Golden High Flow Acrylic Review

Tyler Provick

Tyler Provick is a writer and a gamer that likes to combine his two interests and share them with the community.

You may also like...

7 responses

  1. Lasgunpacker says:

    Thanks for the update Tyler! I like the pros you mentioned (particularly as I am starting to be more interested in airbrushing), but the gloss is scary…

    • In the end the gloss was too much for me. I switched back to Vallejo and was reminded how much nicer it is for everything short of base coating. I will still had the Golden for air brushes

  2. Stevey says:

    Hi Tyler — I’ve had great luck with using Army Painter: Anti-Shine Matte Varnish on top of the Golden High Flow Acrylics. You can get either an aerosol (http://www.thewarstore.com/product39108.html) or a smaller paint-on bottle (the one I used). It really worked well.

    Head people also swear by Testers Dullcote.

    • Thanks for the advice. I wish army painter had been around when I used to use spray cans. It was actually the gloss during the painting process that bugged me. I enjoyed judge my highlights or tell when the paint was dry.

  3. G says:

    I love these paints & I like the bottles & don’t find it so hard to close the lids. If some paint dries on the top it’s easy to flick off the small blob next time. Much easier than other similar paints that need pliers, hot water, banging etc if the lid dries stuck.

    On canvas undiluted they dry matte. U probably need to prime your models 1st with something toothy and absorbant so you have the right surface. Ask golden as they give excellent technical support. Don’t dilute with water, use proper medium to avoid weakening the dry paint film

    • It’s not so much the paint drying on the top as the drop of paint which sometimes spurts out as it closes. I’ve taken to using a rag when closing them.

      Thanks for the advice on contacting Golden, I had tried that, as well as their Ultra Matte medium. Even if I were to start with an absorbent surface the multiple coats of colour I apply as my painting technique leaves any paint glossy. It’s just the level of gloss on these paints was so much that I couldn’t differentiate small changes in hue and value during the painting process.

      As for dilution, I always make sure to add additional medium when diluting to keep my paint film strong. One sign of an acrylic paint which has been over-diluted with water is a matte, chalky appearance. Certainly not the case with these paints.

  4. artelis says:

    Hi! I’m a painter and I mainly use Golden paints for my acrylics.
    Your issue with gloss is primarily because of your color choice, specifically the natural qualities of the pigment of that color. In other words, the glossiness is not because of the paint, but because of the pigment. Golden High Flow can still work for you if you just choose colors with naturally matte pigments.

    I know this because as a painter, I study my paints for color mixing. For example, you mentioned your problems with gloss in naphthol red (PR112 pigment). I have that color from Golden, as well as pyrrole red (PR254). I’ve made a comparison study of both colors before. They’re both very similar in color and shade. But all my pyrrole red swatches are matte and all my naphthol red swatches are glossy. Maybe you can try pyrrole red next time, it also has a better lightfast rating than naphtol red.

    You can tell which paints are matte from the swatch on the paint tube/bottle. Golden hand paints a swatch on each individual paint tube/bottle that they sell. Golden also does not add mattifiers or fillers on their paints (except maybe their SoFlat line) and they prefer showing the natural properties (gloss/matte, opacity/transparency, etc.) of each pigment to shine through.

    If you want all matte all the time, Golden has a SoFlat line of matte acrylics. The consistency is similar to fluid acrylics so you might need high flow medium for spray painting.

Even a short comment makes my day.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.