Drying Powdery

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Adanis

New member
I recently made a wet palette, while trying to "juice". I've been using the GW washes to try a similar effect, but I've read that watering down standard paint works better. I'm using Vallejo model paints, and found that, while juicing, when dry it appears "milky" or "powdery". I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this, and what I could do to fix / prevent it? Thanks for the help! I just realized that I used tap water in my palette, could that be the culprit.

I fixed this problem by using Vallejo Game colors with Vallo Glaze medium. I don't know if the medium would have fixed it with the model colors, but the game colors and the medium completely mitigate the chalkiness.
 
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slickwilly79

slickwilly79

New member
I've had similar problems, and I also considered that the tap water could be the culprit, but switched to distilled and it didn't help. For me, it seems to be worse when I start from a darker base then glazing towards lighter shades; for example, going from Dark Angels Green (or vallejo equivalent) to Snot Green. Please post if you figure anything out.
 
gohkm

gohkm

Active member
A cause of the chalky effect may be over-dilution of paint. Too much water causes the pigment and binder to separate, so when it dries, it gives you a nice chalky finish - it's especially prevalent when painting white. Perhaps add a glaze medium and less water?
 
L

Legacy Account

Active member
Yep, I have the same issue with VMC paints - it's not the water.

You can mitigate by not overloading the brush and building up in extremely thin layers. Using (Vallejo) acrylic or glaze medium to thin the paint helps massively. Other brands of paint certainly respond better to drastic thinning (VGC, PP and Coat D'Arms) but it never hurts to add some glaze medium.
 
Einion

Einion

New member
Just to confirm what you're doing here, you're using the very thin paint to colour or tint an area?

It's very unlikely to be the water. Overdilution may not be the issue either, or the only one at least. Hobby paints like Vallejo might have matting agents or fillers in them and these could separate out visibly as whitish residue. However I've used cheaper paints than this which are certain to have fillers and don't get this problem, so I usually suspect the cause is something else when people report this kind of thing.

This may be primarily about which paint colours you're using, and the colours you're applying them over - too light over too dark - which is why I was checking what exactly you mean when you say juicing (it's usually used as another word for glazing, but not always).

Einion
 
Milosh

Milosh

New member
I've only had the chalky residue show up when the brush is overloaded. I don't know what juicing is and am actually scared to find out.
 
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Chris S

New member
It is the paint separating due to watering down, Vallejo is one of the worst for it, put a dab of Vallejo paint on a palette, any palette, add water, mix, then watch it separate, it happens that fast.
 
Einion

Einion

New member
It may not be as simple as that Chris, people do use VMC heavily watered down all the time of course. I'm sure it's not about dilution only, like I say I've used cheaper paint (that's at least as prone to separating as VMC) and not had this sort of problem.

Einion
 
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Adanis

New member
It occurs to me that I also soaked the sponge I used overnight to make sure that the color wouldn't bleed. Brand new sponge, first time I've used it, soaked overnight, so it might be some residue in the sponge? I don't know, but I have some cheaper paints that I've used for washes before, so I'll try thinning those and see what happens, I'll also try now that I've thoroughly cleaned my sponge. I'll tell you if anything works! Thanks for all of the helpful responses!
 
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Adanis

New member
Nope! It's probably the Vallejo paints. I tried some other cheap paint too, which was chalkier, and I tried the Vallejo without my wet palette, which was still chalky. What are some good brands to use for gradual washes for shading / highlighting? I was under the influence that Vallejo is pretty much top of the line mini paints. Also, I'm using black over red, shading it gradually.
I was originally using GW washes to do that, but I didn't like the water spots, and I read that standard paints do a better job, so I tried that. The washes shaded well, without chalkiness, but I tried some diluted Vallejo black over a washed area, after it was dry, and it turned out chalky.
Also does a glaze medium prevent this?
 
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Einion

Einion

New member
Adanis said:
It occurs to me that I also soaked the sponge I used overnight to make sure that the color wouldn't bleed. Brand new sponge, first time I've used it, soaked overnight, so it might be some residue in the sponge?
Click to expand...
Just to check one thing, what are you using between the sponge and the paint? How long you soaked the sponge shouldn't make any difference.

Adanis said:
Also does a glaze medium prevent this?
Click to expand...
It might, but it depends on the exact nature of your problem.

Since you mention having the problem with black, are you getting actual whitish residue or tide marks, or just a very matt surface?

Also it seems from what you've typed that you're applying washes for your shadows here - flooding very dilute paint onto the surface and letting it settle into the recesses? That's not what would usually be called juicing, that's just washing.

