In the Box

The ICM Afrika Korps acrylic paint set contains six bottles, 12 ml each. The paints are water-based. The box contains these paints:

• Middle Stone (1060)
• Offwhite (1028)
• Leather Brown (1053)
• German Field Grey (1070)
• Silver (1024)
• Green Ochre (1059)

Application and Experience

The following instructions on how to use the paints can be found on the side of the box:

• Shake well before using
• Paint is prepared for a brush, for the airbrush diluted with water or thinner 40-60%.
• Use primer when painting with an airbrush
• Colors can be mixed with each other.
• If the ambient temperature is above 25°C, use a retarder.
• When applying an airbrush, first use primer

The six bottles have a wide mouth, so it is easy to access the paint inside the bottle with a brush. The paint is rather thick, but it mixes very easily both with water and a thinner. I used distilled water to thin the paint, and it sprayed very well with an airbrush at different air pressures. I was able to create thin lines using an airbrush. It is extremely easy to clean these paints using running water. I found that adding water makes the paint flow easily, both in an airbrush and while using a brush. The characteristics of the paints are quite good. They dry to a consistent deep matt finish, except for the silver color, which is expected. I recommend using at least two thinned layers when painting with a brush or an airbrush. In my sample demonstration, I used the brush only with about 20% dilution using distilled water. The paint levels itself off when it dries. I recommend letting the paint dry and sealing it with a clear coat. The paint is thin, and I experienced the paint rubbing off the surface when handled too much. I like these paints primarily because of the quick access to the paint in the bottles. They also mix easily with water or thinner, and clean extremely well. I highly recommend these paints to modelers with a suggestion to seal them with a clear protective coat afterward.

During this review I decided to use the paints on figures from Master Box. The figures represent the hand-to-hand combat in Africa during WWII. I primed the figures with Tamiya gray primer first. Applying the paints with a brush was easy. Slightly diluted paint would slowly flow into crevices where the brush was too large to go. This was very helpful and prevented potential corrections where the brush could have touched other surfaces unintentionally. I had to use two layers of slightly diluted paint to get a uniform coverage on the figures. I used the ICM paints on the three German soldier figures in 1/35 scale. The other two figures of the British soldiers were painted with Humbrol paints. I am very happy with the results and I now reach to the ICM paints quite frequently. Thank you, ICM, for a pleasant experience with these paints.

My sincere thanks go to ICM for generously providing this paint set for review and IPMS USA for allowing me to review it.