Washing with paint

[Firepower]

So this is something that's annoyed me for a long time, and it just so happened to pop in my head while I was actually somewhere I could get an answer: here!  

 

I often read tutorials that say to wash a model using a paint.  In several, they suggest just making a 50:50 mix of paint and water.  This doesn't work worth spit for me.  The pigment becomes scattered, and the surface tension becomes like water, making an even or smooth toning impossible.

 

So, for those who do it, how do you make a quick wash out of your paints?  If you can post examples of the results, that'd be swell, too.

[Lucien Eilam]

Acrylic medium instead of water to stop the paint breaking up, touch of flow aid/washing up liquid/floor polish to break the surface tension.

[Firepower]

Is acrylic medium just called 'acrylic medium,' on the bottle, or do brands name them something specific?

[Slave to Darkness]

I wash with soap or shower gel, no wonder your called 'BLACK Templars', joking aside though, GW's Lahmian Medium (only brand I have access to atm) is ok for this, and oddly enough human saliva

[Lucien Eilam]

Comes under all kinds of names, and all kinds of formulations. There's GW's Lahmian Medium, easily available but expensive for the quantity.  Vallejo Glaze Medium is similar, and cheaper. A lot of acrylic airbrush thinners are essentially acrylic medium. Companies like Schmincke and Atelier sell acrylic binder, which becomes acrylic medium when mixed with water or IPA. You could use a matt medium from a company like Vallejo or Winsor & Newton.

[Slave to Darkness]

Is the Winsor & Newton stuff any good? Got an art shop 4 doors away from mine that stock their stuff. 

[Lucien Eilam]

W&N is very high quality, but remember they don't formulate with miniature painting in mind, so you sometimes have a bit more work to do. Their matt varnish is way too thick to use without significant thinning, for example.

 

I've used products like their slow drying medium and flow improver straight from the bottle though.

[Kierdale]

I'm glad Firepower asked this question as recently I've been wondering that myself too.

I use Lahmian Medium to dilute Citadel Shades into glazes and am interested in turning some paints into washes too.

I'll give it a go with Lahmian and keep my eye out for substitutes.

[Dam13n]

It depends on the paint and the intended appearance.  I've created washes from paint using water and / or mediums.

 

Using water you'll want more than a 50:50 mix.  There should be more like 75-90% water if it's to work as a wash.  I've found that water works quite well for tonally weak colours like greys and browns, but not so well for tonally rich colours like blues and reds which don't dilute as well.

 

Mediums are good for those stronger colours as they preserve that strong tone better.

 

For example, one of my favourite ways of doing white armour involves using a water-diluted grey wash followed by a water-diluted brown wash to create the shadows and weathering.  While when washing yellow cloth, I used medium to preserve the strength of the colour I wanted.

 

With water you do need to be careful of tide marks a little more than with mediums, at least in my experience, but that just means a little more care is needed when applying it to make sure this doesn't happen.

 

Of course my latest little love is using artists spirit thinned oils to make washes.  You need to protect the existing paintwork with varnish beforehand (and will need to seal the oils with some more varnish after it's dried) but the end effect is, IMHO, so much nicer than anything else I've used to date.

[Slave to Darkness]

 

Of course my latest little love is using artists spirit thinned oils to make washes.  You need to protect the existing paintwork with varnish beforehand (and will need to seal the oils with some more varnish after it's dried) but the end effect is, IMHO, so much nicer than anything else I've used to date.

Care to post an example??

[Subtle Discord]

Since I was taking about Washes in another thread, I may as well ramble here a bit too. I should be working, but I need s bit of a distraction before I dig in.

 

The witchcraft that you speak of is mixing your own Washes, and it's something I did for years before they became commercially available. I still mix my own, but most times I'll use something from Vallejo or GW as a base instead of mixing from scratch. The commercial products are just so perfect in consistency, it's hard to beat.

 

As mentioned, you want to get Acrylic Medium; any well stocked art store will have several brands. Yes, there will probably be a house brand that might just be labeled 'Acrylic Medium', and as others have mentioned W&N, Golden, and Liquitex come to mind. (Tangent: GET Liquitex Flow Aid and use it for everything!) The trick is thinning it down to the viscosity you'll want and getting the pigment level right; this is why I usually just use pre-made Wash and alter with Inks, not paints.

 

The thing about paint is that it is usually a pigment mixed with an opaque base to aid in coverage. When this is thinned the opaque base thins down to a milky consistency that is hard to control; it was never really meant to be thinned like that. Depending on just how thin and other factors (like how it's used and desired effect) this can work, but many times the results are not that good. When doing bone and pale colours, a bottle of milky pigment like this can be very useful as a glaze to carefully build up highlights, for example.

 

Most washes have little or no opaque pigments in them; they are meant to be transparent or translucent colour that lets the base show through. So, in most cases if you try and mimic this with a paint the effects just won't be the same. Now, take some Acrylic Medium and add some Ink (pure pigment - also available at your local art store) and you can easily get some very desirable results. It will take a lot of trial-and-error to get the balance of Pigment to Viscosity right, but it can also made huge amounts at reasonable prices if you can get it right. Be sure to get Matt or Flat finishing medium, for a more desirable surface once dry.

[Firepower]

 

 

Of course my latest little love is using artists spirit thinned oils to make washes.  You need to protect the existing paintwork with varnish beforehand (and will need to seal the oils with some more varnish after it's dried) but the end effect is, IMHO, so much nicer than anything else I've used to date.

Care to post an example??

 

 

All of my Arrows (blog link in my sig) are washed using this technique.  It cretes a very good crevice-wash, which doesn't do much to stain or tint the surfaces while it practically leaps into the nooks and crannies.  It makes for super easy hard lining.  If you want it to be a bit more of a glaze, use satin varnish instead of gloss. 

 

 

 

Speaking of, there's the difference between glazes and washes that I hadn't thought of when posting the original question.  Really, the only difference between them is viscosity and surface tension, but is making one or the other as simple as thinning more/less, or is it a whole other process?

 

I actually have Vallejo Glaze Medium, and tried using it once for glazing white over a power weapon effect.  It did not go well, to say the least.

[Dam13n]

Care to post an example??

I could, but the stuff I've been using the technique on isn't 40k or even GW, so would be mercilessly purged by my PC&A colleagues.

[Gurth]

So, for those who do it, how do you make a quick wash out of your paints?

I put a dab of paint on a palette, add one or more dabs of water with the same brush, mix the two, and smear it onto the model. If too thick I add water straight to the model, if too thin I add a little more paint (to the palette, not the model). Just plain tap water, by the way, not fancy de-ionised stuff. Basically, my advice here is: don’t try to accurately follow instructions, just mix and see where you end up.