Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi guys, I was wondering if anyone had try making a dry brush palate at home, the kind that Artis Opus uses for his drybrushing. I've found cheap alternatives for both the brushes and the brush dampener but I've not had much success with making a texture palate.

I bought a cheapo wooden palate and carved some groves/shapes into it to texture it but my big problem is that paint dries on it super fast so I don't have the amount of working time Artis Opus does in his videos.

My two ideas for solving it is either basecoating the entire thing black and hoping thats enough to separate the paint from the porous wood, or to give it a matte varnish for the same reason.
My question is which of those seems more likely to work. I'm worried the matte varnish might create Too much of a seal and then I won't be able to use the texture in the palate to test the drybrushing.

Help and comments appreciated

Seal it with 50/50 PVA glue, like 2-3 coats. If the finish is smooth the glue will more than adequately prevent any liquid leaching into the wood.

The texture Palate isn't for putting your paint on, it's for wicking excess paint off of the brush for dry brushing. The wooden palate doesn't instantly leech all of the moisture out of your brush like a paper towel does.

For drybrushing, I usually like to use both toilet paper and brown paper bag paper for wiping off excess paint; the latter doesn't suck as much moisture out from the brush

I think the Artis Opus guy primes his palettes black, and then when it has built up a lot of paint he just re-primes it black again.

I personally like using cardboard for my palettes, I literally get cereal box style cardboard that is glossy on the outside and matte/raw on the inside, I tear off 2 sheets, one sheet I keep glossy side up, and the other I keep matte side up. I use the glossy sheet for both the raw blob of paint and also for getting the brush nice and coated, then I swap to the matte sheet for removing extra moisture. Depending on whether my brush is feeling too dry or too wet I'll use the glossy or matte sheets respectively.

Then the nice thing is that it forms the colour palette for the army I was painting. So I just store those cards away and if in 3 years time I come back and want to add more models to that army, I just pull out the cards and can know exactly what my palette should look like (since drybrush techniques often involve a lot of mixed colours as you aren't cleaning the brush between stages).

Yeah, I asked him how he treats his palette and he told me he just primes it black. I asked him if chaos black spray worked okay and he replied that that was what he used, lol.