0% correctly for me! 😇 I'll need to buy more milk! Great video again mate. Looking forward to your follow up work on how to improve milk for use in the painting world? 😂
Best video I’ve seen in thinning paints. Never seen anyone else go into this much detail about what the brush should be doing at all these different levels. Subscribed!
Thank you for that comment! It's the weird thing that's never explained in other painting guides and it took me ages to work it out myself. Happy to help!
This is perfect! I'm just starting out in painting miniatures. My paints and tools arrive tomorrow so I'll watch this video about 20 times tonight for sure.
The is the best description of how to thin paints and how to know when it is this enough that i have seen so far, I will definitely show this to others!!
I think everyone new should be shown this video tbh! I'm glad it still helped you, I wish I'd know what I knew when I started painting what I know now about this. Big thanks for sharing the video!
Yo this is such a perfect guide. I thought I had gotten the knack for consistency but this really gave me some fresh perspective. Again, perfect timing too!
I've heard skim milk, and the only thing I could think was "ah yes, I to have done the totally normal act of pouring milk onto a pallet and trying to paint with it."
Wow I needed this. Thanks. Brushforhire explained this all to me but without the visual aid I missed a lot of stuff he was telling me about. Although he did take the time to explain it all. Sometimes we just need to see it.
This is The Best Thinning Guide. - And Phenomenal Milk Bit. -Laughed Out Loud. -Thanks for the Skill Insight and Great Humor. -Awesome Text/Arrows edited in, too. Cheers.
Love this video Jay, Just by watching this video I can see where I was going wrong with thinning paints learn a lot from this cheers mate. Thanks for another great tip water in a dropper bottle that's two now.
I'm planning a big video all about airbrush troubleshooting and operation but here's a tip for you - in the video there's a part when I used the airbrush with the red paint in it. If you look at the point where I backflow the airbrush to make the bubbles come up into the cup you'll see that the bubbles are all fairly even, and small. As long as you get that happen when you do it the paint is about the right consistency. Ever boiled a pan of soup on the stove that was a bit thick and noticed that it's launching blobs of soup all over? This is because it's very thick and the air rushing up is causing a severe reaction. That would be the same if your paint was too thick. Too thin would be like the milk basically :D Hope that helps and wasn't rambling, but I wrote this out just before sleep! :D
I noticed, but unfortunately only in the premiere... Still working on editing me, though I think I'm fine when it comes to the mini part being shown. Thanks for the feedback man, I really appreciate comments like this as it's the only way I'll get better!
in this video are you useing your already thinned down paints that you transferred to dropper bottles? if so you should have mentioned that. but excellent video. explains what alot of people dont bother explaining which is the How.
I'm pretty sure I mentioned that in the part where I did the basecoats . However I did say that there's so much paint still there vs the amount of thinner and flow improver that there's not going to be a massive difference to what's in the pot. The end consistency with the water is the important part though so regardless of whether you start with paint a little thinner or not thats still where you need to get to.
Hey Mate! This was super helpful. Painted my first miniature tonight and I think I did ok. Some things were way easier than I thought and some things were way harder than I imagined. Really need to get the paint consistency thing down tho. Struggled a lot there. Anyways. Do you have a Patreon at all or do you do online lessons?
Great guide! But i have one question about thining paint with water: what about pigment in paint? Does it holds the same amount of pigment in paint? Asking cause i heard/read many times that i should use dedicated thinner instead of water as it makes paint last wet longer and doesn't take pigment away.
