Now, after a week of preliminary articles, we can get down to the main event - painting a miniature. But let's not be hasty - patience and knowledge are our allies in doing the best work possible. Before dunking your brush in a paint pot and spreading it over the figure, let's talk about the best ways to ensure that your paint has the proper consistency to flow correctly off your brush, and how to keep those expensive brushes lasting as long as possible.
Rule One: Do Not Paint Directly From The Pot!
This is advice you may have heard before, though you may not know the reasons why experienced painters repeat it so often. Actually, there are two important reasons, so let's talk a bit about each of them.
First of all, if you dunk your brush right into the pot, you run the risk of getting paint up into and under the ferrule. This can cause the bristles to splay, meaning you lose that nice tip and the ability to precisely apply paint to the miniature. You'll need to clean your brushes more often and probably more aggressively if you habitually do this, which can drastically reduce the lifespan of the brushes. This is inadvisable because a good brush is your most important tool and your most expensive investment. You don't want to be laying out that kind of money for new brushes every week or even every month if it can be avoided.
Get yourself a palette for your paint. If you have a brush tub like the kind featured in "Having the Right Materials", the inside of the lid is the perfect palette. You can use any flat, non-porous surface, but I prefer the kind that have dimples to keep colors from flowing into others, and a larger central area for those times you do want to blend.
If you're using paint in dropper bottles (like the AV Game Colors), just add a few drops to one of the dimples. You don't need a lot, and we'll see why in a moment. If you're using traditional paint pots, transfer the paint from the jar to the palette with a large brush or a pipette. I have an old eyedropper from a medicine bottle that works fine - but a glass one is easier to clean than a plastic one.
If you use a dropper, take care not to draw in so much paint that it enters the rubber bulb - otherwise you'll need to take it apart to clean it. Regardless of whether you use a dropper or a large brush to transfer paint, be sure to clean it thoroughly and immediately. Otherwise you run the risk of contaminating your paints with other colors.
The other reason you don't want to paint directly from the pot is that the paint in the pot is almost certainly too thick to ensure good flow from the brush and an even consistency to the coat. Experienced painters may thin the paint right in the pot to ensure it has the right consistency, but until you get the hang of the right mix, it's more advisable to thin it a little bit at a time on the palette. If you thin it too much, you've only wasted a few drops - but if you overthin it in the pot, you'll be buying a new jar. This leads us to the next rule...
Rule Two: Thin your Paints. Thin Your Paints, Thin Your Paints!
I said it three times because it bears repeating. I have never, in all my years in this hobby, found a paint that is of the right consistency straight out of the bottle. The main thing we want to achieve by thinning our paints, is to ensure that the paint is not drying on the brush before we have the opportunity to apply it properly to the model. If you don't thin your paints, they will not flow properly from the brush, which will make it difficult to apply it precisely to the model and can lead to an uneven application and brush marks.
You don't want the model to look like it's covered in paint, you want it to look like that's the color it was made of in the first place. The best way to ensure a convincing and appealing finish is to apply the paint in several thin coats, building up the color without obscuring the detail. That's a very important thing to remember:
Several thin coats of paint will give better results than one thick coat. Of the preferred brands we discussed in Part Two of this series, Formula P3 is the hands-down winner for thinning. The liquid pigment ensures that the color remains uniform, without separation or loss of brightness. This also makes them excellent as glazes or washes, which will be covered in a later intermediate article.
Let's take a moment to talk about the various things we might use to thin our paints. The first (and most commonly used) thinner is water. It's easy to get and is basically free. But it's not the best choice in many situations. Tap water can contain impurities and may be too "hard" for painting, but water from a softener still contains sodium. If you choose to use water for thinning, I would recommend distilled water or purified bottled water. A little bit goes a long way, so the expense is still almost negligible. Some paint brands thin better with water than others - Formula P3 being the most notable winner in this case.
The other commonly-available household thinner is isopropyl alcohol. I would advise against using this to thin your paints for a couple of reasons. Alcohol is a volatile solution, and thus you will find that paints thinned with it may dry more rapidly . This may be an effect sought by advanced painters in certain situations, but the whole point of this article is about keeping paint from drying too fast. You probably will not find that flow is improved in paints thinned with alcohol. Aside from thinning paints for use in an airbrush, the only time I have used it is when trying to rehabilitate a pot of paint that has started to thicken into a gel. Also, as mentioned in the article on brushes, cleaning a brush with alcohol is not recommended. It can strip the natural preservatives from the sable hairs and may dissolve the glue binding the bristles together in the ferrule.
