The world needs more of a lot of things. I’m not 100% certain that alcohol soaked baby wipes are one of them but boy, does it make for a great cleanup!! 🤣🤣
Some fantastic ideas...even if I once again feel attacked about my cutting mat. You are guilting me into replacing it. Such pressure, but the tips were worth it. Cheers!
Yes, I will now keep making derogatory remarks about your cutting mat. Next time, I may even mention you specifically by name. I will tell the world that of all the cutting mats, yours is by far the most like the Texas Hacksaw massacre. 🤣
A great way to do mud is to mix some really rough pigment (cheap, non sparkly eyeshadow works good) into just a little bit of medium so it's sticky but still crumbly. Mush that against your stuff, let it be, and you keep that gritty texture of dried mud.
The waterslide decals are such an intresting idea, im planning on graffiti on city scape walls for zombicide and marvel crisis protocol. Thank you for the tip! Im trying to learn more about it now.
Loving the tips series! As someone that seems to have tried a lot of unusual things in the hobby, have you ever tried one of the panel liner tools? They look like a fountain pen, but work like a quill, dipping into a highly liquid ink & then dropping along recesses. I keep seeing them when I try to find Tamiya panel liner & really want to know how well they work!
Hey! They’re great but they’re weird. I used to do WW2 tanks years ago and yes it worked. But… when tamiya brought out the panel liner bottles with the integrated pointy brush it became a little redundant. Why would I dip that in the pot when the brush was already there. It was a great tool for enamels and oils, in its day, but has been superseded by easier tools. And considering you can wipe off enamel and oil with spirit really easily you didn’t really need to be that neat.
Do you have the floor images? They look great. My latest fav trick is you can use kids/magic sand that come in really small containers (hobbycraft in the UK) and if you mix that into cheap craft paint with a blob of PVA you get a great really nice fine texture. They also come in funky colours and have used this with superglue to look like different materials.
I’m planning on doing a Patreon sometime so I can distribute all the digital files I create. And I have so many of them! Love the sand tip! Here’s another, Tesco sell really big bags of coloured kids sand cheaper than Hobbycraft! Because nothing EVER stays in the sand pit!! 😜
Absolutely brilliant as always. Have learnt 7 new tips there. The only one I have used for a while are the Tamiya pallets. If you ever had the interest could you do a video on brushes ? Takes ages to decide on something that decent but doesn’t cost the same as a leviathon box set 😂. Been looking at rosemary and co but would love your advise/opinion on them
Hey Mr S! My go to brushes have always been Raphael 8404. I always had bad luck with Windsor and Newton as they have annoying hairs that would stick out. However, recently I have started to migrate to Rosemary and co. As their brushes are top notch. In fact, they make the Artis Opis brushes. Best tip is to buy one Raphael 8404 and one Rosemary Series 33 and try both. See which you prefer.
@@thestateofplay2023 I’ve had the series 33 in my basket for a while. Trying to decide if that’s the way to go. Thank you as always 😊 might order them today and see how I get on
The Range ... just saying. They have an art department and stock Winsor and Newton products so no deliver fees and the one near me has a huge selection of Oils and brushes. I always have a look at their pastels as well which can make great pigment powder.
Yeah they only have the Winton line or the Artisan line near me. Which personally are terrible for thinned washes - pigment soup! You can’t beat professional artist oils for superfine pigments and super smooth washes. But price…. On the pastel thing though - I hear ya!! Edit: Just went online. The Range do have W&N Artist oils at £5.99 to £10.99. Very good price! Still, 32 colours would come to £200. 🫣
I dont really use oil paints because the flammable bit and have a little that i dont want to get ahold of the medium. My tip is using gouache paint in a similar manner people use streaking grime. Coat the mini and then reactivate it with water on a sponge, brush, piece of shirt etc and wipe it from the raised edges. I think its just opaque water color. Want to practice trying to legit paint with it more because i bought the set that comes in cakes and you wet to use. I like the idea of wasting less paint by just being able to reactivate it later. Come back a week later to my dried out pallete and pick up with the same mix I was using kind of stuff. Life gets in the way. Issue I have is if I reactivate it on the model I get tide marks. Was hoping it would be a blending hack, but havent figured out the magic sauce yet. CC minis did the first mini video I saw on gouache and James Gurney uses it a ton in 2D art.
