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K , working on my 3 hell hounds now , thought the large wide area would be easy for dry brushing...
but i was wrong, here are the trouble i ran into.

too much paint on brush turns into wet brush!! doesnt work D:

not enough paint on, the dry brush dries out before i can apply much on -_-

what can i do?

dont water down the paint. just take it from the pot. and dab the brush in a blister back sponge to take roughly 80% of the paint you got.

in my own experience, dry brushing has been the easiest thing for me to do.

Drybrushing large areas can get a little difficult.

First of all, you definetly need a larger brush. Anything but a tank-sized brush won't cut it for drybrushing a tank.

From there, it's simply a matter of playing around with the amount of paint you leave on your brush. It's kind of hard to describe, but whatever you wipe your brush off on should only have a faint trail of paint. Make sure you don't miss any wet areas on the brush, and don't dry it out until you can't hardly see any paint on the paper towel, or what have you. Again, it's an art that comes with experience, not description.

Lastly, have patience. Even if it seems like you're hardly getting paint on the model, a lot of this has to do with being impatient. Just keep doing it, and you'll get to where you want to be eventually.

EDIT: Enmitee brings up a great point. Don't water down paint you plan to drybrush with. This creates problems.

My paints dry up really really fast ( maybe climate here is too dry ) I only have 20 seconds ish before it dries up lol

then you gots 20 seconds to work.

Dip the tip, dab, dab, dab, dab, paint.

Also, remember. DRYbrushing is just that. Even if your paint is drying up in your brush before you get the highlight where you want, keep going. Drybrush till it's not doing anything, then 'rewet' the brush and repeat until you get the effect you want. Even dry paint comes off on the raised areas, and will add pigment; 'rewetting' just builds up the paint INSIDE the brush where you want it for drybrushing. After a while you'll notice the effect you're looking for. Just remember you'll need a dedicated brush just for drybrushing, it tends to ruin them.

I'd say 20 seconds is pretty normal (or beyond normal) for how long a brush full of dried paint is going to last.

Chrysaor686 wrote:I'd say 20 seconds is pretty normal (or beyond normal) for how long a brush full of dried paint is going to last.

How do people consider dry brushing easy if it dries so fast ><

can anyone tell me real color of metal on vehicles before they are painted?

dont really want to make a new thread on it :x

like what does tank look like before its painted?

Try your hand at actually highlighting your tank.

Then you should understand perfectly why people consider drybrushing easy.

Also, with the brush a little more loaded brush it along the exposed edges to give them a higher contrast.

In this way, you actually rub off some of your excess paint onto the model edges, and then you can work it carefully over the other exposed details.

This would give you longer working life and a stronger edge to the models (if that's what you want).

I'd just highlight it myself.

If you really have to dry brush get a great big brush. Something like a 2" round makeup brush.

Alright, here's some tips on dry brushing, I used to have to explain this all the time when I worked at GW.

First of all, since nobody said it, you should be using water based acrylics, not watered down; straight from the can. GW/citadel paints are water based acrylic. Yes, I don't mean to be condescending, but there is a .01% chance that you aren't so I just gotta be safe and start with that

Make sure you're using a brush made specifically for dry brushing. This is imperative. A normal brush (detail brush, or a brush with simliar bristle) is more likely to leave streaks, and will get ruined very quickly if you use it for drybrushing. When I was younger I used to think that detail brushes were better for drybrushing and drybrushes were better for details, if you think that, yer doin it rong. For what you're doing I recommend the games workshop tank brush.

Just dip the tip of the brush in the paint. Only about 10% of the actual bristle length should actually have paint on it. Do not load paint on the brush!

Next, you have to prep for actually dry brushing. Using very quick and repetitive brushstrokes, brush off the paint onto a surface that doesn't matter, say a palette, your hand, paper towel, your work desk, whatever. Until you can feel the brush is dry with your finger. If you're unsure, test it out by dry brushing an object with depth... I used to use the corner of my desk.

