SVC04 Yellow Matt for Soft PVC Figure

A yellow matte and what to do with it

Yellow has the lowest covering power of all the shades in the line, which is not a fault but a property of its pigment. Applied straight onto a colored casting it behaves almost translucent and the result takes the tone of the base; over a light preparation it steps out at full strength instead. Anyone who knows this in advance saves themselves the disappointment of the first two coats and prepares a white surface underneath right away.

Mixing within the line

The paints of one line stand on a common base, so they can be joined with one another without the risk of the mixture curdling. Yellow is the most useful in this respect: with red it gives the whole scale of orange tones from apricot to rust, with blue greens from spring to olive, with white pastel shades for clothing, and with a drop of black an earthy ocher that suits animal skin as well as worn metal parts. It pays to mix a larger batch at once and set the remainder aside, because repeating the ratio exactly a second time never succeeds.

Application and checking

The difference between the third and the fourth coat of yellow tends to show more than with other shades, so the saturation is checked against the light and not from above. The coats have to stay thin, because paint built up on a flexible surface will crack at the first bending of the part. The brush is run in one direction and returned to a place only once it has gone off. The matte result then holds the eye on the shape and not on reflections, which is decisive on light areas. If the area is to be glossy in the end, that is handled with a final clear coat, not with a heavier application of the paint itself.