I have a set of acrylic gouache but they don’t reactivate sadly. I did watch a video a while back about standard gouache but never got around to testing. As you say, life gets in the way! 🤣👍🏼
Where is the original of this video? How much water was in that second pot for the layman’s medium? (Yes I watched your ink mixing video first, 😉 gonna call it layman’s for ever now)
It’s in the first 8 hobby tools video under the two water pots section on my channel. But if you aim for 75ml water, 5 ml matte medium and 1ml of optional flow aid…
@@thestateofplay2023 ask around your female friends and there more than happy to give them away I've got a metallic blue green that makes for amazing corrosion on copper and brass colors
Retarder extends drying time whereas flow improver changes the fluidity of the paint. So sadly no. You can however use a drop of dish soap which is also a flow improver. Mix it with a bit of water and add it. Stir slowly so you don’t make bubbles. 👍🏼
Thanks! Interesting on the audio. It’s set to exactly where RU-vid tells me to put it. I also thought RU-vid levels the audio up or down after upload but I guess not. I’ll see what I can do!
@@thestateofplay2023 TBH, I am not familiar with any post process that RU-vid applies to uploaded videos. The audio in this one seemed to me a bit lower than other videos tested simultaneously. Also, there seemed to be large fluctuations between min and max audio level.
Eh? I don’t have 12 shades of brown. If you’re referring to the Instant Colours in the background then with those, in the dropper, every colour looks brown. Proper bottle design flaw with those paints.
Some cosmetic acrylic finger decals are great for animal prints for your escher gangers. What brand of water slide transfer paper were you using? Most I have tried failed.
They’re called Hayes. I put a link in the description. Three thin coats of varnish on the paper after printing and before using seemed to work well. Could be the paper, the varnish…who knows in this hobby. Sometimes things don’t work just because the world thinks you wore the wrong shoes that day! 🤣😀 P.s. You want me to spend more time in the makeup aisle buying nail art! 😜👍🏼
Nice tips, it's not often I see one of these videos and it actually has stuff I've not heard over and over again. My tip is for Revell Contacta Professional Liquid Glue. Stick a pin down the applicator tube and it stops it from clogging up between uses, you don't have to store it upright as it totally seals it shut and it also works should you lose the blue cap. I've had my glue since the 90's and it's still going strong.
Those are some really good tips. The hand sanitiser one was a light bulb moment. With regard to mixing thinners etc, I've been using a few drops of glycerin, I don't understand it, but I was told it breaks up surface tension and gives a better finish.
You talk about mixing "4 or 5 big drops of matte medium, and 1 or 2 drops of flow improver" into water to make your "Layman's Medium", but you don't say how much water to mix them with! If you're going to include measurements, please include measurements for all ingredients. Please and thank you.
You don’t need to be that accurate. You’re aiming for it to look like Lahmian Medium. Like a milky water. But it’s basically about 75ml water, 5ml matte medium and a few drops of flow aid.
This is my first exposure to your channel. Looks solid. A note: you need a Mic. I can barely hear you. It's affecting an otherwise very professional looking presentation.
Thanks Austin. I have a mic, pretty hard to record without one 🤣. And audio is mastered to where RU-vid tells me it should be. -12db and -20db. I’ve gone for -15. Can I ask where you’re watching? Phone, computer, Tv?
@@thestateofplay2023 RU-vid on a Mac. I usually watch content at 3 to 5 bars. At 5 bars your audio is barely there. Switching to similar content creators (and a few dissimilar), 5 is either good or a touch too loud. I thought the audio was from an onboard / built-in mic on the camera.
No it’s from a RODE mic on the camera half a metre away. Ok I’ll try to bump it up. I’ll have to find a happy balance because a previous comment told me it was too loud and pierced their eardrums… I personally always found most RU-vidrs way too loud which makes the ads even louder!! 😀
You got me to subscribe with this video. Nicely done! The lamian medium mix is slick (I also use a similar thing by leaving dabs of it on my palette and I dot my brush with it as I paint.
Another tip for the wipes is they make great "tarps,curtains,other fabrics" on terrain. Just soak in pva water mix, scrunch to desired shape and hey presto. Just get cheap ones that don't have teddy bear embossing on them
Toothpicks. Useful for most things and they are cheap. Need to unclog something? Toothpicks. Need to put a little bit of super glue from you very big bottle on a tiny surface? Toothpicks. Want to make subassembly? Toothpicks. Need some easy to build fences or paths? Toothpicks. Need to stir your paints in your old bottle? Toothpicks. Want to make a macabre display of heads on spikes either as scenery or just to paint them more easily? Toothpicks. Got some snacks stuck between your teeth? Toothpicks.
