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A noobish question, should I thin down reaper washes? Or are they ready to use out of the dropper? Sorry if this has been asked.

Hello everyone! I'm a totally novice painter. I got tired of staring longingly at all the painted minis online and then at all my plain boring unpainted minis and finally decided to give it a try. I'm working my way thru both LTPKs (and all the similar looking minis I have) and I have this issue with washes that I couldn't find an answer for in past topics (I could have just missed it, apologies if that is the case) I follow the directions in the LTPK, for example when painting Anirion the Wizard, I base coated his hands and face in the flesh tone and then it says to make a wash with 1 drop dark highlight and 3 drops water but when I used it, it left these little speckles on the flesh tone instead of just sinking into the crevices, like teeny granular blobs. Likewise, when I painted the Orc from LTPK1 (and 2 of his cousin's that I already happened to own) when I used the wash, it dried leaving dark splotches on the paint instead of just going in the nooks and crannies, like little water spots but darker. Especially around the base of the spikes on the armor and shield. Am I not thinning the wash enough? I know for sure that I am letting the paint fully dry between layers because the first time I didn't let the basecoat dry all the way before adding the wash and boy was that a disaster. I will edit to add pics later if needed, can't seem to get them off my phone right now.

Hi all, It has been a while since the last post, but here is a quick, step-by-step painting guide to the Silver Death Fish for DeepWars. This model is suspiciously similar to an ancient Xiphactinus fish, but has slightly different fins, with a few finlets near the tail like a tuna. This model was primed in white and painted using the techniques very similar to the Dire Fish-Lizard from the AMG painting guide, Painting Scaly Beasts. The key was to use washes and glazes to give it the basic colors, then lighten sections with thinned white paint and make edges pop with pure white. The majority of the colors were Liquitex Professional Acrylic Ink, while paint was Golden Fluid Acrylics and Americana white and black. All ink was mixed with Liquitex Matte Medium and water to give it more body to flow into the cracks. Otherwise it tended to stain the scales instead of flow into them. So the first step was to paint the upper sides, back with very thin washes, almost glazes, of Deep Turquoise ink and medium. The mixture was around 20% ink, 40% medium and 40% water. These are not exact numbers, but the mixture was light enough to apply color and flow into scales but left a lot of lightness. A key here was to set the model upside down while it dried so the color did not flow down the entire body. When it was dry, the next color applied was Quinacriadone Magenta ink, painted in a very light glaze around the middle of the body and onto parts of the head and the fins. The mixture was more about the same density as before but less was held on the brush so it did not run everywhere. The model was held upside normally while applying this glaze also. Next, The head, belly and lower body was painted with a glaze of the original turquoise mixture. Finally, a wash of Pthalho Blue ink (same medium and water percentage as before) was applied on the top of the back. The model was inverted and light brush strokes were used to push the glaze further down the back and blend it with the Turquoise scales. The next step was basic shading, done with more glazes or Pthalho Blue ink on the back and Turquoise ink on the sides, going over the Magenta scales. This glaze was very thin, closer to 10% ink, 40% medium and 50% water, with the here to tie all of the colors together with blue. Also applied were glazes of black paint mixed with Pthalho blue ink onto the top of the back and in the mouth. It looks pretty messy now, but you can make out the basic idea of the light and shadow. When all of the color had dried, the next stage was adding basic highlights. This was done with slightly thinned white paint, maybe 60/40 paint and water, applied lightly onto areas that would reflect light. This mixture was used with very careful drybrushing in multiple layers on the scales to build up edge highlights. It is important to brush perpendicular to the scales and not scrub in all directions here as otherwise the scales just get a coating of white. The goal is to just do the edges of the scales lightly and build up layers. Also, a glaze of white was applied along the upper third of the body to increase lightness there, allowing it to flow into the cracks and all. This glaze is just paint and water and was "scrubbed" around a bit with the brush to blend it. This technique is also called "feathering" but is basically just quick brush strokes to reduce the sharp edge of the glaze. The final stage was done with edge highlights of more white paint, mixed with less water, around 80% paint, 20% water. This mixture was used for some edge drybrushing on the scales, and on the fins and teeth, with some additional black paint glazed in the mouth and around the base of the teeth. This mixture was uses with a fine brush to pick out scales using the tip of the brush to add highlights where the drybrush missed. Some pure white paint was used on scales that were lightened in the previous step. On the fins, the edges were highlighted with 80/20 white, but some fine line details were added with 50/50 white using a fine-tipped brush. To finish off the glazes, a light mixture of Raw Sienna ink and Primary Yellow paint (10% color, 40% medium, 50% water) was applied along the middle of the body, above the magenta section, and on the head and around the eye. The eye was painted with a mixture of yellow and white paint, with a black pupil and a tiny dot of pure white for a hotspot reflection. The base was done in steps similar to the body, with a wash of Burnt Sienna paint, medium and water (20/40/40), then when dry, two washes of Pthalho Blue ink (20/40/40) to build up color. The base had some small cracks in it that were filled with extra Matte Medium and allowed to dry, then painting over them. Sections of sponges were painted with Pure Burnt Sienna ink and the starfish was done with Dioxazene Purple ink + white paint. Some Sap Green ink was applied as a glaze to add more color to the rock.

