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Hi I have a lot of this from the basic paint kit and it’s ok but. A bit boring. Is there a way to colour it, maybe add some ink and mix it up?


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There usually a better way than the one I can think of

I wouldn't mix inks into the paint, but you could always experiment..you could mix it with other texture paints in a slapdash manner on your bases.


Washes and inks over the top once dry. Drybrush with a lighter tone.

The best way to make good looking bases in my opinion is to use powders. You can apply powders over the most basically painted bases and they will look great.

How do you make the power star in place?

unless you really handle the base, the pigments will stay in place on their own. mix them with water to make a wash. there are some fixing solutions but, for some weird reason, these seem to make lighter pigments disappear while darker pigments stay.

Don’t the pigments dissolve if you add them to water?

that's the point. you're creating a wash to carry the pigment. they come to life once the water has evaporated.

Pigments in water don't really work.. they act like dried mud does in water. When they dry they will leave an effect but it will look more like dried paste.


Fixer wise, don't bother. Ever try to remove dust from a rough surface? The pigment will sit in the recesses. It's not going anywhere.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Pigments in water don't really work.. they act like dried mud does in water. When they dry they will leave an effect but it will look more like dried paste.

Um - have to disagree. It's the method I use for pigments all the time. It's how I applied them on this chap's base & cloak:

They definitely look different to being applied dry though. I've yet to find any carrier or fixer medium that doesn't affect the look of the dry pigment. Gsw do make some liquid pigments, which I haven't tried yet.

I’ve used the GSW liquid pigments and I’m a fan of them, but as you say, you’ll can’t quite replicate the finish of dry pigments when you use them in a liquid medium.

GSW claims their pigment fixer won’t change the appearance of dry pigments

I’ve only ever used Scale75’s pigment fixer when applying dry pigments, maybe it’s time to try the GSW version