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Specifically Vallejo and Citadel brands.

I've been experimenting with Vallejo thinner, distiller water and Vallejo acrylic extenders. Some of the citadel metallics dry ridiculously fast so I use a small drop of extender/retarder along with thinner or water, which does help. I use an eye dropper...

I use a wet pallette and find after a few minutes the mix on the pallette a black layer rises to the top. I continue to stir/mix the paint every few minutes but the paint starts getting clumpy .... Or flakey on the model when applied.

I shake the living crap out of the pots, stainless steel ball bearings in the pots. I stir citadel pots with a toothpick after shaking for about 3 to 5 minutes.


Any thoughts?

I use the vallejo glaze medium and so far, that has worked out pretty well for me.

There is no magic solution for metallic paint that I know of but I seem to get a much longer working time than that. I use straight water or Liquitex flo-aid, and sometimes even Liquitex airbrush medium.

I will keep adding water and stirring as I go and as the paint dries, and more importantly I rinse the brush very often. I did a big metallic gold experiment a few years back and learned that metallic paints thin just fine, but they work very different. http://atticwars40k.blogspot.com/2011/10/great-gold-rush-quest-for-best-gold.html?m=1

I am not a fan of citadel brand metallic paints. Vallejo and Vallejo Liquid Gold are the 2 I prefer.

Vallejo Model Color has some rich pigments can be thinned with Liquitex Matte Medium.

Vallejo Liquid Gold is one of the best but, the draw back is it's alcohol based.

 Psychopski wrote:
I use a wet pallette and find after a few minutes the mix on the pallette a black layer rises to the top. I continue to stir/mix the paint every few minutes but the paint starts getting clumpy .... Or flakey on the model when applied.

Metallics tend to separate faster than most other paints - just the nature of the beast, I'm afraid. Frequent stirring on the palette is all it takes to combat the rising pigment, though. Your real problem is the latter portion of that quote.

What exactly do you mean when you say "clumpy" and "flakey [sic]?" When I imagine clumpy paint on a palette, I think of paint that has thickened significantly, due to drying. If that's the issue, then you aren't getting enough moisture transfer on your wet palette, relative to the ambient temperature/humidity - the palette paper is frequently the culprit, in that case, as insufficient water in the reservoir or poor contact therewith are pretty easy to diagnose with a quick glance at the surface.

What about the flakiness? Are you talking about a chalky finish or the visibility of individual metallic flakes? A chalky finish can be caused by overextending the acrylic medium in a paint, resulting in pigment clumping during drying. I haven't encountered this with metallic paints, though, largely due to the comparative size and weight of the "metallic" (not sure if the brands in question use mica, aluminum, etc.) particles. Getting a sparkly, glitter-like effect, as opposed to an even sheen, is often a result of over-thinning a coarse paint. The shine of metallic paints comes from little reflective particles - if thinned too far (at least without applying sufficient coats to counter the dispersion), the individual flakes stand out starkly. Applying thicker coats avoids the issue, as does applying more coats of thinner paint. Better still is to use a metallic paint with a finer particle size, which allows for thinner applications without visible gaps between or uneven reflection from the shiny flakes. Vallejo's Model Air metallics, for example, use a very fine (to better clear narrow airbrush nozzles) aluminum powder to get their sheen. This smaller particle size makes the paints respond better in thinned applications.

I know what you mean. I have trouble often detailing with silver or gold without adding significant volume.

For example, doing edge highlights on a bolter used to mean that I had to choose between a line that was too fat for my liking, or that added a ridge. I was so unhappy with the results that I went out and bought every metallic paint in every major brand to experiment with.

Here's what I do now: To get a perfectly flat, thin metallic silver, I put on a thin layer of black (it doesn't have to achieve opacity), and then I paint either GW Leadbelcher or VMC Gunmetal Grey using a FLAT brush. Both are thinned with water, but not a ton. The first coat of Leadbelcher always goes on nice and level, and I use Gunmetal Grey owhen I want it to come out very dark .

As Gunzhard mentioned, keep the brush clean. Then I use Nuhln Oil (which adds no significant volume) and I do detailing with Runefang Silver. After quite a bit of experimentation, I have decided that Runefang is the thinnest out-of-the-bottle paint. I have tried using VMA metallic paints from a brush too. They are very liquidy, but seem to add unwanted volume (ridges) to my work.

With gold, I either use a two-step or multistep process. My easy gold is to paint brown to opaque, and then use VMC Gold on top, leaving the recesses. The results are actually quite good if you can feather towards the recess with the tip of the brush in a single stroke, because the belly of the brush carries more paint than the point, and a slightly stippled effect of a metallic gold against brown looks like a fade-to-dark. I use no wash, and highlight the edges by going over them again with gold, or, if I really need, silver.

My multistep gold process is the GW method, slightly modified. All paint is thinned with water.

1. Brown to opaque
2. 1 thin layer of Balthazar Gold, leaving the recesses brown.
3. 1 thin layer of Gehenna Gold directly on top of Blathazar.
4. Serraphim Sepia Wash
5. Thinned Auric Gold layer, avoiding recesses and allowing shadows
6. Thinned Auric Gold at edges
7. Runefang Steel for final highlight

I quickly did a shoulder marking on one of the Space Hulk termies to show you what I mean (it's the model I'm working on now, anyhow). It's not perfect, but you can see that even after many layers of metallic paint, it's still quite untextured and smoothly blended.

I have had some good results with using airbrush medium with vallejo metallics when I want them to last longer.

Specifically, the "golden" brand airbrush medium.

(yes, even when brushing one).

best of luck!!!