This troll was painted using almost nothing but washes. It was quite the interesting process. I managed to get a great skin tone by layering various washes on top of each other. Overall, I am quite pleased with how he came out. I tried to make the pustules on his back look infected and pussfilled by costing them with a gloss varnish. I think it worked. Gratuitous booty shot CAH

Hey folks, I just got 2 bottles of Secret Weapon Washes, Soft body Black, and Stone, and I am wondering if people use it straight from the bottle, or thin it. If you are thinning it, what with? The Les B. You Tube stuff shows him mixing it up with just flow improver and Matte Medium, so I wonder if adding water is a good, bad, or indifferent idea. Can some anyone relate their experiences with this stuff please? Thanks George

09785: Washes I Triad Anyone know what three washes are in here? ...almost done shopping.

When you are painting a mini, do you have steps that you ALWAYS use, or does the mini you are painting determine what you are going to do? For me, I have a pretty specific formula that I use. I start with the largest bits and move to the smallest bits. I almost always save faces for the last, as I can get hung up on trying to get flesh tones right and such. If the model is not a humanoid, then I usually just start with the largest areas first, moving into the smaller detailed areas. But, I do the whole model at once, which is sometimes problematic. Do you layer sealers/primers when painting? I recently came across a clear primer by army painter. It has worked fairly well on my Bones models. On the label of the primer it states something to the effect of spraying the area, let dry about an hour, then the model is ready for washes etc. I decided to try this out, and its been working really well for me on the model I am painting. It increases paint time, since I have to let the primer dry, but its been a big help when I screwed up a wash, and had to take it off. I was able to clean up the model without damaging the previous painted area. How often do you change your brush rinse cup? I keep two cups on my desk with water in them. I use one for thinning (if needed) and the other is my brush rinse. Most of the time I change out the cup about every 30mins or so, of if the water gets really really dingy. So, I guess I could change it out about 15-20 times over the course of a single model, depending on the amount of time I am spending on the model. How do you determine your if your colour pallet is going to work? Photoshop. I usually take a picture of the model, and use the airbrush tool to go over it with the colors I am thinking of. I am no master by any means, and this is just a general colouration, but I like to have a visual idea of what I want to do before I put paint to model. This helps me keep my ideas consistent as well as offers a bit of an idea of how the finished model will look. So, just thought I would pose some questions for the experts/beginners and all those in between. Thanks for reading and happy painting! CAH

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 ^.^

Okay, I have a couple of different washes (well, one's a wash, and another's an ink). I have an old Pro Paint stock no. 19106 Flesh Ink. I also have an MSP9253 Flesh Wash. What's the best way to utilize each?

Hello all! I'm fairly new to the hobby (mostly play soccer & jog) but I picked up a Reaper Bones LtPK back in November and now I'm an addict. I need some advice for the griffin I'm working on. The wings are painted with a blend technique of light colors but I'm not sure what color to wash them or how (considering they blend). Maybe there is another technique I should try? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I applied a black wash to the griffon body and dark green feather (pic not show as It was done later) and it came out kind of 'eh'. I know I will have to go back and touch up the dark green feathers, that is not a problem, but the griffon's body (dark brown) now has black splotches on it. For the orange head I though about washing it in dark red or brown, and washing the yellow neck in orange or brown; and the light green I would wash with dark green. Any advice? Cheers!

