Thread: What is up with Createx?

I ordered new paint and just opened it. UGH

I knew they changed some of their colors and color names.

Every new bottle of paint is super thin, almost as if it is watered down.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Hi quick-- I've never used Createx..I started in with AquaFlow years ago & I've stayed with it. Hope you're having a good weekend!! We're having a Norther blow thru here & it's pretty darn cold..not going to freeze, but I don't want to get out in it & I have to make a little jaunt to get to work..thank goodness I'm in an indoor market..It should be toasty warm & packed with people today..have a good one--

Monday is a holiday, will they be working?

sandstone ray

I think they reformulated the createx at the same time as the AA. I was in the store the other day and noticed they have a new label. The color I needed still had the old label so I can't say for sure.

Thanks everyone.. I appreciate it..

I am going to call them on Monday..

The new bottles I have are the Createx fabric paint. not AA.
It seemed thin when I looked at it, but when I tried spraying it I nearly lost my mind.. Here I am with customers waiting for tags and bang the paint is so frigging thin I had a he$$ of a time getting it NOT to spider. On the shirts it was not much better. At first I thought I had water in my lines it was so bad.

Really not happy.. I hate the new purple and the phalo blue (now bright blue) is not even close to the old color.. I may have to switch to Aqua Flow.. Just have to find a supplier.. Just what I need when starting up a new business.. problems with the paint I have become accustom to..

Will let you all know..

Darla.. This weekend has been UNFRIGGING believeable... !!!!!!!!!

What does that mean Quick-- good or BAD???? Oh!! I hope GOOD!!! Mine wasn't quite as good as last weekend, but I'm catching up on back rent & I'm buying all kinds of new supplies.... Ran right into a source for carpet remnents & I haven't had them for a long time. Trucker caps too-- they go real well for me. It will stay good now thru Mother's day & then will probably fall off again-- I'm beginning to see a pattern here.. I still feel blessed to have my business regardless of how times are.. People have been very good to me also, that makes everything go so much smoother.. Darn it's cold here!! It stayed in the low 40's all day long.. Those Canadians have sent all this nastiness down my way --& you know I know who you are!!!--I'll get back to you with a telephone # for AquaFlow..Lovely people & they always got me my paint even when I was working in timbucktoo. Anxious for you to fill us in a little more clearly on how your weekend was--you must be very tired or aggitated cause you're not making sense.. -- I'm going to download photos now to see if I have anything to post-- I've rested for a hour now-- & I can't remember a single shirt I painted.. I don't make sense either!!!

40's must be nice, we just had a couple of -20 yes below zero evenings with
near 30 mph winds pushing the wind chill into the -40 range, bring on some of that global warming....Actually it is much nicer now this evening, 0 deg showing right now..

Hey everyone...


Just an update to say I have no update!

#$#$Q$%@#$%$#%@

Okay, emailed everyone, including Aqua.. NO replies except from Dixie.
The answer I got was useless. "yes, we noticed that it is thinner and maybe that is so it will flow better with the smaller nozzles"

Going to try and call today.. I hate the phone, but I am desperate.

Maybe Don would know what is up.

Will get back to you on this.

E-Mail Craig at Createx he is usually pretty good about answering
I'll ask Ray at Beyond 6 he talks to him pretty often
Aqua Flow quickchange they have a number on their web site you can call to order.
I'll see what I can find out.


Are other folks experiancing the same thing with Createx?

OK

Finally!

Some sort of an answer.


The nice lady from Createx informed me of the following:

As most of us know they changed and dropped some of the colors.
Second they did change the formula in both the createx airbrush colors and auto air to allow the paint to flow smoother. Claiming has nothing to do with the "fantastix" issue.

With regard to the problem I am having (and many others out there, from the sound of it) Createx did change the formula and "some of the first batches came out toooo thin", however, I was told that this has been taken care of and the next batches are better. She went on to say that the longevity of the paint should not be affected either way as long as it is heat set properly. Createx will not replace the bad bottles, they say I will have to go to my distributor for that.

So now at least I know I am not losing my mind; I will figure out how to best deal with this issue.


