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I got the following idea for making a wet palette from the manager of the GW Battle Bunker in Seattle and thought I'd share it with the Dakka community. As you may have noticed, recently GW changed the packaging of their flock and basing kits from those little round tubs to larger, more boxy looking containers. This provides a great opportunity to make a cheap and easy wet paint palette - once you've used all the flock/basing stuff, that is.

First, get your case of flock and use it to base all your figures or at least enough figures that you run out of basing material.



Next wash out the case thoroughly so no fiberglass (from static grass), dirt, or resin dust remain.



Now grab an appropriate size sponge and soak it in water. Excess water in the plastic case is fine but should be less than half the height of the sponge, otherwise you'll overhydrate the paper.



Get your favorite type of paper to put on the sponge. Many people like parchment paper, some like wax paper, and still others seem to favor that slick backing that stickers come on.



Put your paper on the sponge and you are ready to start using it as a paint palette.



There is one caveat. The GW containers aren't very tall (thick) so you likely won't be using them to store paint on your palette like some people talk about. I suppose you could trim the sponge down if you really want, but I'm not one to really be bothered by that as I don't put an excessive amount on my pallet at any given time.

Hope this is useful to some of you.

Easy, cheap and almost free. Good tip. I've seen this before but somehow (like actually painting my minis) I've always been too unmotivated to actually do it. I've got to go to the store tonight, so I might as well pick up a sponge while I'm there.

Oh, and I've been told (and verified) that the best paper to use is the backing for self-adhesive stickers/labels. It's glossy on one side and that's the side you want facing up. I have almost zero unused paint with this setup.

I just made myself one earlier tonight. I actually used a paper towel instead of a sponge. I used the backing from a shipping label. I made sure to use a deep plastic container so I didnt have to worry about storage.

I was actually going to do a tutorial, but checked first. Seems you beat me to the punch.

I tend to use the plastic containers that Chinese food comes in (At least in the uk)

Example

http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/plastic_container250.jpg

Really, using a wet palette was the best thing to happen to my painting process.
Using a plastic tile or acrylic tubs was always a fight against drying out and maintaining consistency.

I was looking over my minis not so long ago and there's a clear difference in quality after I started using a wet palette.
Remember saying to myself
"here's the last squad I made using the old way, and here's the first squad I made with a wet palette - what a difference!"
Its good to look over your stuff and see the improvement over time