So just because I had them all lined up last night, I just thought I'd throw it out there. I'm working on three new figures, and I've started them all off with the base color of tanned highlight. Here are all the paints I used from the base colors with various washes all the ways to walnut brown and then from tanned highlights up to white. And my only other comment, rather unrelated, but my next step: the only bad thing about painting a three headed giant is the fact that you have to paint six eyes.. Luckily they're giant eyes, so it gives me some room to work.....

Yo, folks. Questions: 1. When using a wash, how does one decide what color to use? I'm working with the Reaper triad, and I also picked up three Citadel shades the other day. Reaper's black I think I get. It gives a lining sort of effect and black shadows, in my early experimenting. The brown seemed to do pretty much obvious stuff with the mini I've tried it on--dirtied it up, gave it some shadows not quite so dark as the black but entirely noticeable. Would it be an avenue to explore for weathering/aging/whatevering wood and/or leather? The flesh wash--should I be trying to hit faces and hands with it? Save it for more scantily-clad minis? Something altogether else? I've also got some Athonian Camoshade, Agrax Earthshade, and Drakenhof Nightshade. So basically a green, a brown, and a blue wash. Unless I'm totally misreading. The Athonian I haven't used. What situations should I be looking at for a greenish wash? The Agrax seems pretty comparable to Reaper's brown. Is it? I haven't used it yet. I picked it up because everyone seems to swear by it--seems like I've seen it talked about with everything from skeletons to wood to leather. Thoughts and/or advice? I tried out the Drakenhof on a wizard's pale bluish robes with the hopes of both shadowing and blue-ing up the color as well. It seemed to work on both counts (though I wasn't entirely thrilled with the mini, but nevermind that). Was that a reasonable idea? What other considerations/situations should I keep in mind with this one? Or am I totally off the reservation with all this? 2. I'm painting a piece right now, and I mixed up a nice chocolate brown for a robe. I'm getting ready to highlight and got to thinking--should I vary up my colors with highlighting? I've been aiming for very-light versions of the base color. What would happen if I tried highlighting with something else? Is that a thing? Like, go with a yellow on a brown or some such? Or a red or orange or something? I feel like this question particularly makes less sense than it did when I was thinking about it earlier.

I was just wondering if alcohol inks were safe to use with minis painting. I've found a way to get some extremely cheaply, but I wasn't sure if it would work well for miniature painting. Basically, it's ink suspended in 70% isopropyl alcohol. Would that strip any of the paint off? Is sealing the paint job with testor's dullcote first necessary? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Hello all, As Reaper doesn't include any descriptions (that I could find) on the properties of their Liners, Clears, Inks & Pastels, does anyone have a good knowledge of their characteristics? Like what are they primarily used for, are they more fluid, more dense, brighter, translucent? I think they are used for more vibrant and flowy washing effects? I'm thinking of buying $35 worth of Reapers' Ink & liner triads and maybe a clear and a pastel and some other different/special paints in order to get a free gift Sophie. Recommendations on these and other of Reapers' special paint products or neat colors would be appreciated. I can't decide whether to get Buron Street Sophie or Cowgirl Sophie.... *mind blows up* I'm primarily painting Bones minis with a modest selection of MSP core colors (2-3 of each of the 12ish main colors) help

This could easily be applied to Reaper paints but Vallejo posted this to their FB albums today: Wood grain finish using Vallejo washes These look very cool ... finished piece: Thanks to Shane at Figure Painter Magazine for reposting it to FB for me to find.