Dear Don;

Just saw your post regarding this matter. As you can see I spoke to someone just now.. Between me and you, this is very upsetting. Just starting out in a new adventure and bang. As always thank you for helping us all out. Anything you find out is of interest to me. My business and my Customers are very important to me. If I have to change paint brands I will in a heartbeat!

Are they authorizing the distributors to replace the bad product or refund your money?

I would do two things Quickchange

1) go to the product review board and submitt a review on createx's new paint so others will not go thru what you have just gone thru.

2) Call Aqua Flow this morning and order paint

As for the new Auto Air have they tested the paint with its new wetting agent over any lenght of time? Have they painted someones car, bike and seen how it holds up over 2,3 or 5 years is a question that comes to mind.

Oh!! Qc--what sad, sorry luck you sometimes have..& it's just so expensive.. I suppose we're talking quarts aren't we?? I'm not sure you can tough it out with a bad product though..I was ordering parts & thought I'd save money & effort by getting a qrt. of black Createx at the same time..It still sits on the shelf (3 yrs. now) because I thought it was such an ugly shade of black (I saw gray in it)..& it worked strange too..Aqua Flow is blowing me away with some of their intense colors--I can't live without Blue pure, Red pure, White & silken Black..I would just almost prefer not to be an airbrush artist if I can't work with those!!! Listen to that statement--I think I feel a tantrum coming on!!! Must be the weather!!--I'm still of the belief that things will level out for you & your business will start to flow smoothly..obviously not today--but soon..Change your product & you won't have this problem to deal with again..

I'm trying to find out if createx has authorized distrubitors to refund folks money and pay for shipping the product back to the distrubitor. Let you know when I hear something.

Sorry Quickchange hang in there.

From Createx Rep to Will at Dixie Art, I asked Will to look into it below is what he got. Make of it what you will.
1 800 335-2710 aqua flows phone number


"Createx has come up with a new formula that allows for the same pigment load in a less viscous binder. This allows the paint to be sprayed more easily by small diaphragm compressors and through smaller orifice airbrushes. The problem was that some of the airbrush artists are spraying at pressure up to 100 lbs, which blew the color all the way through the shirt. We recommended reducing the air pressure and it worked fine. It handles the same in every other way. The problem with T-shirt paint in the past was its heavy viscosity. The new formula allows the paint to flow more evenly and the user has far more latitude in applying the product. Some users were so set in their ways they didn’t like the change. We went back and increased the viscosity some to help in the learning curve transition. There is nothing wrong with the original product. It actually has a greater range of use. The adjusted colors are still less viscous than their predecessor.

The only colors affected are transparents. Tell the user to reduce their air pressure if they are having problems. The formulas will change over time. When the original formula was released it was tweaked several times. As we get feedback, we will tweak the new formula as well. As far as replacing product, the replacement would still be different. I asked Jim at Createx to issue a written explanation that can be used by his staff and suppliers. I didn’t realize that they had not done so.

We have actually had very little response from the field. One e-mail said it was too thin and the other said it was still too thick."

John T. Weber

OK Mr. Don that tears it!

Thank you soooooo very much for getting this information back to me.

I called Aqua flow and the young lady is sending out the information to me asap. I will be changing over my entire line.

I would call dixie back to take the paint back but by the time I pay the shipping and that restocking fee, I might as well just keep it and let someone have it to play with. No, NO. I am done.

Darla, I hear you girl.. I already use the Aqua Flow white and Silken Black. Love em. One of the two biggest reasons I stayed with Createx once I got used to it was because I could order it easy and also pick it up local if I got in a pinch. I am internet spoiled, I order a lot of stuff at 12a.m. lol

The line of bull that they (createx) is spreading is not what I want to hear. Adjust my psi.. for cripes sake, I spent a better part of a year learning how to spray tags at 50/60 psi so I would not have to change my settings for shirts or tags. I spray almost all of my stock stuff at 60 psi. OH OHHHH and okay, 3/4 of my stock is old Createx and now the new stuff.. What everytime I want to use the new stock I have to run back and change my psi ??? and then run back and change it again to go back to the other stuff.. NOOOO nnnooo Then to say well if it was exchanged would still be yet another vicosity.. FORGET it! Some customer support! HMPF

Mr. Don, I will do as you asked. I think other should know also.

