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I am trying to make an ink for my new IG army, and i was wondering what was the best way to make your own? I have heard that mixing 1:1 citadel paints with water and a touch of dish soap is a good mixture. Does anyone else have any experiance with this? If so, any help would really be appreicated.

I can't tell you how to make ink, but I can tell you that your experiment will fail.
Ink is ink. Paint is paint. You can't use paint to make an ink.

There are a bazillion (that estimate might be a BIT high) different ink colors out there, Are there none that work? Have you tried mixing yourown color from multiple inks?
On my own minis, I have great success with that.

What color are you trying to make? Any examples?

Eric

Magickal is quite right. Good modeling inks are plentiful and cheap?and they can't be made by mixing paint and water, which was a dumb idea that GW started years ago in some very bad painting tutorials. If you can't find the right modeling, try drawing inks. Many of them (but not shellac inks, especially india ink!) make fine modeling inks.

Well, at least not with just water and some dishsoap. Using a 50/50 mixture of Future Floor Finish and water (aka "Magic Wash") you can make a range of colors adding to that base any combination of inks, paint or even dry pigments. But the key here is the magic wash, which due to the nature of the medium (essentially liquid acrylic) it is self leveling (ie: gets into the cracks & crevases) and also glossy (something that can be knocked out by using Tamiya Flat Base).

A huge bottle of future costs $4 and will last a lifetime. I've had my bottle for well over two years and I haven't used more than 1/10th of the bottle. It's also pretty flexible, as noted above, letting you mix your own specific colors as well as their strength/saturation.

wow, thanks, im glad i asked. I want to make a brownish dark red ink to use with a blood red base coat for tanks. chestnut wash is a bit too brown, i was looking for something a bit more red. if you know of a color that would be fantastic, i could just shoot out and pick it up.

thanks again for the tips, i really appreicate it.

Well, you're going to have to do some experimenting to get it right... but I make that color all the time.

I, simply, mix GW Chestnut ink & GW Red ink.

Try a mix of 3:2, Red:Chestnut at first... If that doesn't work, add red or chestnut to taste.
If you make a larger batch (at least double the amounts above), you can add a drop of GW Purple to darken the red... but make sure to use it sparingly. The purple will absolutely KILL the red if used in too large quantities.

Eric

thanks! and I cant beleive i didnt think of that! just mix two inks, that is pretty obvious, and i was going to try and be a mad scientest and make my own. Thanks though, i really appreciate the advice.

Another ink question:

With Vallejo Inks, how much do you dilute them before use? And do you need just water, or do you need floor wax as well?

in my oh so negative way, other than black, Vallejo inks are "sub-par" (don't want to say crap)
but they just don't hold up to the tried and true GW ones

the magic wash only needs to be a drop or 2 in your wash, not the whole dilution

Dr. Faust has a great article on ink washes.  Highly recommended.

JF