Little Chunklettes.

[J2FcM]

Does anyone ever experience little chunklettes when painting?

To be more precise...
I\'m working on my first reflective NMM sword.
black, shadow grey, and white are my colors. all GW.

now, whenever I feather my white, unless highly dilute, across the sword blade, I see tiny little white specs\\chunklettes\\somethings. Now, I working off a CD case palette which I wash with soap and water before each use. I dry and wipe my brushes on a paper towel and a GW blister pack foam. and the paint is ALWAYS more than 2:1 diluted... I would say at 4:1 given how randomly I add more or less water.

Now, could these chunklettes be because:

My paint is separating on the palette?
My feathering technique sucks?
I am not mixing the paint enough at some point?

gosh, I just dont know! I will continue experimenting and post photo\'s soon.


PS - and just so I don\'t have to keep making threads... is there such a thing as pushing down to hard with a brush. I always wonder if I am pressing too hard... I only paint with the tip of the brush, but sometimes I will press it down a little bit so the hairs lose their point and \"fan\" out, so they cover more area... is that bad\\damaging to previous paint layers?

 

[mattsterbenz]

Ive found that this happens to me too. I am pretty sure it comes from the paint that dries on the edge of the blob of paint on the pallette. Once the paint gets thinned again, the dried area gets mixed in with the wet paint. A way to avoid this would be to place small amounts of paint on the pallette, and when it gets a little to thick dont re-thin it, just start on a new spot on the pallette and use some fresh paint.

Hope you can understand this

-Matt

Edit: forgot your second question! The brush shouldn\'t damage any previous layers, as long as they are fully dry. The feathering technique would be damaged easier, so try to go as gentle as possible and make sure the previous layer is well dried.

 

[J2FcM]

Matteo Matteo...

I understand what you mean, by the blobbo drying...
SO PERHAPS, this is what is happening:

Typically, when placing a color on my palette, i put drops of water on first, using the handle of my crap paint brush. 1 drop, 2 drop, 3 drop, 4 drops... looks good!
Next up, I dip the brush handle into the paint, and start swirling that around in the water.

Now I bring up 2 things.
Since the entire \"paint drop\" does not come off in the swirling process, the 4 drops of water to one drop of paint is likely to be more like 6 - 8 drops of water to 1 drop paint... (ie. since most of the paint stays on the brush end *i think*)

the second thing is... Since I only have a small puddle on my pallette (4 drops of water with some pigment in it)... maybe my paint starts drying with 5-10 minutes, and its AFTER those 5-10 minutes that my painting starts going to crap, because I am getting drying gelatinous debris from the ever drying outer ring blob!!!

Please folks, does this make sense?!

 

[mattsterbenz]

As it dries try only using the paint in the center, rather than stirring the whole blob or taking from the edge.

The edges will keep drying, there is no escape!

-Matt

 

[J2FcM]

HO HUM, I suppose you\'re right there is no escape...

sigh, another dead end. But yes, I do take only from the center, only with brush tip, and I frequently rinse my brush off. I rarely re-stir the paint either, unless its drying and I added more agua.

 

[vincegamer]

you could set up a wet pallete, or for about a dollar you could buy a pallete with \"cups\". When you drop the water and paint into the cup, it stays deeper than it will on a flat surface and thus stays wet longer.

 

[farseerlum]

i\'m pretty sure it\'s just the white paint.

they all tend to do that when spread thin. i think it\'s just the graininess of the paint as well as the fact that white stands out like dogs nuts.

my only possible solution would be to try vallejo model air white. it\'s very thin and very fine pigment. or wait to try P3 white, it\'s a liquid based paint without pigment particle.

i believe there are other liquid pigment paints also but i don\'t know the name of any.