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I don't have a blog, and I am not veteran or post enough content to justify making one - so while these musings may be better served in that format, I will leave it here for anyone who is interested to view and chime in. It just so happens that my best friend happens to work at Rustoleum as a colorist; so lately I have been picking his brain since he has an extensive knowledge about pigments, paint make up, and the chemical intricacies therein. As I have delved further and further into the hobby, I have been looking more into the deep subjects of color theory and how paint is made/composed. After reading James Gurney's Color and Light, as well as Michael Wilcox's Blue & Yellow Don't Make Green, I was really intrigued about what exactly paint is and how exactly color interactions work. Now I am guilty as the next person in owning WAY too many paints - not to say anything about minis! While color mixing may seem irrelevant to some, understanding how paints function can help even those of us who own a complete gamut of convenience mixed colors. This post is about exploring more of the technical and "scientific" aspects of paint and color theory to hopefully assist others in understanding the what and why of paint. Rethinking Paint Colors - Subtractive Color: Up until recently, I have always viewed the primary colors as Yellow, Red and Blue, and with those you can mix secondary colors; Green, Orange, and Purple. While this is technically true after a fashion, the difficulty lies with pigments themselves. Pigments do not actually *contain* color. Instead, they absorb most of the light spectrum *except* a specific wavelength of color. As Michael Wilcox states, "Of all the pigments available to the painter, none can be described as pure in hue. There is simply no such thing as a pure red, yellow or blue paint." That means chemically, there isn't a paint pigment out there that returns a pure Red - unlike in say digital art where a specifically purely calibrated hue can be made, paint is limited by the properties of the physical pigments themselves. As Michael Wilcox theorizes with a colour bias wheel (bottom-right), primary pigments almost certainly lean towards secondaries. This follows the concept of the Munsell Wheel (bottom-left). You may have heard of a split-complimentary color palette, and this is the reason why. Artistically, these have been described as "Warm" and "Cool" versions of the primaries, but scientifically, they are colors that absorb or reflect more of a particular wavelength. There are Violet-Reds (Cool Reds, often called "Crimson") and Orange-Reds (or Warm Reds, that lean more towards Orange), Violet-Blues and Green-Blues, and Orange-Yellows and Green-Yellows. One the concepts to understand when mixing paints is that you are not creating a color, but rather you are effectively destroying colors and what remains is what is returned to the eye. Referencing the above color bias wheel, if you were to mix a Violet-Blue and a Violet-Red together, both containing pigment(s) that return a great deal of Violet wavelength, the little remaining Blue/Orange and Red/Green wavelengths in each pigment would cancel each other out, leaving the Violet behind. This would yield a more saturated or more pure hue of Violet. Conversely, mixing a Green-Blue and a Orange-Red ("Warm" Red) would be a very desaturated Violet, with more of a gray tone. Keep in mind that this doesn't make a color "bad"; desatured tones by including more complimentary colors is a very useful tool! In fact, for making shadows, using a great deal of complimentary colors to desaturate is a great technique. The problem is when these colors come about unexpectedly; after all, you can have a very "intense" Red and a very "intense" Blue, but mixing them may not produce a very intense Violet if they are "moving away" from each other. Now that is all being said, it is time to forget it...sort of. RGB is based upon the concept of Additive Mixing, or how colored light interacts. With additive mixing, fully saturated Red/Green/Blue light will produce White light. However, in paint pigments, it should be pretty obvious that mixing pigment primaries of Red/Yellow (or Green)/Blue together will not yield White. This is due to Subtractive Mixing, where pigments effectively destroy each other ala Thunderdome in Mad Max, and only the survivors reflect light back. A more modern approach to color theory and pigments is CMYK or Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and "Key" (or commonly known, Black). Adding these colors into the standard primaries gives us the "Yurmby" wheel. If you have looked at a color printer, for example, the colors used are NOT Blue/Red/Yellow, but rather Cyan/Magenta/Yellow. This is because due to the subtractive nature of pigment/ink mixing. These colors present a larger printable gamut (i.e. range) of color; for example, without White, it is difficult to produce a Pink tone with Red vs Magenta. A thin Magenta will read more Pink than a thin Red. Printers do not use White ink and instead leverage the paper for white, effectively printers are printing in an underpainting style. However, we as artists DO use White pigments and this makes things a bit more complicated as we do work with Tints (White) and Shades (Black). Like most science, the direct answer regarding an accurate color wheel is: it is complicated. For observable light, there is a bit more consistency and repeatability. However, when working with "tiny wavelength absorbing/reflecting mirrors" of pigments, things become a bit more complex. Additionally, there are other aspects that that go beyond the basics, such as the effect of specular and perception of color. It gets really heady when you start dipping into Kubelka-Monk Theory and K/S. Paint Composition: Most paint is made up of 3 parts: Pigment - particles that absorb and reflect certain wavelengths of light. Binder - The 'medium' or 'glue' which holds the pigment in suspension and forms a film. For acrylic paint, this is the actual acrylic part. Solvent - The liquid that allows paint to be viscous; as it dries, it allows the binder and pigment to harden forming the film. For acrylic paint, the solvent is water. Adjusting the ratios of these can have some interesting, and sometimes disastrous effects in terms of the stability of the paint. For example, introducing too much solvent, and the binder and pigment lattice structure can break apart. This can cause "coffee staining" or splotchy spots where the bonds pull apart, leaving areas without a film at all. The pigments in paint are held in a suspension. Like hot chocolate mix, there are tiny particles that are suspended in a liquid. Given enough time or evaporation, the liquid will leave these granules behind. If you have ever mixed a packet of Swiss Miss cocoa, you know that the mix can settle at the bottom - and that attempting to add dry powder to a liquid is more difficult than adding a liquid to a dry powder. This is another reason why mixing your paints is important because it is easy for the heavier pigments to tend to settle out of the binder/solvent solution. Speaking of solutions, that is the main difference between paints and inks. Inks, specifically alcohol inks that use dyes, are a solution. The staining dye actually becomes homogeneous with the liquid. Just like dissolving sugar or extracting coffee/tea, there isn't any particulates that separate out. However, most dyes are not lightfast - a property that will be discussed in more detail further. Acrylic inks that use pigments are not "true" inks insomuch as they are composed just like an acrylic paint. The difference being the smaller size of the pigments and the viscosity of the binder/solvent being much thinner. Paint Additives Outside of the 3 main components for paint composition, there are also some optional additives that some manufacturer's include in their paint. These can be things such as: Extenders/retarders, which delay the setup of the paint film, allowing for more mixing to occur before drying. Thinners, which dilute the pigment to binder ratio, usually increasing translucency and viscosity - commonly this is done with water for acrylic paints. Flow Aid, which reduces the surface tension of paint, allowing it to flow more easily and level - Reaper is known for adding a bit of flow aid into their formulation. Opacifiers, which increase the opacity of a paint - usually some type of calcium or bicarbonate. Matting agents, which reduces the glossiness of acrylic medium. Fillers, which are commonly used in student or inexpensive paints to reduce cost and add mass without adding more pigment. You can add some of these additives yourself to your favorite brand of paint to adjust the handling qualities. The most commonly added is solvent/thinner in the form of water to "thin your paints" to reduce the viscosity and lower the overall density of the paint, building up multiple thinner layers of paint films in a "layering" fashion.

