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Here are some paint additive products that I use in my every day painting. I hope that
some of you may find this review useful.


Liquitex FLo-Aid

I bought this stuff at Michaels, so most major art supplies should carry it.
The ratio for it I got from a fellow painter as being 10:1 diluted water to flo-aid.
I have 2 droppers of the mix, an 8oz bottle and a .5oz bottle.
For starters I put 6 drops of it in EVERY paint I own. The flo-aid breaks the surface
tension of the water in the paints, and makes it flow smoother onto the models.
It also helps the paint soak into the brush to make a little resevoir of paint so that
you don't have to dip your brush nearly as often. One of the bigger benefits is that
it keeps the paint more fluid while on the brush, which makes cleaning it much easier as
a few taps on the side of a water cup will shake off all the paint.
A 4oz bottle of Flo-Aid cost me around $4 and since it is diluted so heavily I doubt I'll
ever have to replace it.


Liquitex Slow-Dri Blending Medium

I use this stuff strictly for it's slowing properties as I don't do wet blending at all( just
haven't taken the time to learn how). I put a few drops in every GW bottle since they are
exposed to the air so much while painting( I'm slowly moving all my GW paints into dropper
bottles for many reasons, this being a big one). For ratio I use about 1 drop of slow-dri
for 3 or 4 drops of paint. I bought this mainly because I was tired of wasting so much
paint being dried up on my palette. A 4oz bottle cost around $7 I think. This is solely for
the preservation of paints and to reduce my trips to the local game store which is an hour
away.

Liquitex Matte Medium

Ah such wonderful stuff. Matte medium is essentially acrylic paint without any pigment.
When added to paint, it will dull down the finish(GW paints are slightly satin). A big
part of that can be noticed by anyone who has really watered down their paints and
noticed that the finish ends up very glossy. The medium can be mixed as heavily as 50%
of your total paint, or 1:1 medium to paint. I use it at about 1:3 or 1:4 with paint.
It can also be used to get more mileage out of your paints, as you will get more volume
without losing opacity or color. Reaper and Vallejo both offer .5oz bottles of it, but
the best value is to just buy 32oz for $14 online instead of paying $3 for .5 oz.

For any paints that I have in droppers I use the following mix if I am painting large areas
or alot of models, if not then I usually skip the slo-dri and use less matte:
1 drop slow-dri, 2 drops 10:1 water/flo-aid, 1-2 drops matte medium(depending on the
color) and 3 or 4 drops of actual paint.

When the paint starts to dry up I add another drop of the 10:1 mix which brings
the slow-dri back to life and you end up getting alot of mileage out of 3 or 4 drops
of paint.

Thanks for the info on this. I've bought a few Liquitex products after seeing them reviewed by LBursley and any hints and tips like this are really useful.

aerethan wrote:It also helps the paint soak into the brush to make a little resevoir of paint so that
you don't have to dip your brush nearly as often. One of the bigger benefits is that
it keeps the paint more fluid while on the brush, which makes cleaning it much easier as
a few taps on the side of a water cup will shake off all the paint.

I've wondered for a while now why paint looks different on brushes in video tutorials. Seems like this is the answer I was looking for.
Thanks!

For my GW pots i use Pledge Future Shine ( http://www.floorcareproducts.com/floor-finish/index.asp ) rather than water to thin them down. It works especially well. Water will eventually separate (especially with the low pigment content of homemade washes and such), but Future Shine is liquid acrylic for clear coating floors. I reccomend it to all the guys at my FLGS and to dakka if you are looking for a good alternative to water for making washes/thinning your paints. It leaves a gloss finish when you use it in a wash (there is more pledge than paint), but i flat varnish my models anyway. It also doesnt have the surface tension problem that water has, so no need for dish detergent.

I have used it in my airbrush, but it increases the already prominent tip dry of acrylic paints. In this case i prefer to use water.

/2 cents

TOO

MUCH

TEXT

..thanks for the tip anyways!

Too much...

I just mixed up a dropper bottle with about 3 parts water and one part future Floor Finish. I'm hoping I'll be able to use it to thin and break surface tension. I don't like straight floor polish because it seems to dry too hard on the model if there is too much in the paint (if that makes sense...) I'm hoping to hit a nice medium with it.

Thank you for the review, ill just add few things if I may

Vallejo Metalic medium
Comes in a dropper bottle, it hase pastelike consistency and basicly it is a mettalic paint without any colour. There are metallic flakes which look "whiteish" but when mixed with any colour it instantly creates great effects. I made red metallic colour from it and it looks great, also I've read that it is great for highlighting, since it is very shiny (didn't try it on any other than test figure and it works well for a really thin stroke of last highlilght color). I imagine it might be nice for making insect-like metallic purple or so, but it's not truly pearlescent.