There are many commercial products that are excellent for thinning. Vallejo makes a liquid thinner that is excellent for this purpose. It is available in a standard 17ml dropper bottle and in a larger size as well. It is what I used to use most commonly, before I developed my own formula for thinner (which I will cover in a later article). However, it is a white liquid - while it does not change the color of the paint when dry, it can make your paint look like a different shade on the palette. If you keep this in mind and trust that the results will be correct, it is an excellent choice. If you are thinning inks or glazes, however, you are better off using water or a transparent medium.
Another great choice is Citadel's Lahmian Medium (also sold as 'Eavy Metal Medium). This is a clear liquid that is designed for thinning paints, inks, glazes and washes. It can also be used to prepare a surface for transfers, but we won't be talking about that any time soon. It's a good choice if you want to use your opaque colors make washes or glazes. Using a medium will allow you to thin a wash to reduce the intensity of the color without affecting its flow characteristics the way that water would. We will talk more about that in an upcoming article about glazes, washes, and inks. If you can find this product, give it a try!
Other choices to investigate are those products known as "flow improvers", "extenders" or "retarders". You will find these manufactured by various companies such as Liquitex, Vallejo, Winsor & Newton, and others. Be sure you are selecting a product designed for use with acrylic paints. Flow improvers work pretty much as the name suggests - improving how the paint flows from the brush and on the surface. Extenders and retarders increase the working time available, allowing for blending and other special techniques . All of these products have one common characteristic - they mean the paint will take longer to dry. Keep this in mind when handling your model.
Are there any times I don't want to thin my paints?
Yes, in fact, there are several applications for which thinning the paint may not be recommended. First of all, you should not need to thin your primer - if you do, I'd say that you're using the wrong kind of primer! The AV Surface Primer does not need dilution to apply a thin, uniform coat.
Another application that works best with un-thinned paints is drybrushing, which we will discuss in further detail in an upcoming article. For now, it's important to note that when drybrushing, you don't want the paint to flow off the brush in the same way as you would when applying base coats, layers, or edge highlights.
Generally speaking, you will not usually want to dilute a commercially available wash or glaze. Citadel Shades already have the proper consistency to settle in the recesses of a model, and glazes lose some of their color saturation and brilliance when thinned. If you want the same effects, but less color, be sure to use a transparent medium to thin these paints, instead of something like the AV Thinner.
How much should I thin my paints?That's a question that does not have a "one size fits all" kind of answer. Generally speaking, you want to thin the paint until it has the consistency of milk. This will give it enough viscosity to stay where you apply it, without going on too thick.
Depending on the paint and the kind of thinner you are using, you should aim for a 1-to-1 ratio of paint to thinner. Until you have some experience working with thinned paints, I suggest trying this out on a miniature that you don't care too much about. Paints that are thinned too much will flow all over the model, ruining it and defeating the purpose of thinning the paint, which is to provide an even and controlled application. Sometimes, I'll touch the tip of the brush lightly to a paper towel after loading it - excess moisture will be wicked away while the paint remains in the bristles.
Rule Three: Don't overload your brush.
Once you have your paint thinned to the proper consistency, take care in loading the brush with paint. Don't mash it straight down into the mix - draw it gently into the paint until it flows about halfway up the bristles. You want enough paint in the belly of the brush, but you never want to get paint up into or under the ferrule.
Having properly loaded your brush, apply the paint to the desired surface by holding the brush at an angle and drawing the tip gently along the area to be painted. Again, you don't want to "scrub" or mash the brush down. Let capillary action do the work for you - this will result in a more precise and even coat of paint.
SUMMARY
So now you know the essentials of preparing your paint to the proper consistency so that it will flow onto and off of the brush properly, without going on too thick and without drying on the brush too rapidly. That concludes our introductory series on choosing and using the right paints.
If you've followed along with the daily articles, you should now be ready to begin painting! Upcoming articles will examine the step-by-step process of painting an individual miniature from start to finish. This process will be broken down into in-depth examinations of basecoating, shading, layers, highlighting and glazes, and sealing the finished miniature to protect all of your careful work. Thanks for reading!
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