Other than that.. finished up my rush shirt order today 15 shirts front and back .. whew one rush down and two to go.. LOL OH and Darla.. LOL Black and white design. all Aqua Flow.

HUGS everyone..

Looks like you've got things well under control!!--Good to hear about all those shirts--I'm working on some orders myself right now.. I work a few minutes, then check on the Olympics coverage & then check in here..It makes the evening enjoyable..I'm working on some jobs that I've put off for way too long.. If you can get into the habit don't put anything off-- It's awfully hard to come back to jobs like this & then I usually give them a price break because they've been so patient..not so much any more though!! I'm starting to smarten up..It's a shame all this happened to you, but these things usually only happen once, & maybe you've saved someone else the heartbreak..if nothing else you've show you're tough!!

I use Createx paint and this is the first I have heard of any change.
What is the nature of aqua flow?
Does it need to be thined?
Does it have a binder to be added?
Will it spray in smaller tips?
Can I spray on t-shirts?


Thanx,
Tim

It's the T Shirt paint most T Shirt artist use Tim
Passche VL, Iwata Eclipse problay the most commonly used t shirt airbrushs it sprays fine thru those. www.aquaflow.com for more info
As to why no one knows about this I can't answer, you'll have to ask createx.

This is some interesting info.....I hadn't heard of any changes with the Createx tee shirt paints until now.....I started using AquaFlow many years ago and then switched to Createx because I was havin issues with Aquaflows white and black paint.....been usin Createx ever since.

Since I don't do too many shirts anymore my large inventory of Createx paints have gotten old and don't spray well anymore.....I was fixin to order some paint and had decided to switch back to Aquaflow for their black and white i've heard so much about over the past year or so but I was gonna keep using the Createx colors.....sounds like I need to forget that idea and switch back to Aquaflow completely.....Hmmmmmmm.

I'd like to hear more about this issue before I order anything.....i'm in no hurry so i'm just gonna keep checkin this thread for alittle while to see what others are runnin into with the "New and improved" Createx line...lol

Thanks for the info.

Originally Posted by quickchange

Since my original post to the forum I had not heard back from createx. I had emailed questions and I had emailed complaints. I finally called and you saw my post on that. On the 17th I received an email from "Jim" at createx asking if all my questions and concerns had be addressed to my satisfaction.

I stewed on it and then decided to let him know my displeasure with the new paint formula and more importantly the anger at the customer service.

On the 20th I received an email from him appologizing for the poor customer service. He went on to say that he was not aware of the bad remarks flowing about their product by other artists . He asked me to call him so that he could discuss it further with me and show me the errors of my ways (not his words, mine). I have not decided if I am going to do that yet.

I have some of the old and some of the new createx and I am going to do a shirt with a side by side of the colors. Paying attention to the color, hues, saturation etc. Then I will press it and wash it ...

I have used it a couple of times on some of the items I am not worried about washing out..(hard surface) As well as one or two shirts that I was not overly concerned about.

My opinion of the paint has not changed. Everyone has an opinion and if you are attempting to run a business you must do what you feel is best for your circumstances.
Here is my opinion so far:
As to air press adjustments depending on what formula you happen to be spraying. I am not willing to add yet another piece of equipment on all of my set ups, I am also not willing to run back and forth to the location of the compressor to adjust. For hobby spraying or in a studio setting (no immediate time concerns) this would be fine.
I will do the test spraying side by side to see what I can see about durability. Which is a HUGE concern for me.
So far in spraying the new paint on helmets and tags. Besides the issue with spiders I am noticing that I have to paint many light layers in order to get a good color. The old formula maybe two passes at most; the new, three or four passes for each stroke.
Shirts seem to be the same way.. Several passes to reach the desired color. You can't saturate or apply the color heavy because of blow through and it soaks the fabric really quickly and even with the blow dryer takes a while for it to dry.
It does spray easier and less clogging. But then again water does that too!

This translates into more time and more paint used. Of course if you are wasting more paint then you have to BUY more paint.

