Tools (or techniques) of the trade that improved you painting

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**deacoy**

I know that many of you painstakingly go through the hardship of painting several hours a day to become a better painter. But when you have reached a milestone in the painting department, what can you do you improve your painting?
For me, the main thing that actually improved my painting was that i finally got my hands on some Acrylic drying retarder and Master brush cleaner ( I got it 3 days ago). Now my layers are a lot of thinner, and my highlights tend to look a lot smoother than before. It has also speeded up my painting. Best of all, my brushes don´t loose their edge thanks to the brush cleaner. My personal opinion is that if you have the right tools or techniques, you can step up your painting another notch.

What do you think?
Have some "drastical" changes in your painting equipment improved your painting? (this includes everything from wet palette to airbrushes, different brands of colours or brushes.)
Or maybe some new techniques?

**oadie**

In terms of equipment, making a wet palette was the first big step. The ability to actually maintain paint at the consistency I diluted it to made me much more consistent. What I had initially thought to be an inability to properly grasp the concepts of thinning turned out to be more a result of constantly battling evaporation.

Quality brushes were the other most noticeable step. I first moved from generic nylon and Taklon rounds to basic watercolor brushes to quality sables (both red and Kolinsky). With each jump, I noticed my control improving markedly.

Washes and airbrushes are great tools, but neither has been as crucial in my advancement as the brushes and palette, which are really the core equipment in painting. I love my Masters brush soap, as well, but its contribution pales in comparison.

**WaaaaghLord**

As said above, the quality of your tools really helps you to step us as a painter. Having quality tools that you know you can rely on is enough to give you more confidence to paint alone.

Another thing that really helped me was stepping away from traditional "studio" painting techniques. Trying something new and thinking outside the box is a big step for a lot of painters, but again, getting experimental and trying new things can really help improve your confidence in your own abilities.

The final thing that I guess helped, and I can't stress this enough, was learning the colour wheel. Knowing what colours and shades will complement each other is a huge step in the right direction in terms of theory, and even if you aren't the best of painters, a visually striking army will really stand out on the tabletop.

**BlackOps**

For me it was good brushes, good airbrush and correctly thinning paint.

**Desubot**

Wet pallet.

Water

and a good brush.

**Talys**

Oh, one more critical thing... Confidence!

Having confidence that you will be able to produce your desired result does amazing things. Your hands stop shaking in the details, eyes just dot on, scribbles are easy, highlights are just another brushstroke. White becomes just another color, and the result becomes more a limit of time and imagination, rather than ability or skull.

Once you eliminate "can I?", better, cleaner, and faster results just come. Also, you tend to get less impatient, and errors are less of a big deal, because you know you can compensate or correct.

**Thairne**

Posting in this forums and getting people like Talys to help you out

On a more serious note - good lighting. Helps me spot the lines and details.
In the same manner - head magnifying glasses. Those are a double edged sword, since you WILL see even the tiniest slops at 4x magnification - but it helped me to get those tiny edges (like the inside of the rim on shoulder guards) without my nose touching the model.

**Remco_Tuerlings**

Also agree with all that is said above. Quality equipment and materials (paint, wet pallets, good (air)brush cleaners, paint thinners, etc.) are an important way to improve your painting outcomes.

But when you've got it all down, when you've finally mastered a steady hand, or learned all brushing techniques and learned about picking the right colors for your color schemes. I found out that the thing that can make you improve even more is studying real elements in life up close. And especially how light interacts with that all. Because without light we would be blind. We would be unable to see and determine what is what.

So what I did when I was attending the "Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht" (Advanced Art School) was to study all sorts of materials, structures and textures and how to copy them to paint. I've spend hours watching metals, cloths, woods, muscles, glas, etc. Studied them really closely with all kinds of different lighting. That way I learned a crazy amount of knowledge about how the world works.

If I didn't had object I wanted to study on hand I would be looking up photo's and movies on all sorts of real life objects, structures, and or textures. I even collected a library of sample (digital) pictures or books so I could always look things up when I needed to refresh my mind. Same thing I do for inspirational purposes; I collect images that I find cool and when I've collected a few I try to find out what fascinates me about those images. Figuring that out can really teach me allot about what is visually attracting me and therefore also to some other people.

That way I learned how light bounces off on different things and what objects with a certain color do to the color of the light when it reflects or bounces off. Understanding why things shine or not and how colors of those elements influence one and another true light bouncing off on to one and another and practicing on how to mimic that in paint is really the next step.

Spoiler:

Even with fantasy miniatures or science fiction models that do not exist in real world you can apply the things you learn from that because they are all made from the same materials. And there's no short cut to learn that other than painstakingly practicing it over and over to get it right and spending hours on studying alle elements up close. Sorry guys and girls, but this is what can make the difference between a good painter and an even better painter.

**Tjomball**

I bought myself some Series 7 brushes. That alone did wonders. I no longer have to fight the brush to keep a point.
And swapping over from pots to droppers...
Learning to properly use putties was also an eyeopener. Atleast re. Milliput and its properties.

**techsoldaten**

For me, it was a moisture trap for my airbrush. It meant I could work at higher PSI without needing to worry about the thing barfing on my minis.

Before that, it was getting an airbrush and a compressor.

**Tannhauser42**

For me, the first big improvement came with good brushes.
The second came with good paints (switched from citadel to reaper).

The airbrush, while not necessarily a big improvement in painting quality, did make things like priming, basecoating, and vanishing a lot easier.

**Sammoth**

"Liqutex Matte Medium"
This stuff helped me a lot.
Being a Dry Retarder help ease clogging in my airbrush.
It helped as a thinner with paints adding nice smooth blends.
I also use it to make glazes with paints.

**hybridmoments82**

Talys wrote:
Oh, one more critical thing... Confidence!

Having confidence that you will be able to produce your desired result does amazing things. Your hands stop shaking in the details, eyes just dot on, scribbles are easy, highlights are just another brushstroke. White becomes just another color, and the result becomes more a limit of time and imagination, rather than ability or skull.

Once you eliminate "can I?", better, cleaner, and faster results just come. Also, you tend to get less impatient, and errors are less of a big deal, because you know you can compensate or correct.

I second Confidence as a major player in advancing your skill. You will screw up a few paint jobs, and discouragement is an easy trap to fall into. Resist, and always innovate. Trying and failing is the stuff from which awesome painters and modelers are made. Any time I'm foraying into new painting territory (as currently with my first Imperial Fists army), I pick up a few cheap eBay marines to test out paint recipes and techniques on. GW stores also have some spare space marine sprues of 3 marines each to provide to customers interested in trying their hand at painting. They can be snapped together, so you can build them in under a minute and be base coating rather quickly. GW SMs seem to not mind giving up a sprue or two if you spend money at that location. In any event, I find picking up some scratch models helps in the confidence department, and a good amount of Castrol engine cleaner for stripping those irreversible mistakes.