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I've posted about this before but I still can't seem to get it right - thinning paint and then finding it completely unmanageable!! I've recently decided to start practicing faces so I bought a few small miniature heads and watched a brilliant Darren Latham video (one of the few that are still on Youtube):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbdTbuKIRkk

You never see his palette so I don't see how thin his paints are but he keeps talking about how they are very thin. Once he says 50-50 water and paint and then every layer after that sounds like its even thinner. I've also heard people talk about paint being as thin as milk and I've watched another brilliant video about glazing where the paint is thinned down ridiculously so that it must be 90% water at least.

But, whenever I thin it down it just flows all over the model, doesn't stay where I want it, runs into the crevices and sits on the surface so that it dries blotchily. What am I doing wrong?

One thing that occurred to me is that it might possibly be the water in my house. I've got a water softener installed. Could the water just be too soft? Would I be better off using something like Vallejo thinner? This is getting really frustrating so I'd be glad of some tips.

p.s. I am using a wet palette and when I talked about this before some of the responses suggested I didn't need to thin paint on a wet palette but I've been reading up on that online and opinion seems divided. If I don't thin it it does seem too thick. But anyway I would have to thin it for glazes wouldn't I and then I'd still have the problem of it being unmanageable. Help!

How much it's possible to thin a given paint varies a lot. There is no one hard, fast rule like Paint : Water ratio that works across the board. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.

The reason being paint brands and paint colours within brands are not all the same viscosity. The proportions of medium (what makes the paint dry into an impermeable plastic membrane), water (the solvent) and pigment (what gives it colour) are not consistent and that doesn't even account for things like flow aid or other additives.

Short and sweet of it is, if your paint is uncontrollable and you aren't overloading your brush, then there's too much water in the mix. A wet palette can indeed over-hydrate some paints all on its own. Other paints may actually dry up on the same wet palette. It depends on how hydrophilic the paint suspension is and the relative humidity.

Paint needs to be thin enough to flow easily off the brush, but thick enough it remains controllable. Try your paints straight out of the container onto a standard palette (old plastic lid does nicely) and see how they behave. There *are* some paints on the market that are thin enough to go on the model right from the pot/bottle.

If you need to make a paint less potent but adding water is breaking it up too much structurally, adding more medium works. Acrylic medium is paint without pigment, it comes in matte/semi/gloss. Note that medium doesn't make paint thinner, it makes it less intense by reducing the concentration of pigment and thus the paint becomes more transparent. Some paints are more forgiving of being thinned with only water right down to nearly translucent, while others break up quickly into coloured water that doesn't want to stay put.

What brand(s) of paint are you attempting to work with?

Thanks for your reply. It's very insightful and has given me a lot to think about. I'm using citadel paints. I've noticed some are thinner than others but I'm having the problem with a lot of them. I guess at the moment, doing the faces, I'm struggling most with Cadian Fleshtone. But even so, I don't see how I'm ever going to master glazes where the paint is supposed to be thinned down to almost water-like consistency (isn't it?). Maybe I'm loading the brush up too much......

Time and practice friend. Thinning is something you basically have to figure out on your own. Pointers and tips are good but you can't learn it from those alone. You need to do it, and keep doing it. My advice is to go a little thicker when you start off. It's better to go a little thicker and be able to at least control the paint than make a milky flesh wash that destroys your other layers and seeps into your painstakingly painted eyes. Work with thin layers on larger flat panels, and get a handle for what works and when it becomes too thin.

Any specifics for Vallejo? I've noticed it's been difficult to work with unless I use dedicated medium, though that might also be because our tap water is... less than pure by the usual standard. Overchlorination and cracked pipes are fun, kids. Definitely.

At first I thought that queen_annes_revenge's comment was quite reassuring. That it's just the case of practicing and getting the feel for it. But now I've given it some more thought there's one thing I just still don't get. Glazing - from the videos I've seen really does mean thinning the paint down til it's almost water doesn't it? But if I do that it is ALWAYS going to pool isn't it? Yet on the videos I've seen it doesn't. I just don't understand how to thin the paint and still have control......

For a long time I was struggling with water based thinning. It was working, but I hated how fiddly it is - every paint behaves a bit differently and the sweet spot is really tight. And then I discovered Vallejo Airbrush Thinner and never looked back - perfect, thin and smooth layers every time, easy to manage mix-on-the-brush workflow, dries instantly so you can work on a single part without pauses. Mix in a bit of retarder or glaze medium if you need more open time. I never got results that good or that consistent with water.