Last but not least I have ordered more aqua flow colors, I have been using the silken black and white all along. I have not used the new colors of aqua flow yet. Just have not have taken the time to test them yet. (fill orders first, then do the other stuff)

Why am I bothering to do all of this if I have already made up my mind to switch brands? Because I want to know.. I need to know what it looks like when it is a paint problem or a washing problem.
Plus I want to share what I find and my opinion on these areas. If I am proved wrong in my opinion I will say so.

My little business and its customers are important to me. Repeat customers will make or break me in the location that I have. I need to get the best I can to last the longest that I can. The customers don't understand or care why the shirts fade, they just feel ripped off and won't come back. Worse they will tell their friends!

Giles;

With regard to your comment on harder for beginners...
See it is a double edge sword. Beginners (I still consider myself one of them) will struggle with many demons. Anything from the type of airbrush they are using, compressors down to the type of paint they happen to have. As with me, I did not know the different.LOL .. This forum and the friends I have made here have helped me a thousand times over.

I feel that hobbists and fine art painters are going to LOVE this new formula. The beginners will like it because they won't have to think to much about it. (in the beginning) Just plug the bottle on and spray.

If I was working on canvas, paper or board I would not be gripping. (well maybe not..lol )

Again.. we all gotta do what we gotta do.

Oh.. just thought of a silly thing..

If you are used to working with heavy cream and all of a sudden you pop on a new bottle and spray milk, just ruins the whole ambience.

the silly thing will not be silly if it happen to you everyday
for all the coffee drinkers out there, do you add butter milk to your coffee
I am sure that they are trying to improve the paint to get new painters to buy their paint ,why don't they keep making the old paint and sell the new paint under a different name[new improved ]

sandstone ray

Originally Posted by spiritwind

The main reason they did this is we used to get way more mileage out of the stuff because we would thin it out to our likeness and have way more paint than what the origional bottle held. Now we only get what is in the bottle ...which in the end is alot less paint for the same amount of money. Essentially they watered it down like the good soup untill the company came over! Now it just is crappy soup because it tastes like water.( and is actually water.) They also double their profit because water is cheap


Sad

the line between being honest and greedy is very thin and I feel that createx are a bit greedy,maybe if we refuse to buy the new paint -they will continue to sell the old paint or sell the rights to the old paint to another company, all buyers of the old paint need to speak up and tell Createx how they feel, how about asking all users to vote on the new paint versus old paint


sandstone ray

Todd ... yep.. and Thank you

I have some of the new stuff and I have forced myself to use it (not on hardsurface) and only because I was completely out of a couple of the colors.

Besides all the other gripes I have I go through it Twice as fast.. I have started renewing all my stock with Aquaflow.

interesting read, this post. am brand new to ab'ing and i noticed real quick with my paasche single action and the side cup, a diference between the transparents and opaques. even some of the opaques were diferent in the way they sprayed. this cleared some things up for me, no more createx for one.
am leaning more towards wall paintings right now to fit in with wifes drapery work and trying out some other paints also. trying liquitex tube and thinning with distilled water, alcohol and trying to find their reducer to try that as well.
the reason for inside is need to get the money and space to build a decent small spray booth for solvent type paints. or are there good acrylics to use for mc tanks, fenders and such? am also looking at the chromallusion/chameleon type colors.
so to really come down to the main question i have.... is there a good acyrilic brand that would come close to filling what am trying to do? (wall art mainly, i'll worry about the tanks later)
have also saved a page on tri-art acrylics by woolfits. are they any good?
thanks to any who may have some input on this.

I was wondering this same thing. Time to give ETAC a try, or switch to all aqua flow paints.

tri-art acrylics by woolfits are not made for airbrush use the pigments in airbrush paints are ground finer and flow thru an airbrush better
you can spend your time messing around with paint trying to get it to go thru your brush or you can spend your time being creative with your brush

ok Don, was looking at these in this link at the bottom http://www.woolfitts.com/fulfill/pdf...%20mediums.pdf supposedly thru a 100 micron filter, and stated as airbrush acryilics, but will take your word, since been around a tad longer than me :-)

Looked at the page you mentioned. lol
What you did not state in your original post is that they had an airbrush ready brand of acrylics. Don most likely thought you were talking about non airbrush paints. In which case he is correct, not that he needs backing .

