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Thus far in learning to paint orks, I've been doing a basic skintone plus a wash, which has gotten decent effects. I'm attempting to learn something a bit more advanced, and have taken up trying to do layering. I'm wondering if I'm not mixing things correctly. My normal paintmix is diluted slightly with water, and a little dish soap for smoothness.

My basic procedure [on test figures] that I'm trying now is to lay down a base coat, add a little of a lighter hue to the mix, do all but the deepest of cracks, lighten a bit, and gradually work my way up in elevation. The issue I'm having is that as the highlights get lighter, they seem to get sort of chalky, thin, some bits thicker than others, the rest even a bit watery, thin, clearly showing the layer beneath.

How can I get more even coverage?

Thank you kindly for your time.

I've experienced this same problem. I think its because the binder breaks down when you dilute the paint past a certain point.

I would guess that using some sort of acrylic medium (instead of just water) would help, but haven't tried it yet.

I'll have to look into it. Another thing I wonder that might be wrong with my technique...Should each layer be receiving several coats? Thus far everything I've read/watched on the subject seems to be only doing one coat per layer after the basecoat, and I've been doing that."

not sure if it helps you or not, but after youve layered your paint to its final highlight, i find that a very thinned out and specific wash of the same color works to blend the paint and provide a bit of depth on top of your layering. be careful not to fully wash the model, but instead use it to "touch up" the spots that look chalky or have a natural depression in it. (such as cheek bones, nasal crease and forehead). however do this before you paint finer detials such as eyes, as the wash can obscure this.

by "wash" i mean the citadel wash paint lineup...such as badab black, etc)

Add acrylic resin medium to your paint, not just water.

What is resin medium, more of the fluid that makes up the paint, minus pigment? If so, I can see how that would be better than water. A little strange though, I was under the impression that acrylic is a water base.

Acrylic paints generally use a water soluble medium, but what makes them acrylic rather than water paint is that the medium contains a resin that binds the pigment to the surface rather than water which would just evaporate away.

This said, there are a number of choices as far as additives to help glazing; you can use a glaze medium such as vallejo's, you can also use artists' flow improver, or a bit of varnish such as 'ard coat or Future / Klear or a matt varnish. All work in pretty much the same way - spacing out the pigment particles with an agent that suspends them rather than allowing them to clump up which is what causes the chalky look.

Okay! Thank you. I think I'll purchase a bit of vallejo's medium to match my paints better.