Jandgalf wrote:
At first I thought that queen_annes_revenge's comment was quite reassuring. That it's just the case of practicing and getting the feel for it. But now I've given it some more thought there's one thing I just still don't get. Glazing - from the videos I've seen really does mean thinning the paint down til it's almost water doesn't it? But if I do that it is ALWAYS going to pool isn't it? Yet on the videos I've seen it doesn't. I just don't understand how to thin the paint and still have control......

A big key to working with thinned paints, especially glazes, is not overloading your brush. When glazing, for example, yes you want it very thin, but it's "standard practice" to touch your brush's side against a paper towel or the like to wick out excess moisture. If you don't, as soon as you touch your brush on the model it will all flow off in an uncontrollable swoosh. Same applies for other thinned paints, to a lesser degree. Too much paint on the brush is the biggest bugbear in using thinned paints.

 Valander wrote:

Jandgalf wrote:
At first I thought that queen_annes_revenge's comment was quite reassuring. That it's just the case of practicing and getting the feel for it. But now I've given it some more thought there's one thing I just still don't get. Glazing - from the videos I've seen really does mean thinning the paint down til it's almost water doesn't it? But if I do that it is ALWAYS going to pool isn't it? Yet on the videos I've seen it doesn't. I just don't understand how to thin the paint and still have control......

A big key to working with thinned paints, especially glazes, is not overloading your brush. When glazing, for example, yes you want it very thin, but it's "standard practice" to touch your brush's side against a paper towel or the like to wick out excess moisture. If you don't, as soon as you touch your brush on the model it will all flow off in an uncontrollable swoosh. Same applies for other thinned paints, to a lesser degree. Too much paint on the brush is the biggest bugbear in using thinned paints.

Yet another perk of airbrush thinner - you can do an entire miniature worth of basecoat on a single load (with a proper sable brush of course).

Are you wicking the excess off your brush? Too much paint in the bristles is normally why thinned paint can’t be controlled

Jandgalf wrote:
At first I thought that queen_annes_revenge's comment was quite reassuring. That it's just the case of practicing and getting the feel for it. But now I've given it some more thought there's one thing I just still don't get. Glazing - from the videos I've seen really does mean thinning the paint down til it's almost water doesn't it? But if I do that it is ALWAYS going to pool isn't it? Yet on the videos I've seen it doesn't. I just don't understand how to thin the paint and still have control......

No. Thinness of the substance doesn't dictate pooling, not on its own. There are other factors that come into play with glazes, and brush control, brush loading etc are huge parts of it. For glazing a small area for example, you're going to have a tiny amount of glaze on your brush, and your control will allow you to move it over the areas you need to to achieve the desired affect. Of course this is something else that only comes with practice.

As others have mentioned above, use something to get your brush to the appropriate 'charge' or load state. Some use paper towels. Some, like me, use their thumb.

Fancy thinners may help, but personally I do all my thinning with water. It depends on the state of your water though I suppose.

Glazing is much easier if you add acrylic medium and/or flow improver to the paint mix, along with the extra water. Just adding water doesn't work very well for most paint brands. Vallejo in particular *loves* to separate on a wet palette, which makes it annoying because you have to constantly be adjusting the consistency and getting it back into suspension.

For flow improver, I use my homemade 5% glycerin : 95% water mix. There are commercial products too on the market like the aforementioned airbrush flow improver. Flow improver breaks surface tension, the property that makes water want to hang out in droplets rather than spread out. However, it should be reasonably easy to get any hobby acrylic paint to 'behave' without having to throw a bunch of extra stuff into it. The extras (mediums, flow improver, etc.) are good for once you've gotten a handle on how to work with your paint and you need to adjust its properties further, but beginners should start by mastering just normal paint +/- water.

If you really feel your water may be the culprit, distilled water is usually available for a minimal cost. We have inline filters on our taps so personally I've never bothered, but water quality does vary considerably depending on your geographical location so it's worth considering.

Other than a few duds (Corax White, looking at you!) Citadel paints are good quality, if expensive. Make sure you mix any acrylics well before use. Paint is a suspension, not a solution - the different densities of its component ingredients stratify as the bottle/pot sits around.

