Search the Community

Hey all, SO, I've been scouring the forums here, on CMON, and Dakka; looking into how to mix washes and glazes. I have come away from this a bit confused and little overwhelmed with information I must admit. I completely understand the respective uses of washes and glazes, but, specifically whats confusing me is how I would go about mixing them. Everywhere I look there's a different answer, some people use only water for glazing, others use glazing medium, some matte medium, then some say forget medium it's cheating, and to only use flow improver+water/water alone. Then conversely there are those who use flow aid + water for washes and regular thinning only, and further yet those who will make a wash using only water, or only flow improver, or even flow improver + water + medium! I do understand that something like this can be highly personal and differ greatly from person to person, because of style, desired effect, etc. Also, I know I might get even more differing opinions here, but, hopefully a general consensus can form. So the real question comes to two things: A. How would you mix a consistent and smooth glaze, without getting the sort of "dirty/uneven" effect that seems can occur from only using water B. How would you mix a wash for any color, that will pool well into recesses, without really affecting the color integrity of the surrounding area, and without tide marks Whew! Thanks for any and all help ^.^

Hi, folks. I'm a still-fairly-novice painter that's trying to home my skills for painting really nice miniatures. I don't have an army I'm trying to field, or a game I need new characters for, I just like painting things so that they look really nice. It takes a while, but the relaxation and slow pace is why I like it. So my 'book learning' on the subject of blending colors comes from two places. Lazlo Jakusovszky's 'Hot Lead' DVDs and the "Complete Guide to miniature painting" put out by Miniature Mentor. Hot lead tends to lean more toward wet blending, the the Complete Guide more towards glazes. I wanted to know people's experience with these sorts of techniques. Is one considered better for competitions? Easier to learn or faster to do? What situations do you like using one or the other for? I've had some problems and some successes with both of them so far. Wet blending works pretty much like it says on the box, except that I'm still a little inexperienced at getting my paints thinned to a proper level, and so I often end up with too much fluid on the mini such that it just runs all around. I'm getting better at it. The glazes, on the other hand, are very, very easy to do: your only limit really being how much time you want to put in putting down these thin, thin bits of paint and slowly building up a color transition. My problem with glazes is that 1) it's sometimes hard to tell if you are doing anything at all and 2) despite a lot of thinning, I still sometimes end up with paint drying and leaving 'rings' where I don't want them. Thoughts? Experience? Thanks!