Working with acrylic gel medium.

[Kobuk]

Ok, this isn't a furry related topic, but I'm taking a chance and posting it here in case anyone has ever used acrylic gel medium before (In a furry or non-furry type project.) and can give me some advice. 

There's a model project I plan to do late this summer and I need a lot of advice on using acrylic gel medium. It's not a ship subject and I'm not making water. It's actually a model aircraft I'll be building. I can't say what it is as I want to keep it a surprise for a contest later this year.
So here's my questions for those who have worked with AGM:
1. How many different types of acrylic gel medium are there? I need something rather thick in consistancy, almost like toothpaste.
2. Does it come clear? Can it be mixed with food coloring to create different shades/colors?
3. Can it be applied to a vertical surface pretty easily or would it "run" down the sides too much?
4. How fast does it dry? Do I have to apply AGM in layers?
5. Can AGM be applied to bare plastic or not?
Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

[Storm Fox]

I personally don’t know to much about it,

But maybe this site can help.

[Kobuk]

I personally don’t know to much about it,

But maybe this site can help.

Already seen that. But I was also wondering what personal experiences people have had in working with the stuff.

[Shim]

I learned to use Acrylic paint recently. Avan taught me a little trick. Since regular old dye doesn't work on acrylic material, there's no reason why acrylic wouldn't work on more acrylic! So using paint, I added a coat, blowdryed, and repeated. After a while, I combed it all out, washed it, then I had these spots !



Now, I'm not sure what sort of medium you're talking about as far as 'gel' goes, but I've been using paint with a little water to dilute it. Hope this helps!

[Avan]

What color is your gel? Whatever you do, don't throw the blue gel at anything unless you want it bouncing about like flubber. The orange gel tends to reduce friction, so if you spill it on something, you'll have a hard time picking it  up (also make sure not to slip if you spill some on the floor). Fortunatly its all water soluble, so you can just wash it off if you get it on anything.


On a more serious note, I'm completely unfamiliar with acrylic gel.

[Sskessa]

Argh. Wish I could help you. My husband paints miniatures, but he hasn't used gel before.

[Ragnorrock_13]

I don't know a lot about gel paint, but I paint Warhammer 40k miniature all the time.
Bright colors usually are a thinner paint while the dark colors are usually thicker.
To get the least watery paint, get a little bit of the paint and let it dry for a while, then you repetitively repaint the same section 2-5 times. This depends on how thick you want it to be. Thicker is better, but takes much longer. Thinner is considered by many modellers to be a sin.

once you are done painting and want to add a bit of "something" to the model, then you should do a thing called dry brush.

Dry brushing is where you get a paintbrush that is dead, beat, overused, ect... Then you dry out some paint dip the old brush into the paint, and you rub the brush as long as you want, as hard a you can, anywhere.

That's how good modelers make this

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/24764-.html

And this...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/22649-Baneblade%20session%20%2301.html

Hope this helps