Practice getting just a little paint on your brush. It's not necessary - and in fact quite detrimental to both the process and brush life - to soak the bristles in paint all the way. Aim for about half way up at most. If the paint is wicking straight up to the ferrule the instant you touch the brush to the paint, that's another sign there's too much water in the mix. Keep a paper towel handy for unloading some of the excess. Many painters will draw out their puddle of paint on the palette so they can wick up just a bit into the tip as they work, which is faster and more efficient than constantly having to unload into the paper towel.



3:29 demonstrates brush loading pretty well.

Sounds like I need to get wicking! I think that was probably my biggest mistake. Big thanks to everyone who's posted. Who'd have thought that something as simple as dipping the brush in the paint could be so complicated! And also thanks for the video links — they're great

*thumbs up*
Unless you've spent a lot of time as a kid with paints and brushes, these things just aren't intuitive for most folks. It's not even really something that comes up a lot outside of our niche hobby, because we're working on stuff that's just so darn tiny. Surface tension starts to become an actual thing to pay attention to, not to mention the fine motor skills needed to accurately guide paint where you want it to go.

It gets easier; the more time you spend with your paints, the more you'll internalize about how to get them to do exactly what you want them to.

A few thoughts.

Paint has a quality called surface tension. I find it important to consider when paint runs. Water tends to remove surface tension, chemicals thinners tend to do that less. You want to find the right tension so it stays where you want it.

You might want to experiment - on a scrap model, or something that's not a miniature - with different concentrations of your paint & thinning medium. You just want to get a feel for how it works before you put it on something that's bound to last.

But mixing paint is an art. 50 / 50 mixes are not for novices, glazes tend to be less about water and more about pigment and glaze mediums. If you're trying to do anything beyond translucent layers, you probably need more practice.

Second, there's something people don't talk about when it comes to wet palettes. I make mine with parchment paper, paints applied to it soak up water from the substrate and become more watery over time. This is fine for some applications, but it absolutely does not work for glazes / shades / shelaks. There's no way to control the moisture that passes up into the paint, and this could be complicating your efforts.

If you doing glazes, use a dry palette instead. A piece of flat plastic usually works best for me, I sometimes I use glass or this transparent plastic I found at the home improvement store. You want something flat so you can mix small amounts of paint / medium precisely while you are learning this medium.

The other thing I make a lot of use out of is bottle caps. Maybe I'm glazing black armor after doing it up with the airbrush. I usually need a small amount of ink and a whole bunch of medium to make the glaze. Bottle caps are the perfect size and constrain me from mixing too much. They're also precise - you have a lot of control over what goes into this small container where your paint will sit.

I found a wet palette made my pooling issues go away a few years ago when I got the XL one from redgrass gaming.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Second, there's something people don't talk about when it comes to wet palettes. I make mine with parchment paper, paints applied to it soak up water from the substrate and become more watery over time. This is fine for some applications, but it absolutely does not work for glazes / shades / shelaks. There's no way to control the moisture that passes up into the paint, and this could be complicating your efforts.

I've found that 1-2 extra layers of parchment makes for a less permeable wet palette surface for those highly reactive paint mixes - glazes and metallics in particular. Often have scraps of parchment left over from cutting my sheets to size anyways, and they're easy to dispose of afterwards too.

Fire_Forever wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Second, there's something people don't talk about when it comes to wet palettes. I make mine with parchment paper, paints applied to it soak up water from the substrate and become more watery over time. This is fine for some applications, but it absolutely does not work for glazes / shades / shelaks. There's no way to control the moisture that passes up into the paint, and this could be complicating your efforts.

I've found that 1-2 extra layers of parchment makes for a less permeable wet palette surface for those highly reactive paint mixes - glazes and metallics in particular. Often have scraps of parchment left over from cutting my sheets to size anyways, and they're easy to dispose of afterwards too.

Yeah, but then it's not quite a wet palette.

Drawing moisture upwards at a constant rate, and knowing the rate, is always a challenge.

I'm gonna be honest, I'm a brush licker through and through, so I tend to stick with water. I also have 3 cats that tend to get all up in my face and more often than not, their tails will smear across my wet palette meaning they eventually do lick it up. So less toxicity anywhere is just better IMO.

Also, learning to do it with water may be hard-mode early on, but once you've mastered proper paint dilution, thinning, glazing/feathering, etc., it's so much nicer to not have to rely on having airbrush thinner or any fancy mediums or thingamabobs and whatchyamacall. Just good ol tap water.