Einion
 
Solun Decius

Solun Decius

New member
I've had this problem a few times. I suspected the tap water, then the baking paper in my wet palette, especially if I had used the same spot very much I was afraid paper residue was blending into the paint.
I first noticed it when blending a darker red into the shades of a lighter red, but the color seemed to end up lighter when it dried, ruining the effect. If I painted over with pure water, wetting the area, it would look right but as soon as it was dry the matte/chalky effect came back. I really like my Reaper Master Series paints because they dry really matte but too matte can look whitish. A few days ago this happened again with Blood Red and I actually had two bottles of that so i did a comparison. I'm sure it was worse with one bottle than the other and didn't need watering down to happen, so I guess it's a case of paint gone bad or defected from the start or maybe too much matte medium. Either way I marked one bottle with an X and might to more comparisons later on :)
I've sometimes felt that overdilution can result in this but I've never tested that thoroughly. I still feel that mixing paintes with RMS Flow Improver rather than only water fixes a lot of problems with consistency in texture/color. It can also give paints from other companies a better matte texture, closer to the RMS paints themselves.
I've noticed that when I really need something black, then a good matt finish isn't necessarily a good thing. I feel VMC black dries too glossy, but as a result it looks and feels more black than the matte surface of RMS Pure Black.
 
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Adanis

New member
Einion said:
Just to check one thing, what are you using between the sponge and the paint? How long you soaked the sponge shouldn't make any difference.


It might, but it depends on the exact nature of your problem.

Since you mention having the problem with black, are you getting actual whitish residue or tide marks, or just a very matt surface?

Also it seems from what you've typed that you're applying washes for your shadows here - flooding very dilute paint onto the surface and letting it settle into the recesses? That's not what would usually be called juicing, that's just washing.

Einion
Click to expand...

I'm getting a whitish residue, not tide marks specifically. The whitish residue seems like it might be just a result of drying to matte, but either way it's whitish.

I'm not applying washes, I was using GW wash instead of watering down paint. I was using the washes for glazing (apparently the same thing as "juicing").
 
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TJKleens

New member
While I'm new to painting I've noticed that I'm having the same problem with my paints being chalky. I thought maybe it was because I was new and just bad at painting. I too use valejo and I've been trying to paint space wolves. Just grey not the grey blue. I guess maybe I've been watering mine down too thin. I'll try a test tomorrow on a few bits and repost on this thread with my results. I'll paint the same type of bit (same arm or weapon) but do 4 or 5 at the same time. They will all be primed the same. I'll vary the dilution from the bottle as I paint. First will be straight from the bottle then thinner as I go along. I'll post pics of the results with my findings. I'll try the same thing in the coming days with P3 paints and citadel paints. I'll post all my findings on this thread.
 
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T

Tommie Soule

New member
GW washes have a matte medium in them that dries milky/chalky especially when allowed to puddle and more so when addind too much water. this is most apparent with Leviathan purple.
However as much as there is a lot of blame put on to whatever product of whatever origin round these parts i myself look to HOW I'M USING THEM for the answers.
Where one person may see a 'weakness' in a product I see a 'property' in a product that, when used appropriatley with developed skill will create optimum results.
E.g. Kommando Khaki = 'poor' coverage' whinge, whine. (negative view)
Kommando Khaki = Tint for rich colours to create a 'washed out' feel when applied over the top of said rich colour, awesome faded jeans look mate! (positive view)

A bad workman alwa........................ ;)

T
 
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TJKleens

New member
Sorry it took me so long to post the results from the test. Life just gets in the way sometimes. In this test I used the color "golden olive" from the vallejo line of paints. Anyway, here's the results. The bits were primed grey. I used 5 separate drops of paint for the test. Drop one no water. Drop two 1 drop water, and so on. This way the original drop wasn't diminished even further since I was drawing pigment from it. As you can see the they get progressively thinner and chalkier looking as I added water. I'll post the result for P3 and GW paints in the days to come. Hope this comes in handy for others. TJ

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75051113@N07/6774416699/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/75051113@N07/6774415879/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/75051113@N07/6774415541/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/75051113@N07/6774416025/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/75051113@N07/6774416805/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/75051113@N07/6774415711/in/photostream/
 
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Adanis

New member
I ordered Vallejo Game colors, and a Vallejo glaze medium. I mixed a glaze and tried it with the medium, and it worked perfectly. The glaze medium completely fixed the chalkiness. I just wanted to post so that anyone else with this problem would know.
 
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