I just got Make Toys not Inferno. He's awesome except I'm not crazy about his completely clear windshield. At certain angles you can see completely through him in bot mode. I've read that mixing a few drops of paint in with Future works for tinting clear plastic. Has anyone done this? Should I use acrylics or enamels? Is there a better way? Some kind of stickers?
Tamiya makes a tint paint called "Smoke" in both bottle and spray form. I think a light coat of that is what you're looking for, and if you don't like how it looks afterwards, you can always take it off with rubbing alcohol.
On that note, if you spray too light of a coat, you can always add another one to darken it. Tinting is def one of those spray, wait, check, repeat things. Coot
I'll second the recommendation of Tamiya Smoke (it's a part of their Clear acrylics), it stays translucent once its dry. You can brush or spray it on to darken the clear plastic, let it dry and cure, then see if you want it darker Tamiya also has Clear Red, Clear Green, Clear Blue, Clear Orange, and Clear Yellow acrylics if you're looking to add some more color instead. Mixing opaque paint with future will still net you an opaque end result, something to do with the size of the pigment particles.
With the Tamiya clears, I'd definitely go with spray over brush-on paint. It's infuriatingly difficult to get an even coating over a clear window that size. if you can get take him apart and get the spray onto the inside of the window that might look even better.
there's also a form of "spray tint" in a rattle can, available at your local Canadian tire.(8 bucks or so plus tax) another option is to hit up a local automotive tint shop and ask them for scraps. every window that gets done always has excess cut offs, so a dollar later and you could have enough scraps to do a couple different bots/window sets. and if you don't like it,you can simply peel it off,the sooner the better.
Thanks for the insights, everyone! The whole front end of the truck is actually made of clear plastic, painted red except for the window, so it's not possible to take out and spray just the window. I guess with good masking it could work, but it's not ideal. I do like the idea of window tinting shop scraps, since it's very non committal.
I just wanted to highlight this part, because it's VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU DO NOT DO THIS!!! While normally rubbing alcohol can be quite handy for removing paint from Transformers, you really shouldn't use it on any translucent plastics! I don't know the science of it, but a lot of the translucent plastics used in Transformers toys are extremely vulnerable to concentrated alcoholic compounds... something about them disrupts the bonds of the plastic. I have personally seen windshields, light-piping, headlights, and anything else made of translucent plastics crack or even outright crumble from even a tiny bit of rubbing alcohol (ie, not even soaking... like just using a few drops). It's weird, but it's something to watch out for. Sometimes it'll be fine... but you never know if it's going to be -that- kind of plastic until it's too late. Okay, back to the smoked window conversation. zmog
Seconded!!!!! Rubbing alcohol will DESTROY clear plastics. At the very least you will get hazing or crazing... Worst case scenario is a crumbly mess. I have a naked unicron junker because I made the mistake of soaking it's clear hip skirts in watered down rubbing alcohol! The only time I have NOT had problems is the one time I used 40% rubbing, on a q-tip, to remove the paint on TFPRID magnus's eyes, and even then I still had some hazing I had to buff out. If you need to remove any attempted tinting jobs use something like purple power or super clean degreaser. I have not had a issue with them destabilizing clear plastic yet. As far as tinting goes... you have several options. 1. You can purchase crayola water washup markers and simply add the ink to future until you get the desired tint. This also works with sharpies, although its more opaque than the crayola markers. 2. Sun Catcher paints. You can find this stuff in the crafts department, it works really well. If you need to lighten the tint just add a few drops of future to thin it out. 3. If you want to do a light tint, you could always just add food coloring of your choice to future.
I just picked up a can of testors window tint lacquer spray from my local hobby lobby and did a test spray with it tonight. I laid it down way too heavy. Gonna take another crack with it tomorrow with several light coats. I'll be back!
Okay cool! More ideas. Considering the way this figure is constructed, I think spraying is out of the question.
Of all the ideas here I prefer the using actual tint film approach. It's cheap enough off ebay for a small roll if you don't go the scraps approach and, as has been mentioned, you can peel it off if it doesn't work. Only problem is where you have the clear plastic also include a moulded connection piece or something which would stop you being able to have the sheet on the inside of the window (think MP Track's side windows). I've been thinking about going this route anyway on the MPs that have blue rather than near-black windows. Ratchet especially looks too "toy-like" with its white body work leaving the blue windows looking way too bright for my liking.
You CAN use rubbing alcohol with clear plastics to remove tints but be very careful. I removed the tint on the univ 2.0 lambo mold's windshields [sideswipe and sunstreaker]. It does make the figure more brittle so you can't soak the figure in it. You have to use a cotton bud and go carefully. As for hazing and cloudyness, you can use Future floor polish to fix that. It works really well. Just dip or coat the part after you're done. Sideswipe had his windshield cleared in 2010 or so, sunstreaker was just a few months ago. As you can see they are both clear and tinted with tamiya red/yellow respectively.
Yeah, you can get away with it sometimes. But I'd never try that on a figure that wasn't already established as 'safe' first. I've seen the -tiniest- bit of alcohol instantly destroy clear plastic before, so I'd have to be feeling lucky. zmog
Second round with testors window tint lacquer spray was a bust. This stuff is essentially garbage. STAY AWAY!!!
Yeah, don't use Testors for that kind of thing: I haven't used Testors paints in years (except unusual colors and Metalizer).
I found this great tinted gel like substance at Michaels crafts- it was just a few bucks a bottle. It goes smoothly and dries to the touch in a few seconds- then takes a few hours to cure. I used it to color my mace and lightsabre on my cheap prototype MP-5. I loved the result- and it didn't make a mess or stain my hands, and it doesn't have toxic fumes. I'm going to get some orange for my Kreemzeek! Its dirt cheap, non destructive and comes in black. Maybe that might help?