You can tell it's good when you don't leave brush marks that indicate the direction of the stroke. Unless you're dry brushing as a fine highlight, you should pretty much be able to approach the model from any direction with your brush strokes, (up, down, back and forth, whatever) and by looking at the model alone, you shouldn't be able to tell which way the brush came from.

G'luck! post pics of those tanks when you're done!

LunaHound wrote:

Chrysaor686 wrote:I'd say 20 seconds is pretty normal (or beyond normal) for how long a brush full of dried paint is going to last.

How do people consider dry brushing easy if it dries so fast ><

can anyone tell me real color of metal on vehicles before they are painted?

dont really want to make a new thread on it :x

like what does tank look like before its painted?

20 seconds is giving way too much credit.

Still, it's easy to do once you get the hang of it. Get a feel for the amount of paint you need, and go for it.

For rust, I recommend painting on a bit of Mithril Silver as well as your selected rust colour. That way, you not only get the idea of rust, but also that paint is being scraped here and there during the actual battle.

Fafnir wrote:For rust, I recommend painting on a bit of Mithril Silver as well as your selected rust colour. That way, you not only get the idea of rust, but also that paint is being scraped here and there during the actual battle.

Seconded! Mithril silver is an awesome highlight for virtually every metal.

Ahahaha i give up , going to throw the mini aside to strip probably... will post pic of the disaster maybe >< its awful rofl.

anyone want to buy the used hellhound to strip / repaint it yourself? $25 :<

DaRealJDB wrote:

Fafnir wrote:For rust, I recommend painting on a bit of Mithril Silver as well as your selected rust colour. That way, you not only get the idea of rust, but also that paint is being scraped here and there during the actual battle.

Seconded! Mithril silver is an awesome highlight for virtually every metal.

It even works well with gold... which is strange, to say the least.

Fafnir wrote:

DaRealJDB wrote:

Fafnir wrote:For rust, I recommend painting on a bit of Mithril Silver as well as your selected rust colour. That way, you not only get the idea of rust, but also that paint is being scraped here and there during the actual battle.

Seconded! Mithril silver is an awesome highlight for virtually every metal.

It even works well with gold... which is strange, to say the least.

I was specifically thinking of gold when I made my post, lulz. It's basically the 'white' of metals... Any time you highlight something that's supposed to be bright and sparkly (fire, crystals, water) you generally use white, so I guess since metal is bright and sparkly in it's own way (metallic?) it just works!

The tank brush is the best tool you have for this, my friend.

I found the source of my problem ... I never noticed this before when the surfaces are smaller, now on a flat tank
(Chimera ) it was obvious.

GW paint cannot coat over Vallejo properly. As smooth as it looked when it was still wet, the moment it dries, GW paint turns into patches , revealing the color beneath it.

Almost like coating bare metal / plastic without primer.
Guess the tiny bit of oil in Vallejo was pushing the pait off.

That's never happened with me. I mix and paint over both just fine. What colours are you using?

Fafnir wrote:That's never happened with me. I mix and paint over both just fine. What colours are you using?

Vallejo 820 Off white.

Had GW Foundation Adeptus Battle Gray over it.

Well, I've never used foundation paints before. Are they chemically different from the normal paints? That might be the reason. Try using the good old fashioned GW paints.

What's Vallejo?

That gave me a chuckle.

Vallejo is another competitor in the water-based acrylic lines. A lot of people prefer Vallejo due to their dropper-topped paint bottles and the minimal amount of extra paint you get in comparison with the GW pots.

I believe they're based in Mexico? Not really sure.

Well, Vajello is an Italian name, so I'd imagine that they're Italian.

A good trick for adding metal highlights is to use a pencil and rub it on raised edges, it looks like paint has worn off to reveal a dull silver-grey.

As for drybrushing, I prefer to use enamels because acrylic paint dries too quickly on the brush. You have longer to work with the enamel paint and the brush is more easily cleaned at the end.