I’ve been fascinated by Turbo Dork since 2023 when I first saw them at Adepticon. Back in 2023, I didn’t paint or hobby at all, so I didn’t buy any. I would say at that point, I painted more terrain than minis. Mainly Necromunda just to help my partner get some painted terrain on the table. Flash forward to today. I’m airbrushing multiple times a week and figuring out what paints I want to experiment with.
I was on Turbo Dork’s site, mainly looking at their thinning medium and found Factory Seconds. I love taking a gamble, especially when I don’t own any of these paints already. No worries about having duplicates of a color! Felt like minimum risk and all reward. I ended up with Ice to Never and Pearly Gates! These were marked as Factory Seconds because they’re missing mixing balls. Not a big deal, just more of an arm workout to shake them.
A friend let me borrow Cold Open. He had an older bottle, so the old paint formula and old bottle style. I decided to compare the two. It isn’t a great comparison since the colors aren’t the same but I could tell the difference.
Hey look, Necromunda stuff! Turbo Dork was applied via airbrush, details and smaller bits were brush.
I tried doing multiple very thin layers. I don’t think I allowed enough drying time between layers but🤷. The new formula is hands down better. If you tried the old stuff and wasn’t a fan, see if you can borrow a new bottle from someone. It feels night and day different. Disclaimer: I only used the old formula via airbrush. It’s hard to describe the difference but the newer paint was easier to thin and felt better in the airbrush.
Testing….Testing…1,2,3…
My next test was using a Gloss Black primer. Each Turbo Dork bottle has instructions on it but the most important part is what color basecoat. Ice to Never says to use Black. I primed an ammo(?) box with Stynylrez Black Gloss. I’m bad at taking pictures and remembering to take before and progress photos but hopefully you can see the difference. When possible I’ll always try to use Black Gloss when I plan on using Turbo Dork.
Recently….
NOVA Open 2025 was a low spending con for me. Especially since I spent A LOT of money at Adepticon.😬 I purchased 3 new paints. Scarab, Ground is Lava and Leviathan.
My latest use of Turbo Dork came in the form of Game Workshop’s Khorne Blood Bowl Team. The plan was to prime them in Stynylrez Black Gloss, then do the armor in Ground is Lava. At that point, I hand them over to my partner who does the rest!
I apologize, because I took 0 pictures of what they looked like before handing them over. Using Turbo Dork’s Thinning Medium, I thinned a bunch at once and put it in a small dropper bottle. They recommend different ratios depending on your needle size. I ended up using a .3 needle and thinned it extra. I wasn’t very precise when thinning but it was almost equal amount paint to thinner. I thinned it extra because of the needle size. If you’re using .5 or larger, I would go with 4 drops of paint to 3 drops of thinner. I found that 3-4 layers did the trick and was working on aim/control but still over sprayed a bit.
Future Projects
I’m working on something very different than past projects at the moment. A future use for Turbo Dork could be the new Tomb Kings Blood Bowl team? The Season 3 box set went on pre-order recently. I can’t wait to get my hands on the minis and new rules!
Another project could be some PHR Dropfleet?
Is Turbo Dork worth it?
In case you didn’t know, I’m new to hobbying and painting. The only other color shift style paints I’ve tried are Vallejo’s. These are nice because they come “airbrush ready”, as in no thinning needed. I used the same Gloss primer on this mini and it looks really nice! Downside, you can’t buy colors individually. These Vallejo paints are sold in box sets.
The color shift is better in Vallejo’s paints than Turbo Dorks, hands down. However, Vallejo doesn’t have as large of a range and you can only buy them in sets. Super annoying if you only need 1 color.
If you’re feeling risky, then the Factory Seconds are a great way to go! I wouldn’t and don’t plan on investing too heavily into these paints. If I have a project that I think would be cool, I would maybe consider purchasing more. For now, I’m sticking with the 5 colors I have.
Meh Minis 
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