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What sort of ratios do you all look for generally? I've never used medium to thin, but I picked up a bottle of Liquitex--I'm looking to up my painting game after a lengthy hiatus from painting and playing.

I've invested heavily in Vallejo Game colors for the Eldar army I'm painting, so experiences with those particular paints would be incredibly useful.

Matte medium by itself is not a thinner.

Watch this it will explain how to make a thinner. Its designed for airbrushing but you can use it for regular brush work.

Matt Medium is great stuff... ratios.. any ratio you want, as it is an acrylic binder in its own right, you cant over dilute an acrylic with it to a point that the surface tension of the paint film is gone (like water does)

Infact all Liquitex Mediums are brilliant! I use Ultra matt, matt, gloss, glaze and airbrush mediums regularly, very rarely apply any paints without adjusting them to suit my needs with the mediums.
Aswell as making the paint better to use in whatever way you want (with the right mediums) They bulk out the paint to make your tiny hobby sized pots go a bit further.

Mixing ultra matt with any colour results in opaque, matt finish paint. Which makes a really good base coat layer.
Gloss medium is much like matt, only its glossy (duh )
Glaze medium is very glossy, but increases the transparency of whatever its mixed with by more than any other mediums do.
Airbrush medium is a godsend! Thins any acrylics I've tried so far to spray through my 0.2mm airbrush nicely.
I had thought that maybe the Airbrush medium was just matte medium with water and flow aid, but it doesnt seperate. Which leads me to think that its a different mixture entirely.

The ratio to use depends entirely on what you're trying to do with the paint. Making a wash would involve a lot more medium and flow aid than thinning a base coat for example.
It also adds transparency to the colours, so can aid in layering and underpainting techniques (use glaze medium for maximum transparency though)

As above, don't use matte medium to "thin" as such, when you thin you use water or thinners generally to just make the paint less thick. Use matte medium to alter the paints properties. It can make it thicker if it's very thin, and it will make it more transparent.

The ratio you use depends on what you want to do, and I don't have any set ratios. I mix it until the paint has the properties I want from it.

 Yonan wrote:
As above, don't use matte medium to "thin" as such, when you thin you use water or thinners generally to just make the paint less thick. Use matte medium to alter the paints properties. It can make it thicker if it's very thin, and it will make it more transparent.

The ratio you use depends on what you want to do, and I don't have any set ratios. I mix it until the paint has the properties I want from it.

I heard that water was a bad way to thin paint. How well does windex do? I'm using GW paints.

Windex can gum up paint. at least it did when i tried it.

I tried to make a premix with windex and some GW paint and it gelled and settled.

I use 50/50 mix of matt + water with a few drops of flowaid.

 Davespil wrote:

 Yonan wrote:
As above, don't use matte medium to "thin" as such, when you thin you use water or thinners generally to just make the paint less thick. Use matte medium to alter the paints properties. It can make it thicker if it's very thin, and it will make it more transparent.

The ratio you use depends on what you want to do, and I don't have any set ratios. I mix it until the paint has the properties I want from it.

I heard that water was a bad way to thin paint. How well does windex do? I'm using GW paints.

Water works very well if you are not bad with it.
Windex also works, but it evaporates quickly (faster than water)

If you are brushing, invest in a wet pallet, then water is your friend.
If you are airbrushing, water works just fine - work with it to get the ratios.

Thanks for all the responses!

Sorry, yes I should have been a little clearer about what I meant by thin. I'm looking specifically for color dilution and smoothness of coating to improve my blending by hand. I'm not quite to the point of wet blending yet, so I haven't been looking into retarders. But that's something else I'm interested in experimenting.

 Davespil wrote:

 Yonan wrote:
As above, don't use matte medium to "thin" as such, when you thin you use water or thinners generally to just make the paint less thick. Use matte medium to alter the paints properties. It can make it thicker if it's very thin, and it will make it more transparent.

The ratio you use depends on what you want to do, and I don't have any set ratios. I mix it until the paint has the properties I want from it.

I heard that water was a bad way to thin paint. How well does windex do? I'm using GW paints.

Distilled water is generally the optimal thinner, if your tap water is good it's generally fine but distilled water is obviously best. I use windex to clean my airbrush since it breaks down acrylic paint (recommended by Ken Badger for this iirc) so it doesn't seem like the best idea to thin them with it. To distilled water you can add flow aid and drying retarder depending on what you're doing. Flow aid is generally a good idea to make the paints apply more smoothly.

What kind of flow aid do you recommend?

Liquitex is the stuff

Here is the link

http://www.amazon.com/Liquitex-Professional-Flow-Effects-Medium/dp/B000KNPM46/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382984842&sr=8-1&keywords=liquitex+flow+aid

So in what ratios do I mix my GW paint, distilled water, and flow aid?

