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Hey everybody

It's time for my very first post here, so I figured it might as well be with a noob question.

I have been painting miniatures for several decades, and before I found this site recently, I thought I was pretty good at it. A couple of things I've picked up here, though, and been very happy with the result, but one thing in particular eludes me, and that is thinning paint. The thought has never occured to me before, but since everything else I picked up here turned out to be great skills, I figured I would try this too. I don't know if I'm doing it wrong, though. I take one drop of paint (Citadel) and add one or two drops of water and mix it with a brush. My problem with this is that it suddenly takes MANY layers for the paint to cover my black primer at all. Is this as it's supposed to be? Is it just me needing to be more patient?

If it's taking that many layers to paint over black, you probably have it too diluted...unless you're trying to paint white over black.

When consider thinning paints, it is imperative that you understand how your paints behave. With citadel paints, I find that diluting them one part paint to one part water is enough to base-coat miniatures.

One thing I do to test the dilution is to thin out my paints on a palette and drag my paintbrush across from the well I dropped in my paints. If my paint has a consistency of milk (leaves a bit of white residue when you drag it across a porous surface), then I am set.

You could also make it easier on yourself by switching to bottle-dropper paints by Vallejo or reaper, so you can easily control dilution/thinning.

Hope my advice helps. Good luck!

Try a 50:50 mix and something i found was throwing my mix off when i first started thinning paints was the water held on the brush.

Dry off your brush between stages.

I've got empty syringes so i use them to get the mix i want each time.

Many thin layers are better than 1 thick one.

While I've never had issues from not thinning my paints, I've found that now that I batch paint all the time I have to thin them. All I do is just add a small amount of water via a paintbrush to the paint on the plate and mix it all in.

That's the way acrylics work: you blend by layering (mostly, there are of course other techniques).

The main question here is what you are trying to achieve: a quick tabletop paintjob or an award winning display piece?

When painting for tabletop you don't need to thin that much: 5 parts paint with 1 part water is enough for most paints. The new Citadel paints could use a bit more water though.

If you are going for a smooth finish then more water, but also more layers, and more time, are required.

A good way to practice thinning paint is to put a good amount of paint (10 drops+) on a palette, and put a similar amount of water near it on the palette, and slowly draw some of each into a third pool and get the hang of how they mix, and how the paint behaves as you change the consistency. Priming something large and flat to practice on as you change the mix helps as you can see it all compared to the same base.

Also remember different ranges behave differently, as do different paints within the same range sometimes.

Thanks for the advice.

Check the acrylic medium link in my sig, should be helpful!

 MajorTom11 wrote:
Check the acrylic medium link in my sig, should be helpful!

A very educational read. Thank you.