Paint Coverage

[montka]

Hello all,

Please could you help with a painting problem I\'ve had. I\'ve been painting the heads of a couple of chaos space marines. I undercoated with GW chaos black spray, basecoated chaos black and applied a first layer with a 50/50 mix of chaos black and codex gray, which seemed to go well.

However when I tried to paint on the next layer, with paint thinned down about 10:1 water to paint (on the first head I painted pure codex gray, on the second 5 parts codex gray one part chaos black) I found that whilst on most of the surface coverage was good, there were in a couple of places dark spots where the paint simply wouldn\'t cover. Specifically they occurred on the rim of the helmet mouth, on part of a cheekbone and on part of the eyebrow ridge - all raised areas. I must have painted about thirty or so layers over these tiny spots, but they stubbornly remained black. The only solution I could find was to use thicker paint on the spots, but this doesn\'t seem like a very professional solution to the problem. Has anyone got any experience in this regard that they could share?

 

[Ritual]

To me it sounds you\'re using too thin paint. I see no reason to thin your paint more than necessary, and if the paint is so thin it causes you trouble there is absolutely no point in it at all.

 

[Glordag]

Well, this could be one of several problems.

The first problem I\'d suspect is that, despite having the paint thinned sufficiently, you\'re not quite getting the proper \"consistency\" on the brush. In other words, you might be leaving too much paint on the brush. In this sort of situation, the water will carry the pigment into the recessed areas of the model, not really leaving much pigment on the raised areas. If you wipe your brush off on a paper towel or something sufficiently after dipping it in the paint, this might fix the problem. I usually do 4-5 \"swishes\" of the brush on the paper towel AFTER I stop seeing paint come off. It\'s usually about 10 \"swishes\" total. I don\'t know if you\'ve seen any of the DVDs floating around here, but the goal is to have a vanishing streak of paint that dries in a second or two, almost like wiping a mirror down with windex on a paper towel.

If this isn\'t the problem, then it could be that the paint you\'re using (the grey) might just have poor coverage. I doubt this is the case if it covers some areas well and not others, but I\'m sure it\'s possible. You might test out other greys available to you on a different model to see if it helps the problem at all.

Otherwise, as Ritual said, your paint might be -too- thin. I know that a lot of painters on here scoff at the idea that paint can be too thin, but if you don\'t have the patience of an award winning artist, you can certainly reach a point at which insanity develops before you finish the model. If you really are using 10:1, that seems a bit much to me. I\'ve heard of people using upwards of 20:1, though, so it should at least be achievable. Personally, I use a dropper and a drybrushing brush and drop about 3 drops of water per brushtip of paint for basing, and about 4-5 for layering. This seems to do the trick for me, though once mixing colors gets involved things tend to get a little out of whack (; .

Good luck!

 

[automaton]

Ritual and Glordag are right in what they say about thinning paints, and I agree with them, but there is another, more simple thing that could be causing the trouble - especially if your grey paint covered the rest of the model ok.

Perhaps either the black undercoat, or your base coat, were simply too thick. If the paint layer is too thick - you can tell when it starts to become slightly glossy - then subsequent layers will not adhere to the surface as well, and this is especially the case if you are using dilute paint. So the solution is just to use thinner layers, both in the undercoat and base coat stages.

I don\'t know if this is your problem, but it\'s worth keeping in mind anyway, as it can cause this sort of trouble.

 

[Glordag]

Originally posted by automaton

Perhaps either the black undercoat, or your base coat, were simply too thick. If the paint layer is too thick - you can tell when it starts to become slightly glossy - then subsequent layers will not adhere to the surface as well, and this is especially the case if you are using dilute paint. So the solution is just to use thinner layers, both in the undercoat and base coat stages.

Wow, I never actually thought about this. For as many posts as I\'ve read on here, it seems like I would have come across this concept. This might actually solve some of the problems I\'ve been having, myself, as I tend to be a little less careful on my basecoat .

 

[Strider]

I\'ve been having the same problem, it seems like my paints aren\'t applying very well and I often have to do many many layers before I see a result. Also when I do washes it seems like the paint just puddles over the area and pools in the recesses rather than changing the entire surface tone. A while ago I didn\'t have this problem, I\'m wondering if maybe my spray primer (which I use to undercoat all my minis) is going on too thick? And when undercoating it doesn\'t adhear well at all (some sections are better than others, which makes me think its something to do with how I prime...)

 

[Einion]

Something to bear in mind is that light colours often cover less well than dark colours. So if you\'re working over a white primer with yellow you\'ll maybe need three thinned coats to start. But over grey it might require five or more. Over black it might not work at all!

Some paints are also much more transparent than others - it\'s worth knowing which are which of the paints you own so that you don\'t struggle for coverage with paints that just aren\'t up to the task. Yellows are notorious for this.

Originally posted by Strider
Also when I do washes it seems like the paint just puddles over the area and pools in the recesses...

That\'s what a wash is supposed to do.

Originally posted by Strider
...rather than changing the entire surface tone.

This is what you\'d use a glaze for.

In practice a glaze and a wash may be done with the same paints, diluted the same amount; the difference is you have a wet brush for a wash, and you, well, wash over the area - applying a pretty wet coat, which of course sinks into recesses (and clings around raised detail due to capillary action). For glazing, as with most basic layering, the brush is damp more than wet, so that you apply a very thin coat that pretty much stays where it\'s put.

Einion

 

[Avelorn]

It couldn\'t be grease from fingers then?