Cimmerian76

With MSPs i find that using a flow improver over just water helps immensely. I use liquitex flow aid dilluted in 20 parts water. Instead of a wet pallate, i use a humidifier in my painting room. Paint lasts longer, I breathe easier, and I don't have to mess with my wet pallete which I find leaves me with paint that is too thin. Maybe I should thy filling mine with my flow solution. Might help.

I am an agitator, and I am for Reaper Paints. My name is Cimmerian76 and I approve this message.

So I bought an 8oz bottle of this stuff to try. Any tips on applying this stuff? Also, how harsh is this stuff on brushes? Does it clean off reasonably well or does it chew them up? I used an old brush to be safe and cleaned it off well afterwards using "the masters" brush soap. It seems like it might have added a slight bit of snap to the brush now that I'm examining it. But yeah, I'd recommend setting asside a brush for this purpose. a largish one seems to work better. I've had no issue with brushmarks at all. But it was an old GW sable brush.

I used Liquitex matte varnish for the first time on the Talisman toads in my show off thread. I think it will be my sealer from now on. It is so wonderfully flat.

My review of HappySeppuku. I love them. My only problem with them besides the aforementioned air bubbles in the original silicon material, is that everyone else loves them and borrows them all of the time. It is very hard to keep track of who has which stamp. Iused them for all of my more rank and file type Malifaux models. I didn't get in on the kickstarter specifically because I already owned 90% of their product. I've only had one problem with the company, where they sent me the wrong stamp, which looked very similar to what I had ordered, and apparently sat in a bin right next to each other. When alerted of the problem, I was told to keep the mispacked stamp, and the correct one was ruahed out to me. So, yeah, really great customer service. I will support them even as my skill grows beyond wanting simple stamps. You can always add bits to make things pop even more.

When i first started looking into airbrushing, the patriot 105 was pretty much the standard brush for mini painting as far as Badger products were concerned. However, the year I had my first class with Matthieu Fontaine at Adepticon, Badger had just released the Renegade Krome, and Matthieu was just starting to try it out, and was pleased with it. Badger had a booth and was selling the Krome at a great price so I bought one. It has been a great brush. It comes with a fine, and ultra fine tip/needle set up. I just found this review: https://sites.google.com/site/donsairbrushtips/badger-krome Notice the doodle he does with it with an xacto blade for comparison. If it can do that, it should be able to do almost anything you need for our hobby.

There isn't a single good site I've seen, as it kind of differs by material. What I did when I first started, was practice thinning and spraying on a piece of paper. My best advice is to just hit YouTube and watch everything that seems even remotely relevant. In general you want your paint to have the consistency of 2% milk or lower, and then I use 15ish psi for small work, and 20-25 for larger pieces. I never go higher than 30. If I need that much paint, I'm probably priming, and I tend to just use an aerosol for that. Exception made for Bones. I don't prime Bones at all.

My go to stripping agent is now Dawn Power Dissolver. It's not in every grocery store, but Wal-mart carries it in the states. I've never tried it on Testors paint, but it tends to remove pretty mush anything very quickly. Do a search for stripping minis with it, and you'll find a dakka post about it. I don't want to crosspost.

I used to be a diehard user of just tap water to thin my paints. However, as I have learned more and more about painting, and especially as I started doing eyes, I've discovered that thinning with water is a half measure. A great man once said, "No more half measures." I find I get much better control of where my paint goes when I use Liquitex Flow Improver dilluted 1:20 in distilled water. It has emboldened me to paint finer details, actually practice on eyes, and it makes my basecoats flow on beautifully. It also prevents my paint from drying quite so fast on the palette. I am a convert.

There are 2 products I use for brush care. The Master's Brush Cleaner. The other is a brush restorer. It's basically the stuff that is on a new brush when you first get it. Dip the brush in it. Bring it to a point with your fingers, and let it harden overnight. The longer you leave it, the better the new shape holds.

I just started using my first series 7 after decades of painting with craft store sable. I can't believe the difference. It holds so much paint, yet has an amazingly fine point. It's a number 2, and i'm painting eyes with it. Just ridiculous. So mad that I waited so long.

I tend to use Bette Davis's method for eyes. Big oversized white areas. then, I put a line that overlaps the whole thing in the color I want. It ends up looking like a mime. Then, I come back in around and shape the eye in my liner color. Usually a dark blue or black. Then I paint the flesh in, leaving a little liner. Dr. Faust explains it here: I can explain my flames as well. I used this process on Sonnia Criid's Avatar. I start with a white basecoat/primer I actually leave some white. Remember that fire gets darker as you get farther from the base. Then I use a yellow. and I paint it on, leaving a triangle of white in the middle of each flame point. Next I come over the top with a drybrush of an orange. leaving plenty of yellow visible. but going about halfway down into the yellow. Next I come back over with a red drybrush. about halfway as far in as the orange layer. Then I give the very tips a little grey, to make it smokey. Then I come back over the whole thing with GW Lamenter's Yellow Glaze. I basically slather it on like a wash/dip. I learned it from this video: (Which is the video that made me buy a membership to miniwargaming. (Totally worth it) http://www.miniwargaming.com/content/tutorial-painting-fire-part-12 This is the result: Not a great photo of it. The lighting was too bright. She looks really good in average game room lighting.

Toads are the best game changers ever. One player's stomping along, has a really good flow going. Bang! Toad! All of your stuff is dropped. Race for the loot!

Let's see if my phone is a little better at this then: I'll fight with the good camera more in the next few days.

It's funny, but that was my Wife's reaction to DDS as well.