Okay all, I'm sure you've noticed that I've popped back up on the forum. Basically, I'm picking back up where I left off, with the exception I've also started getting into armor as well as minis. At any rate, where I left off was that I was about to start messing around with pigments. The problem is, I'm not sure which line, if any, to go with. What got me started was the Tiger 1 model I'm currently working on. I decided that I needed pigments to weather it, but got impatient and just started using what I had lying around. I sufficiently muddied the thing, and now I'm going to have to make a muddy diorama to go along with it to justify Hans and Franz' off-roading antics, but I digress... What I'm curious about is what brands do some of you use/recommend? I'm leaning towards the Secret Weapons weathering pigment set as it has quite a few pigments in it, and I can't see needing more than that. However, I'm also aware that Scale75, Tamiya, and quite a few others I hadn't heard of before also produce pigments. Shoot, I even made a rust pigment in the past to use on one of the exchanges we did on the forum, and I may just make lampblack to finish out the sooty areas that need to be on the Tiger. At any rate, I'd love to hear y'alls experience with whatever powdered pigments you've used in the past. Thanks for any input you can provide! -K

I did it! Some folks asked me to tell them how to use soft pastels for miniatures and I did one better and made my very first video tutorial! Let me know what you think!! ( I also posted this on the Reaper Facebook Group so some of you may have seen it already.)

Every since the first KS and the addition of Cthulhu I knew I had to have him. And when he arrived along with the rest of my Bone-y goodness, I got it in my head that I HAD to paint him with dry pigments instead of paint. Having followed the efforts of Katheryn Loch over on CMON and some Google hangouts she hosted to explain the process, I decided that this big guy was going to be colored this way. I have been using pigments on bases for a while now and had been experimenting using them for weathering but... this is something new. The only part that really worries me is the face/tentacles as they are the softest part of the model but we'll see how it goes. So far he has been washed, heavily sanded, glued, puttied as I was worried the gaps would be too obvious with the pigment build-up in them, sanded and washed again and primed to hide the putty and to give some better tooth for the pigments to adhere to. I also cut up his base and mounted it to a very large GW one with some cork on it (still not decided what will happen to the base exactly). To describe the process of the pigment application, it is applied with a brush or clay shaper with a reasonable amount of pressure until the area is saturated. Compressed air is then used to blow off any excess and then a fine coat of matt coat is applied to provide a base for the next layer and protect the previous one. Repeat until the desired finish is obtained. You work from light to dark as you can't lighten up your previous layers though you can tint them. Pigments I have are from Earth Pigments. Colour selection to follow in next post once I make up my mind. Fair bit of putty work. I hope the dragons have less obvious gaps in them... Drying after the final touch up of primer.

Hello all! While I'm waiting for my dull coat to dry so I can finish basing, I was curious if anyone has any experience with weathering pigments. I came across these at Hobby Lobby today: http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/87080weathering/ Our Hobby Lobby recently upgraded its inventory, so there's a LOT more Tamiya, Vallejo, etc. products. I've seen similar products over at the Secret Weapon website: http://www.secretweaponminiatures.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=37_38 So, what's the sitch? These look like they could be useful....