Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Yes! Dark Sepia looks purple when applied and when dry the matte medium turns clear and water evaporates and all that is left is the ink.

So it CAN deceive you But as you now know, it will look fine when dry.

So, I mixed up a set of your washes (black), using your standard (not soft) black wash recipe. I then attempted to wash a FoW Sherman that had been primed using the new Army Painter "US Armour" olive drab. It was almost like the primer was resisting the wash, not just pooling but actually sitting on top of the model. I tried using, on a different part of the model, GW's Badab Black, which worked fine.

Do I need to increase the amount of flow aid, or is there something else I need to do? If the GW wash would have failed, I'd have blamed the primer, but now I'm thinking I need to adjust the mixture.

Thanks for any insight.

If it's pooling like water droplets and not actually soaking into the paint try adjusting the ratio to have more medium in it. GW wash has more gel factor to it so if you like those characteristics, add more medium. Start at 60/40 or even 75/25 if you think it needs an extreme change. Just remember that the more medium added, the shinier it will be when dry.

Note that GW "washes" are actually glazes, as they change the hue of the entire area painted over.

If you use a wash and cover an entire area, it will collect and shade in recessed areas.

to further show my meaning, if you are using Les' recipe already, take an extra model and paint it some light color( mine was a zombie with rotting flesh) cover 1/2 of it with badab black and the other half with soft body black and you will see a major difference in how they work.

EDIT: I'll try to get pics of my example up today

Aye but the Heavy Body Black recipe rivals the Badab Black.

So it's really about adding more ink to the mix for colorizing rather than changing the medium.

you should add comparison of soft body vs. badab seeing as my 3 year old son ran off with my camera

EDIT: in this same vein, it took me some 60-75 drops of sepia ink to get the same heaviness as devlan mud, but without thickening it so that it works more like an ink than a glaze.
The effect on my stegadon is quite nice.

Soft body was not meant to be like Badab. I was just showing that a slight mod to the recipe to add more ink will give the colorization. Softbody was the formula I made just to hard line with little to no colorization.

So without a picture you should know it's different as it has only 1/3 the ink of Heavy Body Black.

It's obvious looking at the example pictures in the original post.

true enough. And yes soft body works excellently at hard lining especially if you don't prime black or if you are rather messy with base colors.

Hey, thanks for the recipe.

Went to my local Micheals store today to buy the stuff needed. They didn't have the liquitex flow aide, or 'artist inks'. So I had got (What I think) is simular.


Airbrush medium : "Thins acrylics for airbrushing and traditional brush blending", Not sure if this will make up for the flow aide or not. Think it will work? If not, I got an airbrush I can experiment with and use with my GW paints. Beats water for thinning I'd imagine.

And

"Higgins Waterproof drawing ink", They didn't have anything labled as an acrylic artist ink, so I picked this up. Again, if not I can still use it for other things.

Whats your thoughts?

Edit:

Nevermind, I just tried the mixing recipe and it worked absolutely fine (if not amazingly well).

I'm going to buy more bottles and matte medium to make a lineup of washes from 10% to 90% and experiment how it will attribute to my painting...

If you have a Hobby Lobby in your area, be sure to check there as well. I picked up 90% of the items needed there. Everything except the flow aid. They even had some liquitex inks that work just as well as the ones featured in the recipe.

I use higgins ink as well. Works fine. Both higgins and the other stuff are both waterproof drawing ink with dropper bottles.

I use Golden's Liquid Matte Medium. Also, instead of flow aid, I use 90% water, 10% dishwasher rinse agent. Really, anything that lowers the surface tension of the water should be fine. Even a drop of dish soap per pint of water will do. Any surfactant, really.

Thanks for the recipe Les, I just used the heavy body recipe this morning and it's worked beautifully to shade over GW red gore on my Khorne terminators.

I put mine into vallejo bottle droppers and used half the amounts in the tutorial vid as the bottle is about half the size. I used 14 drops of flo aid for the bottle if that helps anyone not have to do the measurments.

You can get Flow Aid at Dick Blick stores, but you really gotta look for them. Around here Michaels and AC Moore claimed to carry it, but didn't in the store. I was a sad pony, until I realized there was a Dick Blick like 2 miles from my house. Then I was just a pony that felt silly driving all over the damn place

Michaels has alot of stock codes on the shelves, but rarely has them all filled.

The 1oz bottle you linked too, do they come with the caps in the video or are the separate?

nyys wrote:The 1oz bottle you linked too, do they come with the caps in the video or are the separate?

on that site the nozzles and caps are both sold separately.

Thought so, thanks.

Well I bought 2 jugs of your black washes off your site. Just wanted to say it's very cool of you to keep the recipe up and stuff.
Cheers.

No problem. I figure the crowd about 50/50 with DIY people and guys that would rather buy than make stuff

Yeah, I'm particularly glad you have a store option because my FLGS has been out of Badab Black for like 2 months haha.

I just took the easy way out and ordered up more than enough of both black washes for my upcoming project.

Thanks!

Thanks again for keeping up your wash recipe Les. I've made a couple of washes with liquitex black and prussian blue inks, and they're working just fine.

Thanks again!

Just putting this out there. I couldnt find the brand of inks you are using but i did find the liquitex acrylic ink. Also i didnt find the liquitex flow aid but i did find a suitable replacement called" Winsor and Newton Galeria Acrylic Mediums" "Flow improver."250mls for about 10 usd at hobby lobby. made like 4 tubes of washes so far and they work great. Thanks for the recipes.

Great stuff.

WOOP! Found a UK bottle supply place that does not require a minimum 200 bottle purchase.

A Tattoo Supply place, who would have thought?
http://www.barberdts.co.uk/index.php/studio-supplies/bottles-containers.html

Nice tut, really useful!

Which ink color are you guys using to match Ogryn Flesh and Delvan Mud? I've tried a couple of different colors, but none seem close. Thoughts?

Very Nice!

I have cruised the forums since this morning and you seem to be racking up your post count with "Very Nice" posts.

Thanks again.

I don't have any of that specail mixing fluid stuff... is there anyway i could make a black wash with GW stuff and house hold liquds?