Hello Fellow Fans of Blue! I love Bones, because they're cheap enough for me to use to demonstrate some fun stuff. I know a lot of newer (than me) painters have lots of questions about color, light and paint mixing, etc, so I was hoping to put a bunch of that stuff here. My goal is to walk through a monochrome blue miniature, using a Kickstarter Mini, Kickstarter paint, and some simple/intermediate techniques while doing some "teaching" on color and light. Er, not ambitious at all! I get to practice while doing it, so we're all having fun! First, the players of our little game: For this tutorial I'll be using Sapphire Blue, Pure White (take my word for it, ignore the label) and Walnut Brown, and of course, 77063 Duke Gerard. Sapphire Blue is a nice bright (saturated) blue. It's a good standard blue as well. When you look at a color wheel, I tend to think of a cobalt or ultramarine blue as "blue" but sapphire is pretty good, and it's a kickstarter color and learn to paint kit color, so most of us have it. Next, what are their painting stats? How do they behave? What can we do to them? Here they are! Simply painted as a flat swatch of color on paper. The picture is a bit dark, sorry! I'm using walnut brown as my black- see how nice a dark it is! Now, for our volunteer Male Paladin I'm going to essentially be using 3 base shades: blue, blue with some white (1:3) and blue with some brown (4:1) Here they are on the palette: walnut, walnut/blue, and blue on top and white, white/blue on the bottom. Here's an example of the Sapphire blue with a wash in the first swatch. The second is by brown/blue mix with a wash, and the third white/blue with wash. Here's where we learn a bit about saturation. The first picture is bright. Nice pretty blue. Like an autumn sky. The second is dark, moody, stormy and intense. The third a bit lighter, fluffier and softer. Each of these shades reflects light to us differently. The more pure pigment in a color, the greater the intensity. The more we dull the color, either by adding it's complement if we're mixing pure pigments or by adding white or black, the more we alter it's ability to reflect it's color back to us. I think of this like hummingbird feathers. The hummingbird's got a specialized air bubble structural pattern in it's throat feathers that literally reflect a single wavelength of light. But- only at the right angle, which is why they often look dull or black unless you catch them just right. Paint obeys the same physics. The more stuff we put it in that can potentially reflect less light, the duller the color. A possible exception/complication is white, which is nice and reflective. White is great at drawing the eye on a miniature, and great for highlighting when you want bright highlights. More on this later. One fun thing you can see when painting is how translucency can affect the way color looks. See below: Hmmn. Those look similar, don't they? The top is a thin wash of sapphire blue. The left my white/blue mix (normal paint layer) and the right my sapphire blue with a white glaze. What I take from this is that you can paint however you want, using whatever technique you want, and get the results you want! There's not one right way to do it. So things like wet blending can mimic layering/glazing or washes! Remember with washes- here I'm painting on white paper, so the surface is very uniform and the wash smooth and flat. Your miniature may have many different surfaces, primers, curves, etc. When painting on the miniature, paint will obey the laws of gravity. It will pool in crevices and drip down surfaces if allowed. Also, washes are by nature translucent, so you'll need a smooth, well-prepared surface to get the maximum effect. Ok- let play with our miniature and actually paint! I've basecoated our Paladin using just our 3 colors. Again, Sapphire blue, Blue/White mix and brown/blue mix. I tried to think about where I wanted my most intense blues, where I wanted my lighter areas, and I decided ahead of time I was going to go for a darker look to the armor. This is a nice, messy, quick "speed-painted" basecoat. No fancy stuff. I thought I had trimmed his mold lines, but I missed a few. Oh well. He's an experiment, so I'll leave it! I did wash him with dish soap and water first. The cloak and hair I'm doing in sapphire, the skin and leather/pouches/etc in white/blue and the armor in blue/brown.

I'm currently painting "Boudicea" from Stormtrooper Miniatures. Love the piece thus far, and am trying to paint her as accurately as possible. In most of the artwork I have seen of her, she's got on an orange-red dress, which I mimic in the miniature itself. I've shaded it already before I start the next part of her dress, which is plaid-ish. Right now, though, it's in desperate need of a wash. My question is, what color should I use? I don't want to do red because I don't want the dress to appear red. Right now I'm leaning on brown.... but am definitely open to other thoughts and ideas. Please note that this is a WIP, so please feel free to share any pointers you could give in bettering her. The skin is NOT done, nor is her face, so please don't fear about that. Thanks!! Original artwork I'm basing her on: What I have so far: P.S. the images appear more reddish, but I assure you that her dress is closer to the orange-red in the picture. My photo-fu just stinks :)

Anyone used the SW washes straight on any of the bones figures yet? I'm looking to order several and wondered what the experiences have been.

The other day on Beasts of War I noticed that they interviewed a paint manufacturer I had never heard of . . . PrismGaming: http://www.beastsofwar.com/events/gen-con/gen-con-2012/prism-gaming-gen-con-2012/ Has anyone tried their paints? They mention some really cool things in the interview (twice the paint at less than twice the price, no additives that cause the paint to dry, four times the amount of fluid in washes, other general awesomeness). I was just wondering if anyone had tried them before . . . I've been a diehard Vallejo Model Color since 2006 (Citadel before that, but that awful post design probably means I wasted $100 on unused paints), and was wondering if there was any comparison.