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As the title says. Can water be used instead of flow enhancer?

Not really.. water will not make the paint last longer on your palette. Water will also not work well if you're trying to do blending.

You should get a wet Palette. Help loads with painting.

I always wondered actually. Why does putting your paint on a palette differ from straight from the pot?

daemon wrote:I always wondered actually. Why does putting your paint on a palette differ from straight from the pot?

1) The paint dries on the palette instead of in the pot - and the pot isn't open to be spilled by accident
2) Water can be added to the paint in order to 'thin' the paint (or 'water down') - non-thinned paints can be too thick and obscure detail
3) The palette itself can be used to test the consistency of the paint before applying it to the model
4) When mixing colours, blending or glazing (using water), a palette is invaluable for the same reason as above

People who paint straight from the pot are either ignorant of these facts or don't care. Same goes for people who don't look after their brushes or change their water... the use of some form of palette is fundamental to painting miniatures.

I've never used a wet palette however I've always found a palette invaluable for the reasons mentioned above.

You can buy plastic palettes for 50p in my local Poundstretcher. They are practically throwaway items at that price.

A white ceramic tile makes a good palette.

Flow Aid
You can thin a bit with water, but if thinned too much the amount of polymer resin in the paint will be unable to skin properly and the paint will turn into blobs. Flow aid helps prevent this. You can also get liquid acrylic polymer which thins paint without changing the colour, and extends volume and drying time.

I've found that the paint dries pretty quickly when i put it on the side of the pot even with water. Should i just take a huge drop of whatever paint i'm using on the palette even if i only use lets say 1/3 of it?

daemon wrote:I've found that the paint dries pretty quickly when i put it on the side of the pot even with water. Should i just take a huge drop of whatever paint i'm using on the palette even if i only use lets say 1/3 of it?

Here's how a wet palette can work:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Five_Colors#Use_a_wet_palette

You use a palette because

YOU NEVER PAINT STRAIGHT from pot to model. Unless its a wash.

You need to water it down or it'll look all goopy and way too thick on the model. Water down your minis - first thing any painter should learn.

Guessing the temperature gets a tad warmer than South Yorks so paints dry out by the time you have picked up the model to paint. Using big dollops of paint on the palette can be wasteful. And will still dryout.

That is why a wet palette is invaluable. I have left mine a day or two and it has still been usable. Also handy when you have mixed a colour and may need it for another session.

This is good advice given by the chaps Dameon.

NB. Flow Enhancer is NOT a substitute for water but used in a small percentage of water and does what KillKrazy said.

You can do all sorts of things with water, flow aid, drying retarders and palettes. There are fantastic painters out there who only ever use water to thin their paints, others use all kinds of additives, I guess it all comes down to your own style, so practice with different mixes to find your best method.

I never, ever paint straight from the pot as I always thin my paints, even if it's just a little. Thinned paints are much easier to control with a little practice and the results look better to me. Using very thinned paints (4 - 6 parts water to 1 part paint) can give you very smooth blending results, but take a large number of layers before the effect is complete.

I've just started using a wet palette and I'm very pleased with it, keeps paint wet for longer (days if kept wet) and it enables all kinds of mixing shenanigans for making highlight and shadow colours.

I've heard some people put flow enhancers straight into the pot. How well does that work?

Well one problem is that you need differing consistencys of paint for different jobs, blending, feathering, glazing, thin line highlights, washing, shading etc. A pallet is really the way to go you really won't waste that much paint. There's a difference between flow enhancer(flo-aid) and paint extender (eg glaze meduim, matte medium etc). As far as I understand flow enchancer needs mixed with water before adding to paint. Correct me please someone if I'm wrong.

Wazzdig Dagga wrote:As far as I understand flow enchancer needs mixed with water before adding to paint. Correct me please someone if I'm wrong.

I'd imagine you could find squirt-and-go flow improver somewhere, but I've never seen the stuff. Usually, it comes concentrated, so you thin your paint with something closer to a 10:1 mixture of water and flow improver. It's powerful stuff and too much will ruin your paints, but it's dead easy to premix a bottle and simply draw your thinning water from that until you run out and make a new batch.