The flow aid will have the ratio written on the bottle, might be 10:1 water to flow aid from memory... but might not be ; p I mix it into another dropper bottle so I have a water:flow aid mix already made up. Ideally you'd have available straight distilled water, distilled water:flow aid mix, matte medium and drying retarder. With those you should be set for painting with acrylics. I still use thinners instead of water for airbrushing, though not sure if it has any impact.

You'll get the feel for the right mix of water, flow aid mix and paint to get it behaving how you want. Just practice on something for a bit. I practiced on some second hand AoBR marines which I stripped in dettol a couple times, helped me learn the ropes a lot better.

Keep in mind that all those other things (Water, Windex, alcohol, flow aid, drying retarder...) are dilutants as well as making the paint less thick.

Anything which is not as thick as the paint can be used to dilute it - and yes, that does include some matte mediums. I very rarely will use water to thin acrylic paints - and things like Windex are right out. They are bad for airbrushes and even worse for natural fiber brushes. The various solvents in Windex will strip the chrome plating off the internals of the airbrush (and that plating isn't there just for looks) and it will completely destroy the natural oils in sable hairs that make them springy and able to keep a good point.

There is also some evidence that using ammonia in Windex and other cleaners used to thin paints actually breaks the molecular chains down before they have a chance to set. These shorter chains form a weaker bond because as they coil up on each other, they can snag fewer of their neighboring molecular chains.

Distilled water, used sparingly, is your best bet for thinning acrylics. If you over use it though, the paint becomes so diluted that it can not form a stable skin when it dries and you end up with dusty paint that rubs off easily. You can use air brush thinners to thin paints further than you can with water. They contain solvents, flow aids and additional acrylic binders which are less viscous than the binder in regular hobby paint. That additional binder is what allows it to be thinned further without negatively impacting the ability of the paint to form a stable skin.

If you need to go thinner still, you need to look into other sources of acrylic binders. Future Floor polish is a popular choice. It has about the same viscosity as water, however it is almost entirely pure acrylic resin (little bit of drying retarder and a fragrance). With Future, or specific acrylic resins like GAC 100 or Old Holland acrylic mediums that are designed for artists to formulate their own paint blends. They sell pure acrylic without any added thickeners which also works great for thinning down other paints.

Old Holland is one of those companies who actually make a matte medium that doubles as a thinner too. Just a little bit more viscous than water.

All of that said though - since you say you are looking to improve your brush blending...you might consider looking at glazing compounds instead of thinners per se. They make two different types of glazing compounds...so make sure you read the labels. The first is designed for use when you are painting houses. Faux finishes and things like that. Not that those are entirely useless - just they are not very useful here. The second is an additive that extends acrylic paints and allows them to behave more like oil paints in terms of drying times and things like wet blending. Depending on how much and how thick you are working - you can get up to a few hours of working time before the paint dries with them.

Drying retarder will also work to some extent - though with that...a little dab will do you. Most the time those are a fluid with a low evaporation rate (PEG or some other glycol), and if you use to much, the retarder can still be in play but skinned over...like a blister of sorts. That prevents the paint from setting properly, and can lead to it flaking off. However, a little drying retarder will give you another 15-30 minutes of working time to blend your paints with.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
The various solvents in Windex will strip the chrome plating off the internals of the airbrush (and that plating isn't there just for looks) and it will completely destroy the natural oils in sable hairs that make them springy and able to keep a good point.

Ken Badger, CEO of Badger Airbrushes had this to say about using Windex to clean your airbrush:

Ammonia is an excellent spray through cleaner because it has the ability to breakdown acrylic paints. I never suggest soaking your airbrush in ammonia because ammonia will deteriorate brass during prolonged exposure. But spraying an ammonia based cleaner through the airbrush in no way, shape, or form comes to the point of concern for prolonged exposure. I have sprayed ammonia through Badger airbrushes for over 30 years and have yet to see a damaged airbrush as a result of this cleaning media or method - and I also know I don't have to disassemble my airbrush to clean it if I properly employ this method.

Please feel free to post this anywhere you wish - with my assurance that if someone's usage of an ammonia based spray through cleaner results in damage to their Badger airbrush I will gladly replace the airbrush for them."

So yeah, spraying Windex through your airbrush to clean it is fine.

Why not just use Glaze medium? Don't add to much just like 1 or 2 drops in something that you have used like 6 drops of. Then if its still to thick add small amount of water. This is if you are using a brush.

This is why I hate airbrushing. I still have no idea what to use. I think I'll just thin with some distilled water and flow aid.