I\'ve been using Future Floor Finish and Liquitex Slow-Dri as additives to my paint for close to two years now, ever since getting back into miniature painting from a 14-year or so break. You do realize that buying an additional flow improver on top of Future Floor Finish is a waste of money, because that\'s essentially what the FFF already does for you? It decreases the surface tension of your paint, essentially a cheap acrylic sealant/surfactant in quarter-gallon jugs for about $5 each. Being essentially clear liquid acrylic, you likely don\'t need a glaze medium either as that\'s what the FFF does as well - an acrylic substitute in your thinner that dilutes your paint without overly affecting the pigment. (Although granted, glaze medium usually has more of a matte finish.)
I use two mixtures for thinning my paints: one is is roughly one part FFF, one part Slow-Dri, and 2 parts distilled water - I use this as a general general purpose paint thinner, from adding in small amounts to make for smoother basecoats to adding in concentrations of 1 part paint to 15-20+ parts thinner for glazes or staining washes; my other thinner mixture is generally 1 part FFF and 4 parts distilled water or thereabouts - I use this strictly for thinning for washes and the like. Essentially the FFF acts as a flow improver and the reason I don\'t include my usual Slow-Dri is that it acts as a thickening agent, much like adding PVA glue to paint does.
Yes, stuff I paint using FFF to cut my paints dries semi-glossy to outright glossy, depending on how much I\'ve used washes or glazes (the more FFF, the more shine, in other words). I figger the tradeoff is that since I\'m directly adding an acrylic floor sealant to my paints that dries to a solid finish, they\'re less likely to chip and flake - it\'s not the paint that generally comes off if I accidentally drop a miniature, it\'s the miniature itself that occasionally comes unglued/unpinned and explodes into its component parts.
Not really much to say about Slow-Dri other than you probably don\'t want to use it in concentrations greater than 20%, as it binds things up a bit too much and causes paint to thicken (again, much like PVA glue). I\'ve also found that when used in my usual purpose thinner with certain paints or chemicals (Tamiya Glosses, for example, or anything acidic) it gets very thick and gluey, so if I\'m using Inks for glazing I generally just stick with my FFF/water thinning mixture.
So far as using a wet palette, I don\'t - just a simply multi-well watercolor daisy-wheel artist\'s palette. The amount of low-Dri in my general use thinner keeps paint alive for roughly a half hour at a 1:1 paint/thinner ratio. If I\'m doing layering or something with a higher concentration of thinner then we\'re talking 45 mins. to an hour, but I\'ve found I can keep paint thinned \"indefinitely\" if I periodically add a drop or two of thinner every once in a while and keep the mixture stirred to compensate for evaporation.
That\'s not to say I couldn\'t use a wet palette - something sponge-like saturated (but not soaked) with water and a single layer of baking paper across the top. You want baking paper as opposed to \"palette paper\" (as mentioned above) because a) it\'s cheaper and b) can be had in larger quantities. The whole point of a wet palette is that you have a semi-permeable barrier between the paint and a moderate supply of water - the baking paper allows the water through to keep the paint moistened, but at a gradual rate compared to other materials. Wax paper doesn\'t work because it\'s impermeable and regular paper, well, just gets soaked. I\'m to understand if you use a covered, sealable container and purified/distrilled water as the basis for your wet palette, you can keep the paint useable for literally days. The downside of a wet palette is that it automatically adds a little extra thinness to the paint concentration which you need to compensate for as compared to a standard tile or plastic palette. Personally, I again prefer something with wells as I\'ve used concentrations of like 1:30 paint/thinner for tinting and such and that just wouldn\'t work on a flat palette (and I find my ultra-thinned paint stays liquid even overnight, besides). Run with your own personal preference and need, obviously!
I\'d recommend something cheap like baby food jars to store your thinners, clean water, etc. - a little smaller than jam jars and quite a bit cheaper (what, $0.75 for a larger size one?) Even if you use \'em for a while and get a buildup of sedimented paint on the bottom, being glass they wash right out good as new (and did I mention they\'re cheap?)
I also use graduated medication syringes for measuring out my paints and mixtures, and have a whole system of ratios for concentration of additives and paint and such, but that\'s a different essay in itself. 8^) And really, it\'s whatever works for you as a painter, when it comes down to it.
P.S. I think people use the names interchangeably, but you really do want Future Floor Finish as opposed to Future Floor Wax, assuming there is an actual \"Wax\" variety made by S.C. Johnson & Co. (I don\'t believe there is, but still...) For those of you overseas, the stuff also goes by the name of Klear, Krystal Klear, Pronto Wax, Sols Plus, Vloer Plus, Johnson\'s Wipe and Shine, Johnson\'s One and All, GloCot, etc. If it\'s made by Johnson\'s and it\'s an acrylic floor finish, odds are pretty good it\'s the same stuff.
