Reply To: [unofficial weekender] It's Friday and the sun is shining!

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Today I learned something about painting – my brush technique sucks. I’ve watched countless videos on youtube about how to paint this or learning to create a certain effect, but never anyone pointing out why my basic painting sucked.

It all started when I added a bit “too much” water to my wet palette. And suddenly, it started working beautifully!

Obvs, thin your paints. This is important. Using a too-wet-wet-palette sometimes causes the paints to separate and thin out a bit “too much” on the surface. This is actually a good thing. Here’s why:

When you mix the paint back together on the wet palette, it gets right inside the bristles. It’s also slightly thinner than the jelly-like goop straight from the pot, so it flows off the paintbrush better. The difference between having paint *in* your brush, rather than *on* the tip is immense.

If you paint with paint *on* the tip, it doesn’t come off the brush so easily. And when it does, it might come off in a blob. Or, as you stroke your brush along the model, it only comes off in places, not along the entire length of the stroke. Given how difficult some of us find it to get the brush into exactly the right place in the first place, it’s really disheartening to hit just the spot you were aiming for, but no paint comes off! This means three or four strokes (instead of one) just to get the paint to leave the bristles – and a raggedy, blobby finish on the model!

Also, mixing two colours together on the palette to create a particular shade not only creates a nice range of colours, it *also* encourages the paint to get right into the bristles. I used to use four or five or more different pots of paints to create a gradient effect – now I just put a couple of drops of the “start” colour and a few of the “end colour” onto the palette and mix with the brush I’m painting with. Once done, twist the bristles in the paint to reform the point and – here’s the crucial bit – touch onto a paper towel to remove the moisture. Now you’ve got paint but not water in the bristles of the brush.

I’ve always been a bit stingy with my paints – using a single drop where necessary and, when it was all used up, putting another drop down. My waste was almost zero. I’ve only just realised that this was also holding me back – because I’d continue using a paint that was already past it’s best (instead of simply decanting more) which made painting after two or three hours much more difficult that at the start of the session.

Yes, miniature paint is expensive. But if you’re replenishing pots one or two, every now and again, there’s no need to be stingy with the paint (if you’re using a wet palette) – it’s far better to have too much wet, flowing paint on the palette, than not enough slightly-drying-out-but-still-workable paint, just for the sake of a couple more dabs!

 

Sorry to everyone who already knew this.

But for me, it’s been a bit of a revelation today.

This morning I was using tiny dots of paint, it was drying out on the palette and I would rush to use it up. I tried to keep a point on my brush (usually cleaning it and shaping it in my mouth) and put only the tiniest amount of paint on the tip, to help it keep its shape.

Now I whack plenty of paint onto the palette, keep the palette good and wet, mix my own colours, get the paint right into the bristles and I’ve found that painting this way is quicker, more accurate and altogether more enjoyable.

If only just one of the youtube videos I’d seen in the last 12 months had started with “this is how paint works, this is how it goes from brush to model” I’d have been doing this a long time before today!

I’ve got three cyberpunk police characters to paint up to finish my Titan Forge diorama tonight. I’d been putting them off, dreading actually putting brush to model, because I felt like I couldn’t improve upon the zenith highlighting and would only be doing a damage limitation exercise in trying to get some colour onto them.

Now I’m actually looking forward to painting them!