Thinning paints

R

Rev

Member
I know this comes up time and time again, but it has been plaguing me for ages.

I know to advance my technique, i need to begin to do more to my paints than adding a drop of water each time i come to use a colour.

I\'ve just read some posts in over on the B&C forums, regarding tamiya \'clear smoke/black\' so i went out to my local stoer and bought a pot to experiment with.

while there - i picked up a pot of tamiya acrylic paint thinner.

will this work for thinning paints, the same way the rest of you use future floor polish (which we cant seem to get in the UK)

has anyone ever tried this?

the pot says its water soluable...

any ideas - or UK alternatives for thinning??

cheers

rev
 
Orb

Orb

procrastinator
Originally posted by Rev
I know this comes up time and time again, but it has been plaguing me for ages.

I know to advance my technique, i need to begin to do more to my paints than adding a drop of water each time i come to use a colour.

I\'ve just read some posts in over on the B&C forums, regarding tamiya \'clear smoke/black\' so i went out to my local stoer and bought a pot to experiment with.

while there - i picked up a pot of tamiya acrylic paint thinner.

will this work for thinning paints, the same way the rest of you use future floor polish (which we cant seem to get in the UK)

has anyone ever tried this?

the pot says its water soluable...

any ideas - or UK alternatives for thinning??

cheers

rev
Click to expand...

Future is called Johnson\'s Klear over here I believe (Sainsbury\'s/Tesco should sell it).

I\'ve used the Tamiya acrylic paint thinner to thin GW paint for airbrushing. But is too stinky to use for my regular painting and water is cheaper.

Although I\'m not sold on fancy additives to paint (the best painters I know don\'t add anything other than water to paint; it\'s technique and skill) it\'s probably worth having a go for yourself. I know one guy who sometimes adds Tamiya acrylic \"clear\" (matt varnish) to paints that he knows will dry shiney.

Try the acrylic thinner and let us know how it goes
 
lahatiel

lahatiel

New member
Seconding what Orb said: keep in mind that EricJ has said, if I\'m not mistaken, that he uses nothing but water. If a Top 10 artist like him can do what he does with just water, it can\'t be all that bad!

But me, I\'m just starting out myself, too, and I am using some additives -- it\'s just my gadget-centric mentality spilling over from the tech world to the miniatures world, I guess. I don\'t have any experience with Tamiya products, though; I\'m trying additives (flow enhancer, slow-dri, glaze medium, etc.) from fine art companies like Winsor & Newton, Liquitex and Golden.
 
J

J2FcM

New member
Future Floor Cleaner - to make Future Magic wash, take 4 parts water to 1 part Future. Mix in a container before hand... dont mix the future directly into paint.

The ratio can be anywhere from 30% to 15% Future though. The above recipe is typical. I use 5 parts water, 1 part Future.

Note- it also leaves slight shine, and is best suited for washes in my experiences (paint flows very nicely into cracks... but still shiney)

Personally, I tried some of the additives, and I think the best bet is glaze medium. Or just Distilled water.
Practice with the water.

1:1 (1 paint, 1 water), or 1:2 for base coats.
For my tinting I use 1:10.
Shading I use 1:10 or higher (1:12, 1:20).

For white and bleached bone maybe even? I have chalky results, SO you might have to bust out the 1:15+ ratios. Which I have yet to try. But my 1:10 on pure bleached bone = chalky action.
 
M

Mourningcloud

New member
true old Eric does use H2O, but both Jen Haley and Anne Foerster mix both Slo-dry and Flo improver in their water before beginning. Jens mix is 25% flo improver/25 % slo dry/ 50% water.

I have been using this same combination and having great results. Future floor polish essentially acts as a flow improver - it improves the flow of the paint off of the brush as well as on the mini.

My question is, what exactly is a glaze medium used for?
 
J

J2FcM

New member
From what I understand, the glaze medium, works like water, but doesn\'t dilute the pigment? Something along those lines... They give crazy paint tech talk at Brushthralls about it.

Future, I found no advantage with, except maybe washes, but then that ugly shine it leaves... I dont know about post-painting matte sprays and what not... Im worried about ruining my work by accidently dulling it.
 
F

farseerlum

New member
you can understand math maybe?

ok you have some paint say %40 of it is binder, a medium that hold the paint pigment suspended and dries to hold it in place. then you have %55 pigment.this is the actuall color you see. it\'s all ground up really fine but is still just coloured balls. these balls are sometime different color balls that when looked at together look like a single color. the rest would be water, additives etc.

these % are just pulled out of my ehem for illustration.

ok now when you use your paint you add some lovley clean water and change the %\'s

you now have say %50 water leaving you with %20 binder and %30 pigment. now you have less pigment in your paint and can spread the balls out thinner making a nice transition.

but wait you want to keep adding water till you can hardly see any color!

%90 water, %4 binder and %6 pigment. oops. the binder is soo dilute it doesn\'t bind anymore. the color balls seperate and you have balls floating around maybe the balls seperate and you have one color floating and another sinking.

you can paint with that. keep mixing the colors back together and paint with it. the balls won\'t stick well but they will get caught in the paint already down. there is enough binder to hold them there weakly once it\'s dried.
many excellent painters use that technique.

but supposing you don\'t want the color to break or you want your paints to stay in a very particular spot?

using more medium you can.

lets say you add %50 medium to your paint. now you have %70 medium and %30 pigment. it works just like paint and you can get a pretty thin spread.

go the whole hog and you put in %90 medium. gives you %94 medium and 6% pigment. the pigment is so dispersed that it does in fact break. the colors do seperate. but the medium stops them from going too far so it appear that it\'s still one color. you can now just use this as a paint. the mix will stay where you put it (mostly) and when it dries it will be as tough as the paint would be normally.


whew. i wonder if needed to type all that? :D oh well thank the caffine.

spray sealers do tend to knock the metallics around a bit. so do brush on varnishes for that matter. anything thats going to change the shine on your metals will make it look different. hardly a brainwave that. :rolleyes: some people leave the last 1-2 highlights on their metals till after they sprayed it.
 
H

Hoblit

New member
Well, I couldnt find future floor wax here, so I tried something else which seems to work quite well. It\'s about a 1:1:8 ratio of flow enhancer, extender and water.

This seems to work quite well, but my painting skill isn\'t good enough to give a really good critique.
 
R

Rev

Member
i just went into tescos in cambridge and found Johnsons Klear!!

i\'m going to try it this arvo.

remind me of the mixtures you use?
 
J

J2FcM

New member
@Farseer,

much appreciatede long explanation. One thing though, in the first part you use \"binder\" and pigment. When talking of the medium, you say \"medium\" and pigment... Are you using binder and medium as interchangable terms?
 
F

farseerlum

New member
binder and medium is pretty much interchangable yes.

not exactly if you want to get too technical but it\'s close enough :D
 
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