Lascaux Retarder
Basicly a slow dry medium for acrylics, just another brand. They make one normal retarder and one ultra strong. Even few drops of the normal one make your colour stay wet overnight. At least in a microtiter plate I took from lab. Personally I wanted it for wet blending and it works great.

@Rakuen I dig your signature... that is funny

I just have a cup of water with about 2 tablespoons of Pledge "Future" floor finish, it hardens the paint a little more to make it chip-resistant, breaks surface tension, and makes cleaning the brush easier.

plus its cheap, I bought 1 big jug of Future well over a year ago, and ive used it on every model ive painted since then (working on my 3rd full army right now, also painted a titan) i still have over 75% left in the container.

Been hoping to find something local to make washes thanks.
Not a lot in my local stores

I use Acryl Thinner from the Testor Model Master line. I've also got a bottle of Golden Additives Retarder that I've never used.

Yeah the Flo-Aid is great for making washes.

aerethan wrote:
Liquitex Slow-Dri Blending Medium

I use this stuff strictly for it's slowing properties as I don't do wet blending at all( just
haven't taken the time to learn how).

How about a "Slow-Dri Blending" tutorial - would love to see how it works / technique etc.

Les Bursley is working on a new wet blending video tutorial from what I understand.

Liquitex also makes an "Iridescent Medium" for making metallic colors. I've used it with some blue for some of my Necrons, and it's working very nicely.

Hey, I think I've been doing it it wrong. I read this and got some flow improver, and I already had future floor polish. I then reconstituted the flow improver by adding 90:10 water to flow aid and putting that in an eyedropper, and using that to thin my paint. You guys are saying I should be adding the flow improver directly to the paint bottles?

Has anyone tried the Matisse range of mediums and flo-aids?

I can't seem to get Liquitex here in South Africa.

I use Liquitex slo-dri and W&N flow improver. I have a Vallejo dropper bottle that I put in 1/4th slo-dri, 1/4th the flow improver and then the rest water.

The recipe I think is from Jen Haley on her website. It improves paint flow and my paints stay liquid about 3-4 times longer allowing me to not have to mix up new colors ever few minutes (I blend colors a lot on the palette and it's annoying when acrylics dry up after 2-3 minutes, now it's about every 10-15 minutes.

I'm also a big fan of airbrush paints as brush on paints. Flow so much nicer (as due to their nature) and can be thinned nearly infinitely without loss of coverage.

Ouze wrote:Hey, I think I've been doing it it wrong. I read this and got some flow improver, and I already had future floor polish. I then reconstituted the flow improver by adding 90:10 water to flow aid and putting that in an eyedropper, and using that to thin my paint. You guys are saying I should be adding the flow improver directly to the paint bottles?

mix 10:1 water to flo aid and add that mix to paint, not undiluted flo aid.

Hmm, I go 2:1:1 water, flow aid and slow dri and it doesn't give me problems.

Then again it might depend on brand of flow aid as well. I just no with slo-dri I'm not supposed to add more than 25% or it'll never dry (thats a direct quote from the bottle).

The 10:1 ratio I got from Les Bursley as it is what he uses. Flo aid is simply to break surface tension, whereas slo dri is of course to increase working time.

To each their own. I got mine from Jen Haleys site and it works for me.

Most of my basecoats I apply via airbrush so flow control isn't a huge issue, in fact I'd rather the paint adhere and stay where I put it rather than have piss poor surface tension.

Slo-dri is the stuff that makes my painting life easier. Way more open time.

The main reason I started using slo-dri is so that I don't waste paint as it is pricey stuff. I can easily get an hour out of a few drops of paint that normally dry up in a few minutes and can only be diluted so far before losing opacity.

The days of diluting paint to increase working time are long gone now.

I've been using retarder when doing larger jobs - ratio around 3:1 paint/retarder drops. Is this any different then Slow-Dri? The retarder is fairly thick.

slo-dri is just retarder, and yes it is thick.

aerethan wrote:slo-dri is just retarder, and yes it is thick.

My Luquitex slow-dri is very fluid, about the same consistency as flow aid.

Quick question regarding Slow-Dri: While it's obviously great that the paint doesn't dry up as quickly in the pallet, does it not take ages for it to dry on the miniature itself as well?

It takes a little longer but if the paint is thinned properly it takes maybe a couple of minutes.

That's kind of the point of slo-dri: the open time isn't to benefit us in using less paint on the palette, it's to extend drying time for blending. The fact that you don't have to add more paint to your palette as often is an added bonus.

If you want things to stay wet, have you tried a wet palette? Wet paper towel in a shallow dish
with water, parchment paper on top. Paint goes on the parchment paper. Water seeps
upward into the parchment paper. Paint stays wet.