Haha. Reading through that I was thinking “teeth”, and you did not disappoint at the end!! Totally agree. Toothpicks and Blu Tack are the two most underrated hobby tools.
I think that goes for a lot of hobby products. Ammo Oilbrushers look just like mascara. Pigments work just like face powders. 🤣🤣 Nail polish is just glossy acrylic. 🤣
Interaction with videos via likes & comments, I hear, help a channel grow. Yours deserves to be seen. You're very analytical and straight-forward; I know plenty of other hobbyists need to see your brilliance.
Brilliant tips and video! Will definitely be trying some of these out! My hack is using shot glasses as painting handles. Can get anywhere from 10-50 in a pack, along with some blutac it makes for great and inexpensive handles when batch painting.
You mean those plastic shot glasses that come in a big pack? At first I read it as REAL shot glasses and wondered why you weren’t using them for Tequila! Great tip!
@@thestateofplay2023 Yeah exactly those! You can get different heights/quantity/quality ones - but they're available in most supermarkets, just have to keep an eye out for them. I've got something like 30 painting handles on the go for less than £5! And it it breaks, no worries.
Great video! Really liked the Lamian tip. Would you be so kind to specify the water amount compared to the 5 drops of medium + 2 drops of flow improver? 🚀
DENTAL BRACKETS! I use the pointy end to scoop Pigment or Scoop and spread texture-paints, To poke push and scrape where I cant reach and a Knife would cause damage. The String-End can be used to polish surfaces and detect unevenness when cleaning up mold-lines and sprue-gate connections.
I've recently started using a silicone poppet fidget toy (the bubble wrap simulator thing) as a dry pallet when using contrast paints. its little domes make perfect little wells for mixing colors and when your done you just let it dry and pop out the plug of paint.
Yeah, I saw that doing the rounds. Problem is the wells are quite small for mixing a decent amount of paint and you can’t really find a white one anywhere. I don’t really want to be mixing paints in a coloured fidget popper. I’d never know what the actual colour was.👍🏼😀
I have definitely used a cheap eyeshadow palette for shading on miniatures! I'm sure it's basically the same thing, just more expensive because it's more skin safe. Just make sure you don't use the shimmery ones, other wise you have a lot of baby wipes to use.
@@thestateofplay2023 Nope m8, sorry. the performance anxiety is all you ;0) I've been painting 43years so I've made nearly all the mistakes and muddle through to answers to most. This is still a vid I should have been able to look at 40yrs ago, I blame you
@@philgee486 40 years ago it would have been a black and white article in White Dwarf issue minus 60! I may have a full head of hair still but I’m knocking on 37 years in this hobby myself. My first Minis were Ral Partha painted with Humbrol tin pots. 😜
@@thestateofplay2023 Exactly the same, a pack of Ral Partha kobolds painted Afrika Korps desert yellow to play the first D&D scenario in the box, small hobby world!
Couple of reasons. Without a lab coat and serous measuring equipment the PVA can just turn to goop. I found that although the alcohol should evaporate quicker it took much longer to dry. Thirdly it’s the most expensive way to do it. Flow improver is cheaper than IPA. And I like to keep the IPA for airbrush cleaning and well, just cleaning. and finally, it’s flammable. Not that I base near naked flames but I might. Sometime. 🤣
In the ball-jointed doll community, we use chalk pastels for blush or eyeshadow when painting the doll faces. I haven't tried yet, but I imagine a similar technique could also be used for makeup on miniatures as well. You use a craft blade to gently scrape off a small amount, ensuring the texture is fine, and then use a brush to gently apply. It's then affixed with a spray sealant. Years ago before fine detail brushes were widely available as now, cat whiskers were used to paint eyelashes. For finer control, tape the whisker to a brush. Obviously don't go forcefully plucking whiskers from your cat, but if you find one laying about, why not try it?
Welcome! Yes, we tend to use those pastels as pigment powders for realistic dirt and dust. I usually stick the full pastel in a small coffee grinder then pour into a small jar. And for detail brushes, save the poor cats!! You can use Nail Art brushes which are great and no whiskers need to be harmed! 👍🏼🤣🤣
Finally something to do with all that hand sanitizer! Had to come back and watch this again because I had forgotten a few bits but the alcohol gel one is my favourite tip.