I have never heard of the store or the paints, so can't help you out there.

that's a new one on me i've seen their tube colors never their airbrush colors
try it and post your review http://www.airbrushtechnique.com/Rev...hp?product=237

let us know if it works

Dick Blick now sells Aqua Flow http://www.dickblick.com/zz253/32/
pretty cool

i'll have to see if cant order a bottle and see how it does. thanks also for the other links for paint suppliers. i have one store that sells the aqua flow colors in nashville, hard to find a good ab store here :-(

well, dont think will get a chance to try out the woolfits triair paints. but the liquitex tube had bought, was the heavier viscosity, no matter what mixed with, would not do finer lines. so that ones out.
i bought one jar of liquitex medium viscosity ivory black and a bottle of liquitex airbrush medium. the first session with it went pretty good, so i think they will do for trying on interior muriels and such. also seems to be finer ground.
have also since tried diferent thinning mediums for the createx paint i have and with the opaques about all will do with them is a 3 and above for larger area coverage. kept spitting and sputtering, different air pressure and different thinning mediums. the transparents do ok on newsprint, so good practice paint.
the bottle of com-air paint that came with teh AB does real good, and gettign better at knowing when to wipe for tipdry. so now its get a chance and pick up some auto air and golden to see which one i like better.

and of course some of my probs could be just me in my inexperience, but thought would post my findings for newbies possible help.

I just ordered a set from createx the "master" 36 color set so I will see whats up with them and if the have fixed the thiness problem.

Ya, I've been having problems with Createx paints as well. I know I'm new to airbrushing, so I dont know if part of the problem is me, but when my dad and I have tried it, it either spackles(dunno if thats the right term, but when the paint comes out in a bunch of tiny dots all over the place), or it doesnt come out at all. Also, we tried testors acrylic paint(water-based), and it did the same exact thing as the Createx, so I'm not sure if its the paint, or the tip on our airbrush.(We've got a paasche H-set airbrush, with the HC3 tip, thought that might be helpful) We've been using testors/modelmasters enamel paint, and just thinning it, and it's worked so much better. What are some names of good water-based paints?

Ok, nother complaint about createx.

This just happened in my shop and I wanted to give everyone the heads up.

I had an order to do some work. I had a few bottles of createx violet in my studio that I wanted to get rid of so not a big deal right..WRONG

I gave this work to a new painter to do at his home since it was to much to do in the shop. Gave him all of my paint and the item.

He took it home and began working on it. Towards the end of the job he ran out of paint. He went to the local store and purchased two additional bottles of createx (same name, same color codes) He finished the job with it. When he brought it in to the shop I nearly had heart failure Not only was the violet the wrong hue, It was not even violet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was blue. Forgot that this was painted on textile and property of the customer.
In the light he painted in, he did not notice the color change. By mixing and blending other colors, I was able to match (close enough) the color needed and made repairs. The customer is ok with it and that is good. I made the error in not thinking about the possiblity of running out of paint and not telling him to be sure to double check the original and new colors against each other before beginning to paint. He did check the color name and the color codes on the bottles.

In this case the color codes and color name meant absolutely NOTHING. I am glad I am switching away from Createx. Seems since they have started messing with the formula more than just the consistency is affected.

Don't start the job unless you are sure you have enough of the color on hand. So just as a heads up.. Make sure with createx that you not only check the color codes and numbers, but take your old bottle with you and look at the paint inside the bottles against one another. Can't trust color codes. This could have cost me $250.00. Maybe not a lot to you, but huge to me. Lessons learned and passing on.

I don't know bray.. OMG, I did not even think about that cenario. Now I am really glad I mentioned it.



yes, I was very glad that we were able to "fix" it. Otherwise would have required mixing enough to repaint the entire job. Not to mention the extra hours involved.

This thread is very interesting indeed, I do hope your getting back on track QC, sounds like you have been through hell and back a few times.

At the moment i'm playing with HOK colours on old car panels and anything else that doesnt move and using up what is left of the R/C poly stuff, oh and i'm still working on the truck load of Tamiya scale models that are detailed in only Tamiya paints, nothing else feels right to me.

