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So I have read that if you thin with alcohol It's perfect for glazing as the pigment doesn't run into the crevasses.

What are the things I need to know to be successful with this technique? What kind of alcohol do I use?

40% alcohol.. most people use rubbing alcohol.. and then mix it down to 40%.
I skip that step. I go straight for the cheap a.. Vodka the alkies drink.. one small bottle will last you a LOOOOOONG time. And it is already at 40%.
Another thing to keep in mind is the drying time shortens since alcohol evaporates more quickly than water..

 Tjomball wrote:
40% alcohol.. most people use rubbing alcohol.. and then mix it down to 40%.
I skip that step. I go straight for the cheap a.. Vodka the alkies drink.. one small bottle will last you a LOOOOOONG time. And it is already at 40%.
Another thing to keep in mind is the drying time shortens since alcohol evaporates more quickly than water..

Is it only certain types of vodka that are suitable for this? Would "nicer" vodkas have hints of this and that for flavoring that would make them too impure and leave discoloration behind?

Also, is alcohol suitable for airbrush use, and if so, is it hard on the o rings?

I've played around using alcohol to thin, but I didn't really like the effect. Alcohol based paints (Gunze, Tamiya) thin well with alcohol, but they thin better with thinners actually designed for the purpose (X20A and Gunze's Self Levelling Thinner).

Non-alcohol based paints (Citadel, Vallejo, Army Painter, Reaper, etc), some of them thin ok with alcohol, but many of them go claggy when you mix them alcohol (something about the binder being catalysed or something like that, maybe it wasn't catalysed but for some reason I have that word in my head). So some of those paints it's flat out bad to thin with alcohol, others it works but not really all that well.

I've tried both isopropanol and vodka (vodka = 40% ethanol), both in the airbrush and with hairy brushing. I haven't tried pure ethanol because it's hard to obtain, the government likes to tax ethanol because you can get drunk off it, so unless you're registered as a laboratory it's either very expensive or hard to get. I have used pure ethanol as a paint stripper though, so I'm not sure how well it'd work as a thinner, lol.

When I tried vodka is was basically a case of "eh, it works, but there are better options". And frankly Vodka isn't much cheaper and in some cases more expensive than hobby thinners (again, thanks to tax). Some paints it left the paint cloudy until it dried out, the cloudiness went away, but it's hard to paint when the paint changes a few minutes after you apply it.

So with that all said, what do I use? If thinning alcohol based acrylics for airbrushing (Gunze, Tamiya) then I use Gunze Self Levelling Thinner. It slows drying and makes the paint spray much more smoothly. If thinning those same paints for hairy brush painting, well, I don't really like hairy brush painting them so it's usually just for touch ups, I just thin them with water, Tamiya is pretty thin out of the bottle so sometimes I don't thin at all (but it dries fast).

For non-alcohol water based acrylics (GW, Vallejo, Reaper) for airbrushing I use Vallejo Airbrush Thinner, I find it sprays much smoother and less clogs than alcohol (either IPA or vodka) and as I said some just have a flat out bad reaction to alcohol that can clog your airbrush up in no time. For hairy brush painting them, I usually use water, maybe with just a touch of Vallejo's Airbrush Flow Improver (if I want it to flow and level better, it also gives it a bit more bite) and/or GW's Lahmian Medium (if I want to reduce opacity without it actually getting much thinner). But mostly just tap water.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I've played around using alcohol to thin, but I didn't really like the effect. Alcohol based paints (Gunze, Tamiya) thin well with alcohol, but they thin better with thinners actually designed for the purpose (X20A and Gunze's Self Levelling Thinner).

Non-alcohol based paints (Citadel, Vallejo, Army Painter, Reaper, etc), some of them thin ok with alcohol, but many of them go claggy when you mix them alcohol (something about the binder being catalysed or something like that, maybe it wasn't catalysed but for some reason I have that word in my head). So some of those paints it's flat out bad to thin with alcohol, others it works but not really all that well.

I've tried both isopropanol and vodka (vodka = 40% ethanol), both in the airbrush and with hairy brushing. I haven't tried pure ethanol because it's hard to obtain, the government likes to tax ethanol because you can get drunk off it, so unless you're registered as a laboratory it's either very expensive or hard to get. I have used pure ethanol as a paint stripper though, so I'm not sure how well it'd work as a thinner, lol.

When I tried vodka is was basically a case of "eh, it works, but there are better options". And frankly Vodka isn't much cheaper and in some cases more expensive than hobby thinners (again, thanks to tax). Some paints it left the paint cloudy until it dried out, the cloudiness went away, but it's hard to paint when the paint changes a few minutes after you apply it.

So with that all said, what do I use? If thinning alcohol based acrylics for airbrushing (Gunze, Tamiya) then I use Gunze Self Levelling Thinner. It slows drying and makes the paint spray much more smoothly. If thinning those same paints for hairy brush painting, well, I don't really like hairy brush painting them so it's usually just for touch ups, I just thin them with water, Tamiya is pretty thin out of the bottle so sometimes I don't thin at all (but it dries fast).

For non-alcohol water based acrylics (GW, Vallejo, Reaper) for airbrushing I use Vallejo Airbrush Thinner, I find it sprays much smoother and less clogs than alcohol (either IPA or vodka) and as I said some just have a flat out bad reaction to alcohol that can clog your airbrush up in no time. For hairy brush painting them, I usually use water, maybe with just a touch of Vallejo's Airbrush Flow Improver (if I want it to flow and level better, it also gives it a bit more bite) and/or GW's Lahmian Medium (if I want to reduce opacity without it actually getting much thinner). But mostly just tap water.

My interest in the technique is for glazing with light colours. I need to be sure it goes on even and the pigment doesn't have the time to settle into the crevasses. Any tips for that?

Yeah, for tasks like that I use lahmian medium and vallejo flow improver. The flow improver makes it go on smoother but also makes it very thin, the lahmian medium actually thickens it up just a touch so it doesn't end up like a wash.

I'm always fiddling with the ratios, but maybe 1 drop of water and 1 drop of flow improver then add lahmian medium to taste.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah, for tasks like that I use lahmian medium and vallejo flow improver. The flow improver makes it go on smoother but also makes it very thin, the lahmian medium actually thickens it up just a touch so it doesn't end up like a wash.

I'm always fiddling with the ratios, but maybe 1 drop of water and 1 drop of flow improver then add lahmian medium to taste.

I see. I've found that LM dreis quite chalky sometimes. Does the flow improver and dilution mitigate this?

I've never really played around with it, but lahmian medium is a matte medium so maybe if you use too much it ends up chalky? I only use small amounts of it alongside other thinners, I don't use it by itself so I don't know what effect that might have.

I thin my mister hobby and tamiya paints with Isopropyl so I can have any chance of painting with a brush.

Everything that is not alcohol paint - just water.