Blending - Pro\'s please tell your secrets!!!

[Flashman14]

There is a painter here ?? who paints in the reverse - whereas a lot of us paint colors directly on a black primed figure and gradually lighten up a blocked in color (dark blue, blue, light blue), this person starts with a white primed figure and washes in all the shades leaving the white of the primer (which gets tinted in the process) to be the highlights . . .

dang . . what\'s his name . . . ?????

It\'s a neat effect - I\'m too scared to try it.

I wonder if that\'s what you were doing?

When Sturm is talking about thinning a color to milk consistency - note that this is applied in increasingly SMALLER areas - to the higher parts of a mini - the edges.

In a traditional \"wash\" - the paint is applied in the opposite place - in the recesses, in the low parts - this fills the holes (with color) and stains the highlights. A wash also can unify to a small extent the result of regular blends.

I my view though the \"wash\" is significantly thinner. In the blending thing Sturm\'s talking about it has much more coverage capability but it is thin enough to be able to drag the edges of the color into the slightly darker shade below it - this serves to obcscure that edge - that line where the two shades meet. By definition a blend.

Any missteps there Sturm?? (you and I use the same technique)

[Javelin]

Check out Vallejo\'s site,
http://www.ttfxmedia.com/vallejo/cgi-bin/_modelis.asp?p1=ing&p2=modelcolortecnicas

It will give you the best possible description of layering on the web. The figure is a 54 mm but all the steps still apply.

John

[Javelin]

Check out Jenova\'s site, (Whom I personally thinks is one of the best painters around) She was too modest to give her website and tutorial on blending.

http://www.jenova.dk

Go to tutorial section.....Oh yea, check out her Valkyrie for insanely tiny details, those things are about the the size of a US dime!!

[Sturmhalo]

Originally posted by freakinacage
sturmhalo - what do you use as a final wash for skin? is it a wash or a thinned paint? also, i\'ve tried this before and i\'ve got it to work quite well for things like fabric etc. but i can\'t seem to do with skin. what shade do you use - is it the base/shade/highlight colour? \'cause if you apply a highlight wash, it\'ll lighten the shading and a shade wash will darken the highlights and a basecoat wash would do a little of both???

First off, I only use inks for washes and glazes. It\'s important to differentiate between a wash and a glaze as well! A glaze for example would be mixed up by taking a spot of ink and adding a shit load of water to it. If you were to brush the glaze over an area of white paint it would ideally just tint the white with whatever colour the ink is. A wash however might be done with undilute, or perhaps slightly dilute ink. If this were brushed over a white surface it would impart a much darker colour to the white.

In my opinion inks are better for washing and glazing rather than dilute paint, as their natural translucency doesn\'t muddy the colour of your paint work.

Anyway, back to your question. I finish my flesh off with a glaze, not a wash. The glaze is usually a mix of brown and chestnut ink diluted with a lot of water (as explained). If the skin is quite dark I might just use brown ink alone though (still dilute of course!). As I say, you want the glaze to just tint the paint work. In some cases this may even be barely noticable!

:D

[Sturmhalo]

Originally posted by Flashman14

When Sturm is talking about thinning a color to milk consistency - note that this is applied in increasingly SMALLER areas - to the higher parts of a mini - the edges.

I my view though the \"wash\" is significantly thinner. In the blending thing Sturm\'s talking about it has much more coverage capability but it is thin enough to be able to drag the edges of the color into the slightly darker shade below it - this serves to obcscure that edge - that line where the two shades meet. By definition a blend.

Any missteps there Sturm?? (you and I use the same technique)

yep, I think we\'re on a similar wavelength!

:D

[mouse]

GW has a good range of inks...try them.
:)

Vallejo has a good range of glazes...try them. :)

When diluting paint, inks or glazes, I always run through a piece of paper before painting. If the dilution is right, keep that strip of paint on the paper. You can always use it as a reference the next time you need to mix again.

PS: Try \"borrow\" from those ladies perfume paper...you know, those that they use to spray samples on and shake it in the air to smell it...its good to use those.:D

[Logansama]

don\'t use water, use acetone

[sippog]

Interesting thread. The Vallejo article is particularly well written - thanks to whoever it was for posting the link.
Personally I too tend to make it up as I go along - work the paint until I\'m happy. With oil based paint (which I hardly ever use) I know the idea is to lay down flat areas of colour and then feather the edges.
You can do this with acrylics if you use a retarder (wet blending) and it has the great benefit of being both quicker and not adding too heavy a layer of paint which might obscure detail. Mostly however I just use layers where detail isn\'t crucial.
My problem with a lot of otherwise brilliant painter\'s work is that it\'s just too clean and well defined. The colours are often too primary in hue as well. For me this is antithetical to the goal of producing something natural looking.
For that reason I always use washes and glazes over my shading to tone it down and bring it all together. (Sometimes I go too far and produce a muddy mess!)
As somebody wrote elsewhere on this site: displaying photographic close-ups of tiny figures does foster the ideal of \"clean\" painting (though it\'s difficult to imagine any other method of assessment).
My paint work is very messy close-up but viewed with the naked eye - it works much better, I think.

[Chrispy]

Originally posted by Logansama
don\'t use water, use acetone

You, sir, are insane... This sounds to me like the time someone told me putting dishwasher soap in my inks would make them flow well and now they all come out way too glossy.