I guess in a way being a banana republic down here does have it's good and bad points, we dont have a huge choice of brands to choose from and most stuff we do get is already 10 years old before it arrives.

But I can say that I was in 2 minds to place a big colour order for createx over the net earlier last week, this thread is what sealed my mind to stick with what I have and to just research the reviews here before my next stock run.

For that alone I cannot thank you enough.

Thanks heaps and keep the colours flowing.

rowie

I have only re-started airbrushing a few weeks ago. I had some createx that I bought for doing some T-shirts and its pretty old. I dragged it out a couple of weeks about and its pretty thick stuff. So far I've never used anything that I could just spray right out of the bottle... does the stuff even exist? I'd love to be able to just pour and spray. It seems like 90% of the time I'm either mixing. thinning or clearing jams..

Where are most of these paints available? Being that I have now moved to somewhere where beer and pork rinds are food groups, getting things that are not related to these two staples of life is tough. Is there a link to order these things? There is a Hobby Lobby here in town, but the stock only Createx.

Brush check you pm s:

ive heard alot of good things about etac i myself am planning to give it a try as far as createx is concern its not a bad paint some colors are more of a pain to work with but for me its old reliable also its found in almost every arts and crafts store that has any type of airbrushing equipment and thats a plus for now etac is not available in this area well atleast i havent seen any so to while i can order it on line and will for testing its good to know u can rely on createx to be a quick drive to the art store

zero420

Just got a couple of bottles of createx. The transparent ocre which I thought was thin before is worse now. Had to reduce air pressure to spray a fine line. I didn't have any problem before, was thin originally.

I am not sure if I am seasoned enought to stick my nose in, but I have found an acrylic airbrush paint called vision, and its absolutely wonderful, they have over 13 shades of just green, so you dont have do do allot of mixing, and saving colors, I use it almost like a watercolor, I spray a fine mist of water on the tiger/jaguar, or lion and then spray my color on to give it a very beautiful blended look so when I select a shade darker they bleed together and there is hardly a difference between the 2 shades and for the backgrounds, its wonderful to work with, however, it does have an odor to it, that makes my throat all icky and I can taste it for a while. I am not sure it they have it inteh US, but I ordered mine through the local hobby shop here. They are around 4 bux a bottle, and have yet to seperate sitting there as I went to town and bought 2 of each shade <winks> just in case they change their mind, Createx here is very expensive adn each color I found had a different viscosity (?) terminology sucks, jsut a cavewoman, grunt n point, the bottles are 2 oz, and very very very large selection of colors

Originally Posted by natcusack

I am not sure if I am seasoned enought to stick my nose in, but I have found an acrylic airbrush paint called vision, and its absolutely wonderful, they have over 13 shades of just green, so you dont have do do allot of mixing, and saving colors, I use it almost like a watercolor, I spray a fine mist of water on the tiger/jaguar, or lion and then spray my color on to give it a very beautiful blended look so when I select a shade darker they bleed together and there is hardly a difference between the 2 shades and for the backgrounds, its wonderful to work with, however, it does have an odor to it, that makes my throat all icky and I can taste it for a while. I am not sure it they have it inteh US, but I ordered mine through the local hobby shop here. They are around 4 bux a bottle, and have yet to seperate sitting there as I went to town and bought 2 of each shade <winks> just in case they change their mind, Createx here is very expensive adn each color I found had a different viscosity (?) terminology sucks, jsut a cavewoman, grunt n point, the bottles are 2 oz, and very very very large selection of colors

where do you get it from?

its wonderful to work with, ("however, it does have an odor to it, that makes my throat all icky and I can taste it for a while". )


YOU NEED TO WEAR A MASK!!!!!!!

new to the airbrushing world.... just bought a bunch of createx AA and am wondering what the consistancy should be with my very inexpensive badger 150?

I spoke to AA the other day and was told they have reformulated thier paint and made it thinner.

Wow... Major bummer for me. I am just getting back into ABing and bought a couple hundred bucks worth of AA yesterday. Wish I wouldve waited now.