Yet time again for another look on some new hobby material via MV's Miniature Unpacked, but this time it is a mixture of unpacking, testing and some kind of tutorial.

You might know that MV is well known to have a look on very interesting products outthere. Combined with our everyday painting of an average of eight hours since several years, we can also provide a good look on new material with practical experience.

This said, we want to dig a little deeper into products of a company with you we really enjoy lately. Their products are mainly aimed for the hobby of Scale Models, at least this is what their page communicates, but we are sure this will change a lot in the future as their products are also great for our hobby of miniature painting. Let me introduce to you: 

 www.modelmates.co.uk 

Roman did get in contact with one of their products when Battlefield-Berlin sent him one bottle of "Normal Rust" and he got convinced by the result he recieved by using it. Modelmates has no shop on its own and is selling via different dealers in different countries. You can find a list of their retailers here! We are even updated that besides Battlefield-Berlin now also PK-Pro has Modelmates in stock!

We are happy to announce that Modelmates is now official sponsor of MV Painting Classes and participants on our classes can find out why we like their products that much on their own, testing and experiencing them during the classes. In the following review we will take a look on their
Brick Joint Filler.

In your massive jungle you can already find a review on their primers, Rust Effects, Verdigris Effects 
and Weathering Sprays.There will be more later on as their list of products is much bigger and MV is in the middle of experiments with them and is recieving very, very cool results.

"Please know that this is just my own experience with these products. I tell you honestly what I do like and don't. I can not assure you that you will make the same experience as you might have a different taste or different requirements than I have."
Roman

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This review I will have a look on two of Modelmates' Brick Joint Filler. Before we start in some testing we will have a look on what their homepage says about those sprays:

"Opaque brick joint filler liquid creates realistic brick and stones joint. Water soluble: brush straight from pot over the full surface of the wall, filling the brick or stone joints, let fully dry, then wipe off the dry residue using a damp cotton bud leaving Brick Joint Filler trapped in the joints. Available in two sizes, 18ml and 50ml."

Let's head over to a base Raffa did build and check on the brick wall there how the Brick Joint Filler works. First build up a base how you like it, and paint it with your basic colour setup you wish for it. We recommand painting it up to 70%~80% to finish before you apply the Brick Joint Filler.


When testing something it is always got to get to know the product before you maybe mess up your paintwork. This being said, we took a metal cup and placed the liquid inside to have a look on it. Well it does not look like the typicall brick filler in this stage, rather like something else, but whatsoever, here we go:


Placing it to the brickwall with a brush of your choice is looks like this when dried:


Looks pretty rough here and there, but it dries out matte and white like we wished for. This is good, but what is even better is that you now can take a clean wet brush (not too wet) and carefully remove areas that look to rough. Clean up the surfaces of the bricks that are too packed with white now:

This is really cool, as it also leaves a natural look behind on some stones, where the white still appears. One thing Raffa did was mentioning that the white is too powerful and has a lot of disturbing effect on the overall look of the base due the power of the whites. He used a watered wash from Army Painters Strong Tone to spray it gently with the airbrush to calm that white down a bit, really gentle and subtile effect:


It is always very good to check back with reality if you work on your brickwall. What is happening there, what inspiration and inspiration can you get out of it when you take a closer look. Reality is the mother of all inspiration for us miniature painters. At least it should be.

Some Examples via tale-of-the-bananawhale,
, Roman's personal hobby blog with tons of inspirational material photos:



I am looking forward to use the brick filler more often and try new things with it.

Important: Modelmates offers a lot of information on how you can use the product on their homepage, just scroll down and read about more examples and how-to-articles, very cool, click here!

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So far from the brick-wall-front, happy brick laying to you all!
Your MV-Team