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.

Quick question, i've been researching acrylic mediums used for blending. I've tried some blending before as i use a wet pallet, so my paints generally have a small amount of water added to them. I've got the day off so im thinking about running to the store and picking some up to play around with my nids. Is it worth the cash spent or should i stick with water? Any help would be appreciated, this is my first hobby i've ever participated in that involves painting. So its been a big learning curve.

Mediums make the job easier, especially a drying retardant in warmer conditions. This said, you can do the same with water in most cases, its just a bit trickier.

I don't think water will do what you want the acrylic medium to do honestly but I'm not the most experienced. I would recommend going to hobby lobby or your equivelent and picking up a bottle for $6-15. The amount you'll get will be huge compared to medium sold by GW,but you may very well know that already! in event you didn't, save yo $!

To blend you need to make suer that all the relevant bits of paint are still wet enough to mix. Specialist mediums and drying retarders will help, but you can do the same thing with water.

Hmm i thought that the medium was a drying retarder? I kind of imagine it as being a liquid that allows the paint to stay suspended longer before settling and drying so you can blend it. Is a retarder used in place of a medium to the same effect or for a different purpose. I'm not planning on buying the GW version of the product, i do like some of their paints so far but its a long drive to their store and the prices don't add up.

I've been blending with nothing but water for 20+ years..

never tried a medium, probably never will.

almost all manufaturers sell their paints so think they require diluted in any case I find.. so the only question is how much water to add to get the consistency you want..

I use saliva.

 Rotary wrote:
Hmm i thought that the medium was a drying retarder? I kind of imagine it as being a liquid that allows the paint to stay suspended longer before settling and drying so you can blend it.

The term medium can be kind of generic. Typically, people are referring to Matte Medium, which is normally, but not always, used with artist acrylics (the kind in the squeeze tube) to give the paint a matte finish, and also helps to keep the pigments in suspension when thinning with water. A retarder will give acrylics more open time for techniques like wet blending. I would practice blending with retarder on spare bits to learn how much to add. Too much retarder will cause problems, so best to use it on something disposeable until you get the amount, and your blending technique, down pat.

Hmm you can absolutely blend with just water... it just takes more practice. A medium will still maintain that 'thicker' consistency, which is easier to work with, while effectively 'thinning' the opacity.

But water, with practice, works just as well; most of the legit 'expert' painters thin with lots of water: Allan Carrasco, Julien Casses, Mathieu Fontaine, etc...

I've taken several of Mathieu Fontaine's classes, which I highly recommend, and learned a great deal about painting with thinned paints.

A wet-pallet certainly helps; but it really comes down to how you load up the brush, and using a decent quality brush. Too much thinned paint on the brush and it will run all over your model. Practice...

water sucks. acrylic varnish is my new favoritethinner.

Yeah, it works fine. Although to be honest you can probably just blend it straight from the pot. I've never had any problems with doing so.

If you thin the paint too much with plain water there will not be enough binder to make it form a proper skin and stick to the model. Acrylic medium avoids this and adds other optional qualities such as longer drying time.

Whether these factors help you is partly a matter of your overall technique and purpose. Personally I never used media when painting simple wargame models that only needed relatively simple techniques.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If you thin the paint too much with plain water there will not be enough binder to make it form a proper skin and stick to the model. Acrylic medium avoids this and adds other optional qualities such as longer drying time.

Whether these factors help you is partly a matter of your overall technique and purpose. Personally I never used media when painting simple wargame models that only needed relatively simple techniques.

Do you really find this to be the case with miniature paint lines? ...I know for example P3 paints I've thinned literally to water with a slight tint and had no issue. I find that Vallejo Model and GW paints also thin, with water, extremely well... in my experience anyway.

I agree, most of the time water works fine (or acrylic thinner).

It partly depends what you are painting on top of, e.g. a good primer or other acrylic paint but I've sometimes had trouble on top of non-acrylic paint.

It doesn't do any harm to have knowledge of the acrylic medium, just in case.