Paint Review: Hataka Blue Line
I’ve used this paint now and I can see pretty clearly how this is going. The paint is very, very good. It does remind me of Polly Scale or Testors MM Acryl. There are some things you should note:
- You should be prepared to decant the paint from the plastic bottle, into a jar. Then be prepared to STIR THE HELL OUT OF IT. Otherwise, the colors will not be right. This, in my opinion, is a problem of some kind. I’m not sure what to call it, but, for example, RLM 71 Dark Green requires HUGE amounts of mixing to get it to be what it should be.
- The paint is too thick. I added two droppers of WATER and it flows much better. Again, you’ll need to invest in some bamboo BBQ skewers and cut them into thirds (to get paint stirrers) to really mix this stuff.
- The paint has virtually NO SMELL. This is a good thing.
- It’s hard to get in the U.S. but that’s the way it is, now. As they say in Poland, sucks to be you.
- You can buy it on eBay.
- The “sets” are actually pretty well thought-out. I bought the Luftwaffe Early set and it came with four logical colors–no black or yellow or other nonsense. They’re not trying to rip you off.
- Most of the colors are very good.
- But a few of the colors are very odd. The RLM 65 looks like RLM 78, I’m noting this because I believe the problem originated with some “expert” and it’s not Hataka’s fault, exactly. But be aware that this blue-green just doesn’t match any photo I’ve seen. But it matches some expert’s opinion.
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Self Leveling
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Need for Additives
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Coverage
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Proper Drying Time
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Compatibility
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Stippling
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Fingerprinting
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Adhesion
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Line Drawing
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Color Selection
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Smell
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Price
3.2
Summary
This is probably the best “authentic color” brushing paint on the market right now. There are some quirks, but they can be worked out. It’s beautiful paint.
UPDATE:
If you like to mix your own paint, then I’d recommend you use Golden “So Flat.” If you HATE to mix your own paint, then this Hataka product is still the best.
UPDATE AGAIN:
I’ve had it with this paint. I originally thought it was the bee’s knees– but experience over time has soured our relationship. I want a divorce.
Why not go to the source? Of course, shipping is a fortune unless you want to wait a couple months for the surface courier, but hey.
https://au.super-hobby.com/catalog/Paints.html
This is the AU version of a Polish hobby shop. I get the odd paint or two from there. There might be a US version that has better shipping options for you.
You can also get these;
https://au.super-hobby.com/catalog/Blue-Line-Mini-BL-Series.html
That come in these bottles;
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.armahobby.com%2Fuploads%2FBLUE-line-10ml-blog.jpg%3F1517497334957&f=1&nofb=1
I think the blue line is good pain. Recently I have had good results with it. Maybe you had a bad batch?
I’ve given the paint all the “slack” I can muster. But the Luftwaffe set had one bad paint — the Dunkelgrun. It would just HARDEN in the bottle and was almost impossible to mix. The other paints worked great. The RAF Desert set had one bad paint — the Azure Blue. I didn’t include this in a video (I wish I had but I’m lazy, etc.) but the paint came out of the plastic bottle in ONE LUMP. It had hardened into a solid lump of acrylic. I mixed it with the red line azure blue and then strained it, and THEN used an ultrasonic cleaner to act as an ultrasonic emulsifier and THEN I got usable paint.
But that’s a 25% “fail” rate as far as I’m concerned. You are right, the good paints are very good. But the bad paints are HORRID.
Paint!