Wednesday 8 April 2015

Taking acrylic paints on a plane / overseas

Seems pertinent as it's the start of holiday season so though I would write a short post about my experiences taking acrylic paints abroad.

My view from the balcony window!

First things first prep. Any kind of glue, sprays or varnish are a no no! Even in hold. I would even give the army painter tones a miss.

Second, acrylic paints are absolutely no problem going into hold at all and I had a full batch of paints go through no problems both ends with no problems.

One thing I would do is seal the paints in zip lock bags as the pressure changes in the hold can cause the paint pots to pop open. This can even cause a bit of a pop with ink pipettes which can cover you in ink the first time you open it at the other end so be careful.


All sealed up and ready to go.



I sealed similar paints in the same bags so if the pots did pop it would not ruin all my paints or leak out into my clothes and end up with me walking round like a tie dyed hippy. Ideally I would have put each pot in a seperate bag but never had enough.

At worst if this set popped I would end up with Skorne flesh

I even made a point of taking one of the pots through in my hand luggage to see what happened.

Talking to the bloke at the security checks (we flew at a quiet time), the bloke said (PLEASE NOTE THIS IS NOT POLICY) that as the pots are under 100ml it should not be a problem as long as they are put in the see through bags (provided) and seperated them from the rest of your hand luggage. The paints will be taken away for scanning (which he did with mine) but unless the person doing the security checks is a complete 'jobs worth' (i.e. dickhead for the international readers) you should have no problems as there are always artist going overseas to paint so they are used to it.

Again he told me flat out this is not airport policy so they could be confiscated but you would be really unlucky if this happened. It would help your case if all the paints were new and unopened.

The light at the other end was gorgeous and seeing as I always give the mid day sun the miss over seas it was a nice chance to get some painting done during our break.

I guess the song is true 'Only mad dogs and Englishmen paint in the mid day sun!'

Coming soon to the mean streets of Mordheim







Even managed to squeeze in a Space Wolf.



Two problems with painting this lot;

(1) none are finished because I forgot my stone grey and dark blue paints and,

(2) only ONE of these miniatures is mine and counts towards my painting total for the year!

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