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How do you use them? I've tried just out the pot dry and well It looks fine just never settles and If you touch it it comes off. So how do you use it?

you have to seal them with rubbing alcohol/white spirit. look at the forgeworld article

There are a number of different ways of using pigments and powders, and the article on forgeworld is a great place to start.

You'll have to get yourself a can of matt varnish, purity seal, or if you're equipped to airbrush an approriate sealant.

One of the easiest ways to start is just how you've been doing it - whack the powder on dry. It'll get in the nooks and crannies and give quite a natural gathering of dirt/grime over time. Then give it a quick blast with your purity seal to seal it.

Next up we can make a wash - by mixing the weathering powder on a pallate with some water. This is great for making tank tracks look used/rusty/dusty - just whack the wash over the treads and when then water evaporates you're left with a dusty looking covering that has pooled in the recesses. Again this needs to be sealed onto the model to prevent it rubbing off.

One of the more interesting effects is to create a mottled, rusted look. As this is a more advanced technique and needs a little more preperation. Once your final shading on the model is completed you need to seal it with a gloss varnish (it's very important that it's a glossy finish).

Then we can mix a little burnt umber oil paint with some white spirit and your chosen pigment, then 'flick' the thick mix onto the model randomly with a toothbrush.

Then you can either airbrush a little more white spirit to dissapate the blobs of paint and help them run, or really carefully use a paint brush and some white spirit to do the same job.


You could pick up a copy of the Forgeworld book 'Model Masterclass Volume One' for loads more techniques.

Just be careful when using alcohol to seal it - the alcohol is aggressive and can strip the paint right off your model if you use too stiff a brush.

For protection, give the area you want to weather a quick coat of varnish before you start using the alcohol.

Do a little bit of experimentation on a painted UNVARNISHED UNSEALED extra model. You may blend the pigment and alcohol or paint the alcohol onto the the pigment that's been dusted on. You'll find that the former is easier. Just don't be aggressive with a rough brush and the underlying paint will be fine. Alcohol is used because it activates the pigment and is highly volatile (evaporates readily). Show some pics!

doktor_g wrote:Do a little bit of experimentation on a painted UNVARNISHED UNSEALED extra model. You may blend the pigment and alcohol or paint the alcohol onto the the pigment that's been dusted on. You'll find that the former is easier. Just don't be aggressive with a rough brush and the underlying paint will be fine. Alcohol is used because it activates the pigment and is highly volatile (evaporates readily). Show some pics!

On the foot of the model, especially on the areas around the big round screw in in the middle, you can see the blue basecoat after the alcohol rubbed the silvery paint off a bit. It's very slight, but enough to cause concern when you want your model to look as good as possible ;-).

Cheers,


IK-Painter

I've been experimenting with pigments a lot as of late. Iuse the Vallejo ones, but the brand shouldn't matter much I think.

Alcohol or white spirits will NOT fully fixate pigments. After they evaporate you'll still be able to rub the powder off easily.

varnishes create a different set of problems, at least for me.
Testors dullcoat and some cheap high gloss varnish I usually use tend to leave the powders with white spots , pretty much looks like frosting and also kill the effect of the powders quite a bit.

I recently bought a can of "artists' soft fixative" spray in an art shop usually used by artists to fixate chalk drawing/paintings. This works really well I must say, 2 thin coats keep the pigments in place, they are hard to rub off and the spray does not alter the glossiness or color of the underlying model at all.

So I would recommend to apply the pigments on a model that is otherwise done and sealed and used this or a similar fixative spray.

Vallejo also produces a Pigment Glaze Medium for fixing the pigments on a surface. It's a milky white fluid which is acrylics based.

I've used it to premix the pigments on a pallette before applying it to the model which worked quite well - for durability it should however be sealed so it won't rub off.

Thanks, I will get some Sealer that FW recommend in the Arcticle.
I'm getting a good rust affect from using two different pigments. Rust orange and Aged Rust.

I just use hairspray. It works far better than it has any right to, and what's more it will not 'tint' the varnish coating.

Really? Any kind that I should get any key ingredients?

Really just any hair spray will work, but I used some cheap stuff from Pantene that was a "spray mousse" if I remember right.

Could someone please link to the aforementioned FW article - I seem to be unable to find it...

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF//w/weathering-powders.pdf

There you go!

Thank you muchly!

fiddler6291 wrote:Alcohol or white spirits will NOT fully fixate pigments. After they evaporate you'll still be able to rub the powder off easily.

I put the blatant lie in bold.

Isopropyl alcohol won't seal the pigments fully, no, but you'd need to be the Hulk with sandpaper fingertips to say that pigments set with alcohol rub off easily, unless you were trying to build up significant depth, like one might for caked on mud (which requires a more robust additive like gloss varnish or matte medium). A sealant over the top will help protect against the rigors of gaming in any case, whether the pigments were set or not (but setting with any product will keep them from blowing away when you spray your sealant), but will affect the look, somewhat (the powders tend to get dulled down, a tad - rust will look less vibrant, etc.). For purely display models, leave the topcoat off.

As for how to apply the pigments, themselves, that depends entirely on what you want to do with them. Personally, I've had good luck applying them as washes of pigment in 70% isopropyl alcohol (but beware the warnings given here - aggressive brushing will strip unsealed paint) and applying them dry, setting them by lightly touching a brush loaded with the same alcohol to the area, letting capillary action carry the fluid over the pigmented surface.

