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...stupid question but I'm quiet new to this...

As far as I know I use inks to give a miniature more depth. Yet I only know black ink. My problem is, I dont want to use it for every miniature in the future. So ist there any colour palette where I can see which ink/glaze is used for whichc base colour? Like red ink or glaue for yellow e.g.

Best regards and thank you so far.

Thinned down paints can be used as substitute for inks.

Ok. Thank you for the hint. But can you tell me what Ink I should use for e.g. skin....or...a blue coat or a red coat? Something like that would help alot.

I use bugmans glow and seraphim sepia for skin

For blues use a darker blue ink and red I’d go for a chesnut brown it’s sort of a jack of all trades ink
I’m in the process of stocking up on the coat d arms chesnut ink

sekteilone wrote:
Ok. Thank you for the hint. But can you tell me what Ink I should use for e.g. skin....or...a blue coat or a red coat? Something like that would help alot.

It depends on the intended effect youre going for, but as the above poster states, brown ink is sort of the go-to ink color for most applications - it can be used to give darkened effect for most colors, weathering, etc - think of it as the color of the water after washing really dirty hands. This is the kind of color that's naturally occuring in real life, and for the most part covers your need for darkening crevices as brown is a neutral color that provides contrast/compliment to many colors.

For advanced applications, for standard fair skin, I've seen great successes with using washed out green ink with light skin tone drybrush to blend it in. This example yields much more realistic skin tone (if you stare at yourself long enough without an ounce of bias, you'll see that your face has all ranges of colors like purple, green, blue, red, yellow. Nothing in real life is actually monochromatic). There's a post somewhere where one member used purple tone to accentuate the folded in parts of a faded yellow fabric - this is an example of such application of contrasting color.

So my 2 cents would be experiment with different colors (using thinned paints), and when you find one color that you feel comfortable with/like, go buy a batch of premade ink if you so choose to do so.

I currently work with 3 different inks (brown, black, green), and I've only gotten the green because I paint a lot of dark angels and didn't want to wash down green paints EVEYRTIME I needed to blend in the gradients. I still do thin the inks a bit as I find them too glossy for my taste.

Hope this helped.

for coloured cloth, use the same or a similar colour, plus black for deep recesses. so for example, you have a red cloak. base coat red, wash red into recesses, then wash black into deepest recesses. you can then advance this technique by turning your washes into glazes, and working your shades down in many layers. this requires a lot of patience, but the results are worth it and this is a technique used by competition winning painters.
another thing to try is using a dissimilar but close tone to shade. for example you could shade your blue with a green, or red with a purple.

I used umber wash now...what do you think? I think I need to put in more red...the cape looks quiet dark.. even though I like it..

That's not bad. Just reapply thin coats of red to the uppermost areas to create a highlight

purple ink over red makes a nice option, too.