Tamiya is expanding its line of Textured Paint, this time with two different snow effect paints: Snow Effect and Powder Snow. This particular package also included a third bottle, which is “dark earth”, perfect to show some groundwork underneath the snow.

The first thing I noticed is that the snow bottles weight at least twice as much as the earth one. I suspect a different kind of “pellets” (texture) is being used here.

The Snow Effect paint has small micro-balloons (0.05-0.35mm) and the Powder Snow even smaller ones. I honestly could not see them - in the powder one, but I could feel a bit of the texture when I put a dab of the paint between my fingers. You can certainly hear a bit of a “grinding noise” when you spread the paint on a base. By the way, don’t use a brush as it will damage it. I used a plain wooden stick to spread the paint.

Each bottle is supposed to have enough material to cover a B4 page. I guess it depends on how thick you applied. In my particular case, I actually applied two coats to the base as one was not enough and it would allow the wooden base to be seen. More reason to actually have used the dark earth texture paint underneath.

The material sets slowly so you have plenty of time to work your way with it. You could easily build a snowdrift against a car, a tree or a building if you like. Roughly speaking after 1-hr it feels “set” to a soft, light and tough. I gave it overnight before I really tried to put any weight (a model) on it. If you scratch it, you can “lift” of a few snowflakes. I tried that and stopped immediately.

This textured paint is excellent and a great addition to the modeler's toolbox. Highly recommended.

I would like to thank Tamiya USA and IPMS/USA for the review sample.