I seem to remember to FW article being a good resource. For further reading, I believe MIG also has a .pdf that is rather useful (I think it was free - check the website).

I've had a bunch of pigments arrive, but I've had no luck getting Isopropyl as it's not readily available in either supermarkets or chemists here (I can get a 67% alchohol "rubbing alchohol" but I'm under the impression that we're wanting as close to 100% as possible.

Does anyone know if either Metholated Spirits or Mineral Turpentine would work? Both are readily and easily available here.

Actually--rubbing alcohol is exactly what I use.

what %, though?

67%.

The Tarantula Sentry Gun in my gallery was done using that.

scipio.au wrote:what %, though?

% doesn't really matter. I've used both 70 and 91% and they work the same.

I use it in 2 different ways: 1 a dry application of it for things like rust then use alcohol to fix it in place, and 2 a muddy thick mix of pigment in alcohol that will glop on nice and thick and will dry in place thick.

What I tend to do is go absolutely batcrackers insane coating the model in a heavy dusting of the powder.

I then run watered down rubbing alcohol in my airbrush at a fairly high setting and hose it down. It does some very interesting things in my opinion.

Kanluwen wrote:What I tend to do is go absolutely batcrackers insane coating the model in a heavy dusting of the powder.

I then run watered down rubbing alcohol in my airbrush at a fairly high setting and hose it down. It does some very interesting things in my opinion.

I wouldn't mind seeing a video or pics of this, sounds interesting.

fiddler6291 wrote:I've been experimenting with pigments a lot as of late.

Brand matter quite a bit actually. When you comes to weathering pigments there are basically two types out there. The kind that has a binding agent in them, and the kind that is just pure pigment.

Starting with the binding agent kind.....Typically these are the lower end less expensive brand pigments, and they kind that you would get if you simply crushed the artist chalk that you can buy. You see this pigment has some kind of binding agent in them that when combined with the friction of the application causes the pigment to stick to the surface. While initially this may sound like a good thing as soon as you try mixing that pigment with a solution of some kind to make a wash or mud or what ever, the binding agent can react and create a rather blotchy an unpredictable solution.

Now when you deal with pure pigment, that is exactly what you are getting, pure pigment. The color is more vivid, the reactions are more stable and predictable, but the downside is it needs a sealer to make it handle proof. MIG Products is the only pigment fixative that I am aware of on the market that is designed specifically for pure pigments powders. Incidentally MIG is also one of the few companies that produces a pure pigment, MIG and Secretweaponminiatures.com are the only 2 companies that I am aware of right now that produce a pure pigment weathering powder.

When I typically do is after I have set the pigment where I want it I will use a spray bottle with iso and water in it and lightly spray the area down with single or half pull of the trigger. Once dry the pigment will be secure enough that I can then hit it with the more aggressive dull coat that will seal it completely in place.

Ashton

Kanluwen wrote:67%.

The Tarantula Sentry Gun in my gallery was done using that.

Isocol? - the stuff in the green bottle from the chemist?

Isopropryl.

Just plain old rubbing alcohol.

Redfinger wrote:

fiddler6291 wrote:I've been experimenting with pigments a lot as of late.

Brand matter quite a bit actually. When you comes to weathering pigments there are basically two types out there. The kind that has a binding agent in them, and the kind that is just pure pigment.

Starting with the binding agent kind.....Typically these are the lower end less expensive brand pigments, and they kind that you would get if you simply crushed the artist chalk that you can buy. You see this pigment has some kind of binding agent in them that when combined with the friction of the application causes the pigment to stick to the surface. While initially this may sound like a good thing as soon as you try mixing that pigment with a solution of some kind to make a wash or mud or what ever, the binding agent can react and create a rather blotchy an unpredictable solution.

Now when you deal with pure pigment, that is exactly what you are getting, pure pigment. The color is more vivid, the reactions are more stable and predictable, but the downside is it needs a sealer to make it handle proof. MIG Products is the only pigment fixative that I am aware of on the market that is designed specifically for pure pigments powders. Incidentally MIG is also one of the few companies that produces a pure pigment, MIG and Secretweaponminiatures.com are the only 2 companies that I am aware of right now that produce a pure pigment weathering powder.

When I typically do is after I have set the pigment where I want it I will use a spray bottle with iso and water in it and lightly spray the area down with single or half pull of the trigger. Once dry the pigment will be secure enough that I can then hit it with the more aggressive dull coat that will seal it completely in place.

Ashton

I was reading an article by MIG recently that basically talked about how Vallejo's pigment have a lot of binding agent in them and are sub-par while MIG pigments are made of distilled awesome.
http://migproductions.com/2010/11/pigments-comparative/

I bought several from each brand, and I have NFI what I'm doing anyway at this stage, so it'll be an interesting time to experiment with them.


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Kanluwen wrote:Isopropryl.

Just plain old rubbing alcohol.

All I've been able to find is this stuff.
http://www.chemistwarehouse.com.au/product.asp?id=40678

Which is 67% isopropyl and I assume 23% filler of some kind.

I like Mig pigment fixer. I got it off of Ebay. Disclaimer, not my auction, I'm not the seller, I don't know the seller.

After I dust on the pigment, I use a different brush to just touch this in different spots, wet, and it spreads by itself.

scipio.au wrote:

All I've been able to find is this stuff.
http://www.chemistwarehouse.com.au/product.asp?id=40678

Which is 67% isopropyl and I assume 23% filler of some kind.

Someone's math is off. Unless the last 10% is hopes and dreams.

I'm tired. It's been a long year.