PRIMARY & SECONDARY COLORS SET

Six tubes from which the rest is mixed

Anyone who works with oils sooner or later finds that ready-made shades straight from a tube are needed only rarely. Far more often you want to shift a tone a little away from whatever is on the model at that moment. This set is therefore built as a starting palette: it contains cyan, magenta and yellow, the three from which color tones are mixed, and with them orange, purple and green, so the most common combinations do not have to be mixed again every time. There are six tubes, and all six shades are also produced in a package of their own.

Why oils in particular

The main strength of oil paints is time. While an acrylic sets within minutes, an oil stays open for hours, so it can be spread, blended and taken back smoothly long after it has been laid on. That is how a soft transition on sheet metal is made, along with grime around rivets, mapping of surfaces and the tuning of a base coat toward a warmer or cooler tone. It is applied in a very thin layer: a drop on card, which draws the excess binder out of it, and only then onto the model.

Working principles

• Oils belong over a gloss or satin surface, as a flat one bites into them.
• They can be thinned with an odorless thinner for oil paints, not with water.
• Mix on a palette in small amounts, as an oil goes a long way from a tube.
• Let them dry thoroughly before the final varnish.

The set suits modelers of vehicles as well as figure painters who prefer to mix their own tones instead of hunting for a ready-made shade.