Great question - I'll split it up to help answer it clearly. 1) Whatever you add to a paint you cant take pigment away, just dilute it. Whatever you add to the paint will dilute it and change the ratios in the solution. What you're really changing by adding water rather than something like flow improver is the consistency. These products are frequently thicker than water, and result in a thicker mix. Because the mix is thicker you could arguer that the pigment powder that makes up the paint is "held" by the suspension a little better, but unless you over thin your paint with water to the point where there's vastly more water than the medium (in your paint, as bought from the manufacturer) can handle it will still hold. If you watch the glazes and stippling parts of the video you'll see how thin I get the paint without it breaking. If you're worried about losing pigment strength which is what I suspect this question was about you essentially need to use better paint, with a stronger pigment. Typically the finer grind a pigment has, the more vibrant and stronger it is because of how much of it can fit on a flat surface. Imagine the difference between laying out a 12" by 12" square with pool balls, and then again with marbles in a grid. The marbles will have less holes between them and will fit together better and present a stronger colour than the pool balls. This is the difference between a finer and coarser pigment. 2) Adding water does make the paint dry faster. Water evaporates at a lower temperature, and faster than most acrylic mediums. But you need to be careful what you add to thin your paints. If you were to use the Vallejo thinner for instance you're adding a product that contains distilled water and alcohol to your paint. Alcohol evaporates faster than water (especially around me) and so that will dry your paint even faster. If instead you add flow improver which is predominantly distilled water and a drying retarder this will prolong the length of time that your paint stays active for - which is why I use it so much in the airbrush. The difference between using flow improver and water is to do with the viscosity that I'm after. With water my mix is thinner which is how I like to control it when applying it to the mini, it may be different to your method. Hope that helps but please ask any other questions that you have!
That "consistency of milk" advice reminded me of my first driving instructor who told me to bring the clutch up "by the width of one pound coin". Like mate that is not a helpful distance to quantify with my feet.
Can you thin paint only by spreading it on wet palette? I seen some people never using water, just whatever is on palette and they thin down it by spreading it in a long line. The paint in the beginning is more thick than at the end. Does that really work? I still struggle with paint consistency and whenever I add water I overthin my paint and I wonder if it's because I spread it too much on wet palette. I also notice paint behaves differently when I use baking paper and when I use dedicated paper by redgrass. But when I try to only use the moisture on wet pallete I think that it's a bit too thick.
Great question - yes you can. But not if you use paper like I do in my palate. A wet palate is made by a sponge or similar item holding water and then placing a semi-permeable membrane over the top of it. This means that it allows moisture to pass across the barrier. If your barrier allows more moisture to pass across it like the redgrass paper then you'll be able to do i. If it's more like mine that allows a lot less water to pass across it then you wont. But thats the reason I like the paper I use. I find that it gives me a lot of control over the consistency of the pant that I'm using. If I leave it overnight, or some use metallic paints or inks, then they will separate and absorb more water. For me the best thing to do is to add more water to the palate and thin the paint as I go myself. Hope this helps!
Great video mate with loads of awesome tips. I have a wet pallet question. I have a Redgrass pallet and have done as instructed but my paint just seems to pool on the top. In your video your paint beads up more, especially the part where you make a glaze. Do I need more water in the tray? Both sides of the paper seem exactly the same, not sure if one side is meant to have more of a waxy feel or not. Please help 🙏🏻
I'm not sure man, it could be anything from the paint to the paper and all the other options in between. Try taking some palate paper and just placing it on your desk - make sure there's something disposable under it just in case - and try making a glaze on that. That will let you know if moisture is the issue or not as you're doing it on a dry area. Hope that helps!
I wish it was as simple as saying x:y but it's not. All paints are different and so you're looking for something that has a kind of motion on the palate. As a good rule, a glaze when applied thinly to the back of your thumbnail should dry and be visible but translucent. Its one of the hardest techniques to master but when you begin practicing you'll find that it starts to come together
@@MohawkMiniatures ok sounds good. When i get to that part, I will remember to experiment. Last night my stepbrother had to move in for a few weeks with his daughter! So may be a bit longer before I try glazing. Luckily I started a notebook for all the techniques and painting schemes, etc. I like or want to try.
The milk went through on it's own, and I scrubbed the shit out of it and put some iso 99 in it too! But there's a reason the wet palate part was filmed after using the milk - dont need that in there at all!
Awesome guide love the examples given, so sick of hearing the milk analogy. 1 question though other painters mentioned stippling paint should be thicker. Am I missing something? Suppose I should just try it and see :)
For me this is the way to do it, I use the effect to build up the opacity by placing several dots that are all near the same area so if the paint was thick you'll end up with something that is opaque on the first go and there's no chance of a transition on it at all.
I'm guessing you mean with your base coats, and you're turning them into something closer to a glaze? Thats a better problem to have than it being the other way around for sure. Essentially you need to add just enough additional water to get the paint to the stage you want and no more. Its fine to get it to a slightly thicker state than it should be in the mix, and then wet your brush a very small amount and then pick up some paint with it so that it's just being thinned at the time on the brush. That might help but hit me up if you're still having issues. Discord is better for me as it's easier to see the notification