Acetone would be good for oil paints (not water souluble oils like my Winsor and Newton) but beyond that, it\'s a no no to me. Why? I can\'t tell you what chemical reactions happen and such but follow this line of logic:

Brush handles are made of wood.
That wood has Lacquer.
Acetone eats away lacquer.

Thus we can conclude that using acetone will ruin your brush handle, as well as the hair because natural fibers don\'t like it.

I\'ve used water and Matte Medium and I\'ve had no problems. Of course, if you want to try this and this is your way, go ahead and use it.

I just wanted to say something before everyone goes out and puts nail polish remover in thier paint bottles.

God know I inhale primer fumes, paint smell, and I don\'t wanna add more! :P

[Logansama]

Blending is an absolute pleasure this way.

I use nylon brushes for all my blending and have no need to load the brush to the hilt so that it would eat away at any lacquer either.

The acryllic paint doesn\'t break down at all when mixed with acetone, it simply thins it thoroughly and when applied to a drying surface makes wet blending FAR easier to carry off.

When you want to then go into your final highlights which require pinpoint accuracy then one would use the sable brush and water as a thinning medium.

Feel free to try it. It also practically eliminates all brush marks as well. When tryihng to get a smooth blend during NMM for example, it\'s great.

[Sturmhalo]

Originally posted by Logansama
don\'t use water, use acetone

Whaaat... acetone in acrylics?! :o Mind you you, acetone full stop is something that I\'d want to keep out of the equation!

Acrylics thin best with water or a special medium of some sorts. Oil based paints are best thinned with artists white spirit, thinners, or some other medium specially designed for the job. But acetone ???

Acetone ain\'t nice stuff to be using, the fumes alone are far worse than thinners or white spirit! Also, it destroys paint, especially acrylic which it begins to destroy on contact! That\'s why I use it to strip paint!

DON\'T start using acetone in your painting folks!

[Sturmhalo]

Originally posted by Logansama

The acryllic paint doesn\'t break down at all when mixed with acetone, it simply thins it thoroughly and when applied to a drying surface makes wet blending FAR easier to carry off.

What happens if the area of paint you\'re blending begins to dry out, surely the acetone mix would destroy that paint if it came into contact with it? It can take a matter of seconds for acetone to begin eating away at acrylic.

???

[mouse]

You, sir, are insane... This sounds to me like the time someone told me putting dishwasher soap in my inks would make them flow well and now they all come out way too glossy.

Chrispy, it kinda work for me. Maybe you got to experiment with different dishwasher and make it mild...really mild.

I tried (recommended by hot lead or something...can\'t remember) and only got it to work after a few tries (my mum was duly surprised that I bought some much dishwasher for her lol ). It really does flow really smoothly. Only a drop is necessary.

[Logansama]

Acetone is a solvent.

When it comes into contact with dried out vinyl based acrylic paint the result is..... it dissolves the paint.

Painting dissolved paint of one tone next to dissolved paint of another tone (dissolved in any medium, paint mixed with water is still dissolved) and blending together would be called wet blending.

Please try it before you tell me it\'s insane. I\'ve been doing it for 2 years.

Make sure you do paint in a well ventilated area though, it could be fatal. That\'s serious folks.

And obviously don\'t lick the bursh.

[frenchkid]

What!!!:o
Who would want to paint without being able to lick his brush. I do that all the time and it\'s like a mechanisme can\'t do without. Pus paint is so good :P And that way I don\'t have to go eat, more painting time lol

[Chrispy]

Whatever, wet blending is a no-no, too because it creates a kind of \"curdle\" to the paint. I perfer thinning and layering paint or my own wet-dry blending where the basecoat is dry and I blend wet paint in. Some things just don\'t work out for one person and I was just warning everyone to try it on something else before hand.

Also, Cyril\'l exact words to me from a message:

Hi,i just changed the pot,the paint don\'t dry in the new one.I just use wather with the paint.I think my blendings are better since i bought a new lamp! One mor ething,i don\'t mix the paint on the mini,and when my mix egin to dry i make a new one. My advice is to always work with fresh paint. Cyril

[Jenova]

I wouldn\'t say you can\'t use wet blending. I think Vaitalla uses wet blending. She is a GD winner and her paintjobs look very smooth.

That said, I personally prefer layering, but that\'s just a matter of taste :)

[Temperance]

I\'m a little surprised that the acetone works for wet blending. It evaporates really fast, so I would think that it would dry faster than if you just used water. I can see it evenly dissolving paint, but I still think the end result might be that it looks a bit lumpy in the end. Obviously, I haven\'t tried it but I\'ve been on the layering side recently.

I don\'t see it as a problem as a solvent, and I actually like the smell after all those Organic Chemistry labs I took in college.

I\'d love to see some examples of figures that used acetone!

[edomingox]

I been using Vallejo\'s Dilutant. I guess I should try water. maybe it will work better. :) I think I\'ll post a poll about that..

I think wet blending may be great if you are really good at it. But since I\'m not, I will have to go with layering.

Wouldn\'t it be harder to layer with black primer than white primer?

[Logansama]

I\'ve never used Vallejo paints

I really want to.

The reason I started using acetone in the citadel line as a thinner is because so many of the colours, white in particular, dry very unevenly if you layer them. It gets very frustrating when you are going for a perfectly smooth finish and you have to layer several coats of white and ending up losing the flat surface texture.