Some days you discover a new product that completely changes the way you look at something. AMMO by Mig acrylic paints did exactly that, and even more, their performance compelled me to sell my rather extensive paint collection and start anew with Mig.
Let me start by going backward. I started painting in the 90’s with Testors enamel. Testors was widely available, cheap, had a huge range and colors and was cheap. Sure, it smelled to the high heavens and performed slightly better than mud, but it’s what I had available to me. When I came back to the hobby, the landscape changed and sprayable acrylics were everywhere and I didn’t have to sacrifice my health to use them!
I, like most people, gravitated towards Tamiya because it’s what all “traditional” modelers use. I quickly found that while Tamiya is a great airbrush paint because I am a Sci-Fi builder, it is limited in its color range, and it is not a brush friendly paint by any stretch of the imagination.
A buddy of mine suggested I move to the Vallejo Model Air line. He touted its advantages saying it can be sprayed straight from the bottle without thinning, has great coverage and is rock hard. On that glowing recommendation, I decided to grab some. Of the claims that my friend touted, only one was true – you can spray it straight from the bottle without thinning, but it didn’t perform near as well as the claims. But, compared to Tamiya, it did the job relatively well.
Fast forward to last month.. I was at a local hobby show and a small shop owners table caught my eye. Emblazoned with a black and yellow logo claiming AMMO by Mig. We started to chat and I told him how I had a fairly extensive paint line up with Vallejo. After he gave me his condolences, he did something I will never forget. He asked me what color I was spraying next. I told him that I was looking for a red. He disappeared for a split second and came back with a yellow capped dropper bottle and handed it to me. He told me that he was so confident that I would love AMMO so much that he was willing to give me a bottle to try. That way if I didn’t like it, I wasn’t out a penny. I did one better and I purchased a few bottles of metallic and some primer because I needed those particular products.
As is my style with all my reviews, let’s go over the details of the product before we talk about performance. The paint line, called Ammo By Mig is a water based acrylic paint. It is a low odour, meaning you don’t have to worry about toxic fumes, and the trace smell left is very organic and is in no way unpleasant. Each colour is packaged in a 17ml dropper style bottle, allowing for very precise measuring of paint for mixes. Each dropper bottle has an included agitator to ensure you are mixing the pigments properly prior to spraying. The colour number is prominently displayed, allowing those of us who love to line up their paints by numerical sequence to do so, and the name of the colour follows. The paint line is very extensive, having 200+ colours available for modelers of all genres.
This paint is heavily pigmented, meaning you will get very vibrant colours. That being said, it is incredibly important that you shake the paints thoroughly before using them. Luckily the agitator makes short work of any clumped pigment and the bottles mix up quickly. I will note that I had a couple of bottles that may have been older inventory and had settled somewhat. I quick stir with my mixer broke it up and the agitator was then able to do its magic. Metallic paints, with their heavy pigments, need the most work to mix properly, but that is not uncommon for that type of paint, regardless of the brand.
Marketed as both a brush and airbrush paint, I started with my brush. A few drops into my palette and I began to wonder about their claim on being able to spray without thinning. As I said above, it is highly pigmented and usually that means that you have to sacrifice performance in one area, usually brush painting, for airbrushing or vice versa. I put that thought aside and dipped my brush in and put it to my first part. It covered exceptionally well, the first pass went in very evenly and it required the lightest of second coats for 100% coverage. With Vallejo Air, I found that it required up to 4 coats to get “even” coverage and even then, there were many uneven spots. The AMMO paint really can be put on in one coat if you are more talented than me (so pretty much everyone!) and even with the second coat, they blend seamlessly, leaving a nice even coat of paint.
I turned to my airbrush next. The paint claims to shoot un-thinned through an airbrush at 17 PSI. Mig recommends that you coat your model in thin layers, gradually building up the colour in several light passes versus a really thick single coat. I chose the red because it was so vibrant and grabbed the subject. It was a resin collar for a booster engine from a Space 1999 Eagle. I primed the surface with their white One Shot primer (I will do a separate review of that later – spoiler alert – it’s amazing!) and it had been allowed to cure fully. I loaded my Harder and Steenbeck Infinity with a 0.4mm needle and I set the PSI to 17 and I waited to be disappointed – surely no paint that was so thick it could brush paint in a single coat could pass through my airbrush without thinners.
Well, I don’t know what type of magic that Mig employs, but the AMMO paint put down the finest of initial coats, covering the surface evenly with a light misting. I coated each collar and allowed them to dry ever so slightly before laying down subsequent layers. Each layer slowly added to the final colour, with the fourth and final light pass fully covering the model. Total spraying time – maybe 2 minutes and I had a perfectly painted subject.
But that was just the red. Surely the metallics would struggle. Again, I sprayed the metallics over a primed part, slowly building layers. With each layer, I could see more of the final product emerging. The final results are a smooth surface that looked like metal. My issue with metallic acrylics is that you could always see the metallic flake, leaving a very gritty looking model and one that was rough to the touch. Not with AMMO. The pigments are so finely ground that you can’t see them, and once cured, are smooth to the touch.
Having worked with acrylics previously, I knew that tip dry was sometimes that I would have to deal with. I was pleasantly surprised with how long I could spray without those telltale splatters that signal the onset of tip dry. I was able to do 4 coats on the part without a hint of tip dry. The metallics were much the same, with just the beginning of tip dry after 4-5 minutes of light passes on the much bigger nozzles.
I am a patient modeler, so I allowed the paint to cure for 24 hours in a 16°C room before I handled them. When I did finally touch the surfaces they were as smooth as the looked and I scratched the surface with a toothpick and couldn’t get a bit of paint to lift at all. I laid down some Tamiya tape and allowed it to adhere fully and then pulled away fearing it would peel as so many Vallejo paints had….nothing. I got braver and I pulled out my cheapest and most adhesive laden tape…the Paint Stripper as I have come to call it. I put down a nice length of it and firmly pressed it to my painted surface. I slowly started to peel it off and saw no paint on the tape. I yanked it off like a bandaid, expecting to see chunks of paint coming with it….nothing. AMMO had withstood the fear Paint Stripper and laughed back at it.
So now I was at a crossroads – I had 40+ bottles of paints from another line that I knew would never perform the way AMMO just did. Although I am an avid builder, I knew that it would be some time before I would need to replace the line. So I did what any sane modeler would do! I put my entire paint line up for sale on a local buy and sell and hoped that I could get enough from that sale to fund my changeover. Luckily I have made connections with many people through the years and I was able to connect with a person who wanted to take my entire collection, allowing me to rebuild my paint line with AMMO.
I have already put the paint to the test and I haven’t had it for 72 hours. Imagine this scene – I had a newly painted hull from a Star Trek model. I had painstakingly masked the hull creating some intricate pinstripes and laid down my accent colours over my base coats. I applied decals and I was gluing the saucer to the body when I ham-fistedly spilled CA glue over the hull. Decals peeled and I thought my hard work was ruined. After a string of curse words that would make a sailor blush, I took out some 2000 grit sandpaper and started to smooth the surface. Yes, the accent colour did wear away in spots, but surprisingly the base colour remained almost fully intact, with the lightest of topcoats required to even it out.
I obviously recommend this product, but what one should get from this is that I was so impressed with a product that I abruptly changed from a paint like that I had taken years to collect from various projects. So I made the switch and I haven’t looked back. This is a quality product backed by a quality company. They have a full range of paints to fit all genres, plus a number of auxiliary products including washes, oil brushers, and effects. I am looking forward to seeing what else this company offers! Check them out here! You won’t be disappointed.
