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Ello

How would I achieve a smooth matt base coat?

Were talking just painting alot, no airbrushing or any propelled form of paint.


I used to just plonk the paint on but grew tierd of the brush streaks and wanted more of a flat uniform tone.
Im currently mixing 1:1 of Vallejo Game Colour Black with Galeria Flow Improver. Although requiring another coat, its rather oily/glossy looking...

Many thin coats is the only real way without an airbrush or spray color primer

 Desubot wrote:
Many thin coats

Gamezdude wrote:

Im currently mixing 1:1 of Vallejo Game Colour Black with Galeria Flow Improver. Although requiring another coat, its rather oily/glossy looking...

I would try just thinning your paint with water, depending on the colour itself a ration of 1:1 or 1:2 (paint : water) should be enough. Then paint the part neatly, trying to cover everything and let it dry. It will look a bit uneven depending on the form of the miniature/part as the paint flows and dries differently. Once it's dry paint another layer and let it dry again. If there are still uneven areas paint another layer there and let it dry again.

Depending on the exact paint range, colour, and how much you thinned the paint one to three layers should be enough to give you a smooth and even coverage without "blobbing" details. Having a nice primer and letting the layers dry completely is important or you can end up brushing away some of the lower layers with your brush when applying a new layer on top.

Many thin layers with a high quality paint. Don't try using the model paints they use for cars and jets. Go buy some proper mini paints. You'll find the other paints are kinda granular and will leave a rough finish.

Gamezdude wrote:
I used to just plonk the paint on but grew tierd of the brush streaks and wanted more of a flat uniform tone.
Im currently mixing 1:1 of Vallejo Game Colour Black with Galeria Flow Improver. Although requiring another coat, its rather oily/glossy looking...

Err, isn't Galeria Flow Improver basically just oil? Shouldn't you be thinning down the flow improver before adding it to your paint, or is it prethinned?

Even Vallejo flow improver which I believe is prethinned, 1:1 is a pretty high ratio, I'd only use that if I were trying to achieve a specific result, for regular painting use more like 1:5 or 1:10 (where the bigger number is the already thinned down paint and the smaller number is the small amount of flow improver you add to break the surface tension and increase the solvent strength).

But yeah, lots of thin coats and use a brush of appropriate size, "appropriate" being the largest that you can use thus the least amount of brush strokes.

Alternate the direction you move the brush between coats (try one coat up down, next coat left to right, next coat circular motion, etc).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Munga wrote:
Many thin layers with a high quality paint. Don't try using the model paints they use for cars and jets. Go buy some proper mini paints. You'll find the other paints are kinda granular and will leave a rough finish.

Model paints used for cars and jets are fine. Some of them are a bit on the thick side and need to be thinned more than others, but I've not encountered a "bad" one.

Obviously if you're using hobby enamels you have to use an enamel thinner, and it stinks like hell and takes a long time to dry, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend going out and buying enamels specifically.