air brush paints are Lifetone & Polytranspar. Is one brand better than the other and if so, why ? All advice and recommendations would be most gratefully appreciated.
Joe P
Return to Beginners Category Menu
There was quite a bit said that you may find interesting. Punch in key words such as "Lifetone", "Polytranspar", "airbrushing", "paints", etc. Everyone has different reasons for liking a certain brand, I myself like Polytranspar, because of it's smoothflowing ability, colors and choice of size starting at the one ounce jar to the gallon size. I used to use Lifetone and tried a few bottles of the Polytranspar to see the difference if any, and I liked what I saw on my fish, and "felt" in the airbrush, so I gradually switched over. There are also other brands than these, one is WildLife Colors. Try a few and see what you think.
Hey Joe, I feel both , Lifetone and Polytranspar are great products and have used them on all sorts of things for over 15 years. They are very consistent and thats important. The brand Leanna mentioned I have also tried and it also is good. I have too much of the others right now to do a wholesale change!
Joe forget the lacquer and go with water based paints its overall better for your body, but glosses are still hazardous. I prefer polytranspar but also use some lifetone and wildlife colors. Try a ounce of various colors from each supplier and be your own judge have patience with the water based paints. It can get exspensive trying different paints so buy a small kit from WASCO and some primary colors from Wildlife I belive lifetone only offer the large bottles meaning 8 OZ bottles. you might have around 60 bucks invested if you want to go that route on Wildlife and WASCO. Hope this helps if you would like a list of primary colors from wildlife mail me.
never limit yourself to any one type of paint or procedure for applying colors. experiment with everything (not always on your mount first). Use what you like and don't use what you don't. It's like asking the question: what's your favorite food? favorite car? color? etc.
good luck,
JT
Water based if you want to live longer and don't forget the repirator.
We recommend a new brand out there called Wildlife Colors by Smith Paints. You can purchase through our website at www.northwoodtaxidermy.com at a 10%discount then what the catalogs charge. We have switched to them after using the paints listed above and won't go back. We also have paint charts made for them. Tammy Zimerman