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Hey all, so a few painting questions, I am really trying to get my painting to a new level, but with that I will need to get a few things straightened out with my current techniques to start upping my level...

1) Firstly is 'ard coat, what the heck is it for, I managed to get a pot about 2 years ago for .50 cents (along with about 20 other pots) but I have yet to figure out what it is for and would like to know if it would help me somehow.

2) The next is inks and washes, I get washes and use them extensively, but inks seem to baffle me a bit, I mostly use them to put a shine on a place, like an optical sensor or power sword, is a wash just a watered down ink, or are they different, in fact the wash almost seems like a watercolor, are watercolors useable as washes?

3) The number of paints for an army, I am currently using 31 for my Black Templars, is that insane? I just laid them all out in a sort of sample sheet with the names and a line of paint to see what I am using and maybe put aside the many pots I have spare, and it seems like I have a lot but they all seem to be used, I can pick out where all of them have a point of use.

4) Brushes, I know a lot of people use very specific kinds, but I have been using the 3050 series by the Princeton Art & Brush Co. I love them alot but wwhat else is there to look at or are these pretty good?

5) watering down paints, how much, when, why? I do it sometimes for a better flow, but I seem to not need it so much, why do so many people do this all the time, it seems like it is a waste a bit for me, or am i missing something huge here, I get whites, I have to do that for a smooth coverage, but since I am slowly converting over to Reaper Master Series Paints I am finding they flow fine with very little to no watering down.

6) dry brushing, I can do it ok, but there seems to be a bit that I am missing, I am not sure what I am doing wrong so please help.

I know this is a lot of questions, but I really want to enhance my painting, everyone says I am pretty good at it, but I think I am pretty bad really, what to do... so I come to you all here and humbly ask for your help, fell free to look at my work so far on my gallery to give some added tips.

thank you all,

-Chaplin Cliff

1. ard coat is much like a varnish..it protects your minis from wear and tear in daily use

2. washes are for "washing" over the areas to add shading and depth usually youll put it on rather liberally and clean it up off the high points where you dont want it with an empty brush or qtip to leave the color in the depths of the model .....inks are confusing depends how you mean really i mix artist ink with other materials to make a potent wash or glaze only thing ive ever seen marked as an ink is the old gw inks which were similar to washes but with more of a coverage personally i use artist ink to make a great wash or glaze that wont be clunky or dry oddly

3. if you use the paint then you use it only time the number of colors makes a difference is when you have to many different colors for instance if you have 4 greys thats fine for adding shading and depth if you have 1 red 1 blue 1 yellow 1 green 2 oranges 1 purple 1 grey 1 white 1 black 1 cream color ...you start to have a clown look going on if all those colors are in large areas but if you take those same colors and 80% of them are in subtle detail type places then its fine .....overall its how you use those colors not how many there are multiples for shading =good multiple for details =good multiple with no overall color = bad

example if you look at blood angel you say oh hes red even though he has alot of colors on him ...but if you look at a clown you go oh hes rainbow polka dot color thats because to many colors on him are fighting for the spot light be a blood angel not clown

4. i use WN series 7 because i was told to try them and i liked them after doing so if you like you brush and its not causing problem then you got a good brush

brush buying tips
1. natural hair
2. good body to hold paint
3. nice sharp point

those are the 3 biggest things you want a extreme teaar drop shape so that the paint sits in the big blob part and gravity and weight pulls it to that nice fine tip so you can make super small lines


paint thinning is super important it makes you colors come out smoother thin to the consistency of milk all the time what that is is take some milk put it in a glass and swirl it notice how as it slides down the glass it leaves this see through layer that looks like milk but not solid ....thats what your looking for ...takes a for minutes longer to paint things but the result is far better

hope it helps if you have any more questions feel free to pm me ill do my best to answer them for you


edit looked at your brush ...not a great brush tbh the shape is for canvas painting (not going to go int odetail on that though) you want something like

http://www.google.com/search?q=winsor+newton+series+7&hl=en&rlz=1C1ASUM_enUS475US475&prmd=imvnso&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=TKDaT9KiOcKs2gW4_fiJBg&ved=0CMIBEPwFKAE&biw=1435&bih=634

notice the shape of the hair and how fine the tip remains they also have a miniature line which has a smaller body for getting in smaller areas...honostly not a big deal if you paint in pieces and stuff

1) It's varnish.

2) Inks and washes are different, although they do overlap in terms of purpose. Mostly they are used to glaze or shade a miniature, since they tend to go on the recesses. Inks are thicker, requires thinning and better when tinting something (say, you painted your miniature white and you put blue ink on it, it'll have a nice tinted blue), washes are better at shading, requires little or no thinning and would need multiple layers to tint. Inks also makes a surface shinier, which would be no issue if you apply matte varnish to your models after painting.

3) I have much more than that so no, that's not insane. But I do have copious amounts of blue, yellow, red, black and white: I mix my own colors if I find that there are no colors available for the shade I want. Mostly I use GW paints for army-wide uniformity, but for display one-of pieces I mix paints a whole dang lot. Theoretically I can survive with just blue, yellow, red, white and black and just do all the mixing (and I have done that in the past when painting on canvas), but it's easier and much more convenient to have multiple colors.

4) I use 00 a 00 brush of some weird Chinese brand that is only labelled "Tianyitang Japan". Besides that I use cheap fine, Chinese brushes and Berkeley ones. All of my brushes are inexpensive and easily replaceable: I guess in my case it's one of those "work with what you have" scenarios Having a nice brush is fine and all, but it doesn't need to be expensive and a good brush is worthless if you can't use it properly.

5) That's a hard question. The answer: it depends. Depends on the color, the brand, the effect you want, the part you're painting, etc. Each paint is different, even when made by the same manufacturer, so you need to really know your paints and this one I will chalk up with experience.

A good rule of thumb, though: most of the times when you want an even coat wetting your brush for a little bit is enough "watering down"--just enough water to not make a texture when painting, and you'll still have decent coverage. Again, depends on a lot of factors, though!

6) Can't really say what's wrong with what you're doing if you don't show us photos of your work.

You've already gotten decent answers, so I'll only add a few supplemental comments.

2) Washes like those that GW offers are frequently made from inks, but they're not simply watered down - they contain additives like matte medium and surfactants that control their flow and pooling properties, so as to make them better for shading recesses.

As for watercolors, I just used some diluted gouache (basically, a watercolor with some white solids added to increase opacity) as a glaze when applying some minor OSL to a mini. They don't behave all that differently from heavily diluted acrylics - the main benefit being that they're "erasable" with water.

3) 31 seems a bit much, to me, but it's not a problem, by any means. If you use them all, more power to you. Personally, I tend to mix more colors and/or use the translucency of dilute acrylics to provide the variation that others prefer to get by using more paints and solid layers. Whatever works for you, really.

6) Without being able to see pictures, I can't say what you're doing wrong. I can say, at least, that the number one issue people have when drybrushing is an overloaded brush. Too much paint leads to streaks, blobs, and overly stark highlights. When you truly wipe off most of the paint before starting, the effect builds up gradually, over dozens of strokes (which doesn't really take all that much time, thankfully - I spend more time loading/scrubbing my brush than I do running it over the model). This leads to smoother transitions and greater control - it's hard to accidentally overdo it when it takes several passes to make a noticeable difference, after all.