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Do you water down your highlights?

At 6:20 in this video, a second highlight of Ultramarine Blue/Space wolf grey is being used. Those two paints are mixed 1:1. Is that mixture watered down even further? Thanks!

Normally, I water down all my paint, one drop water for every 2/3 drops of paint

I would say his is slightly watered down, the time between loading up with paint and hitting the model is too short otherwise, normally when I paint using non highlighted colours, I do a test streak on my tray to remove the thick blodges.


Irregardless, the secret to great painting is a slight touch of water anyway and his models are always great

I use a wet palette. Water gets into the mix and thins it slightly naturally. It's not about ratio, it's about flow behaviour - I have some SW grey that's a rather thick paste at the moment, that needs thinning more than other paints. You'll get a grip on that with experience.

winterdyne wrote:
I use a wet palette. Water gets into the mix and thins it slightly naturally. It's not about ratio, it's about flow behaviour - I have some SW grey that's a rather thick paste at the moment, that needs thinning more than other paints. You'll get a grip on that with experience.

I agree, it is all about the flow behaviour. If you are using a plastic palette you can see how the paint will coat a surface by running it up the side of the well. I usually add water until it flows down the well to my liking. Obviously, for washes and glazes you add more water and less water is used in mixes for undercoating and block colours. If you don't add water the paint doesn't flow properly; it doesn't go where you want it to go and it may not even load your brush properly (making even highlighting and drybrushing difficult, strangely enough).

I use a little drop bottle to add drops of water, but you can also buy different media such as "flow-aid" that will do the same thing. Be careful with these though, some contain a retardent that increases drying time. This isn't a bad thing, it can just complicates things if you are on a schedule or unwilling to wait.

My advice would be to just experiment and get some experience. I would also head over to your local art supply store and get a plastic palette or two (they are cheap!) and have a chat to them about the different media they have for thinning paints.

Good luck!

So far I'm finding that, when painting white especially, it's very difficult to get it to paint over a darker colour (say, painting over mistakes), would that suggest I'm watering it down too much?

I'm also finding that if I don't water down paint, I risk it blocking up some fine details, such as the skulls on space marine armour, or even the details around the helmet....

Never paint white white. Always build up to it with a nice solid grey / blue / tan, depending on the eventual tone you want. Whether you get that shaded undertone by using a white primer and then a light grey or wash, you're always building towards a pure white highlight, rather than the other way round. The trick is to use the coverage or translucency of whatever paint you're using to your advantage, rather than trying to fight it.

I'll have to look into that technique properly, I think. Haven't found a video of it, and I'm just envisioning a grey looking marine.....So far I've been working towards paint white, do a wash of black or mud, then go over the main areas again with white, and perhaps highlight with a brighter white if I can be bothered.