SoFlat Acrylic Paints Review— So Good.

GamingTrend has been covering a lot of painting tutorials recently, using paints from a wide selection of companies. Earlier this year, we had done some comparisons of different thick acrylics, including Golden Fluid Acrylics, a high-end heavy body acrylic for professional painters. So, Golden Paints reached out to us and provided us with their SoFlat Pop! Box, which is part of their SoFlat super-matte paint line.

SoFlat POP Set

<p>Bold colors inspired by mid-century pop art and probably the best starting point and value for flat, matte painting. Set contains six 2 oz jars.</p> <p><strong>Includes:</strong> Cadmium Primrose, Naphthol Red Light, Ultramarine Blue, Permanent Green, Black and Titanium White.</p>

Golden Artist Colors

SoFlat Matte Acrylics

Golden Artist Colors

Golden Artist Colors

So how flat is SoFlat? Super matte flat. 

Packaging

The set of six paints come neatly and safely packaged. With these base sets of colors, I have a really solid start for base colors for a variety of projects (not the least of which is armor!). From here, I can mix my colors as needed, although I would certainly prefer to expand the collection so that I wouldn’t have to worry about color matching for armies in the future, if I am painting multiple pieces.

Colors that can make or break a paint line for me are white and yellow. Yellow is inherently difficult to paint, requiring a base coat of brown or pink typically to properly bring out the yellow pigment. White is always tough to paint with, but thin pigments make working with white really frustrating, especially for new painters. I’ll cover the yellow a little later.

The paint is packaged with a sealing foam cap, and the paint is pretty well mixed. Out of habit, I used a mixer before opening. After opening each paint, the paint was pretty well mixed so I am not sure if that’s how they normally are or they just mixed really well. Either way, it was nice to be able to just open a paint and go right to the wet pallet with it.

As you can see, there is a lot of paint in these containers. So they’re going to last a while and go a long way, especially if you are painting vehicles and/or terrain. There are paint tubes with less volume available, which are great for those small detail colors or unique colors (like fluorescents) that you may be using infrequently. 

Painting

To test the mettle of the SoFlat paints, I chose to paint some metal armor of the Mastercraft Resin Spartan Mark VII (with MA40 Assault Rifle). from the Halo: Flashpoint Fireteam Phoenix set. Hard edges from the armor paired with the smooth curves of the body suit gives a good dichotomy of painting surfaces. 

To start, I primed the figure and base separately, which I normally do. However, I quickly discovered that this pose doesn’t quite stand up to my normal paint routine, so I glued them together. Using Citadel Baal Red, I applied a thin red base coat over the armor to color block the red sections. I repeated this same technique with the black body suit. 

Since I only had the six base colors, the goal was to utilize them as much as possible and then highlight using other paints. To be honest, I was really apprehensive about the paints, as they felt really thin - I was concerned I would have to apply several coats in order to get the proper coverage. This, however, was not the case. The Naphthol Red went on so smooth, and much to my surprise, mixed really well with some of the Monument Hobbies Pro Acryl Cosmic Paint Set colors I used to add in my highlights. I only applied a few coats of each highlight.

Once I was happy with the color blocking, I started blacking out the bodysuit. I added in the small details of yellow, light blue, and brushed metal as final details. I applied the Ultramarine Blue right over top of the red, with just three thin coats, and didn't have any issues with the red coming through underneath.

With respect to the Cadmium Primrose… it may now be my go-to yellow color. I mixed it with Permanent Green to create the visor and also painted it independently in some detailed spots… and I absolutely loved it. You can see on the label the paint sample covering the black and white, and it really does look like that. I would still recommend using a base of pink or brown, but the pigment consistency is so good that you may only need to do one or two thin coats.

Final

I was extremely happy with the outcome. The thin base coat helped make highlights go on easy and didn't compromise any of the details. I am really looking forward to painting up the rest of the box set.

List of SoFlat Paints Used

(Color - Base, Highlight):

• Red - SoFlat Naphthol Red, Pro Acryl Orange Yellow
• Blue - SoFlat Ultramarine Blue, Pro Acryl Bight Green Blue
• Yellow - SoFlat Cadmium Primrose, SoFlat Titanium White
• Green - SoFlat Permanent Green, SoFlat Cadmium Primrose
• Black - SoFlat Black, Pro Acryl Grey Green (with a splash of Bright Green Blue)
• Gun - Drybrush Citadel Necron Compound

Impressions

SoFlat paints live up to their name. Typically when I use other model or miniature paints I have to apply a flat or matte sealant to hide the semi-gloss or satin residuals of the paints. When I applied that coating to this model, I honestly couldn’t tell the difference which means that SoFlat paints pigments are well balanced and aren’t oversaturated with the binding medium.

Particularly with this model, SoFlat applies evenly to hard edges and blends well with other brands. I feel like I was really able to push the highlights on the armor, accenting corners and points without having too thick a coat. The other aspect I really liked is that I didn't have to start from the deepest shadow in order to paint a new color (i.e. blue over red) in order to add the small details. This is always risky, because I have found that I can bury details and lose the sculpt with too much paint with other hobby brands.

I don’t think I would use this paint to paint an army, or batch paint models, but I wouldn’t hesitate to use it for competition painting. I could see myself using this for future Marvel: Crisis Protocol models given how vibrant the colors would be for the various super hero outfits. SoFlat paints help create a proper tone for each color so I am not misled by shiny surfaces, and helps my layering and highlights blend better while reducing the paint volume on the model. 

Basically, this basic paint set is what I would reach for any time I need to start with a thin but pigment-rich base coat.

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