Lining

[demonelf3]

Hello reaperguys and girls, I have a question! So I've just started lining my figures using the brown, gray and blue MSP liners, but often my lines are way too thick and need touching up. Is this standard, as in, does it happen every time to the pros? I'm thinning the liners about 1:1 or 1:2, so they may be too thin. What's the proper way to thin them? Thanks in advance.

[Rastl]

I thin them until they're thin enough? That helpful enough?

 

It all depends. Some people line after priming and prior to painting. Some line each section as they complete it. Some line after the entire figure is painted.

 

But no matter what the liners straight out of the bottle are too strong. You've already found that out.

 

Others, far more knowledgeable, will reply after I do. But I usually thin my liners so they're strong enough to be seen but not so strong they're overwhelming. One way I check is to add a little water, mix, then draw it up the side of my palette well. Actually I do this whenever I thin paints. You're going to see how the mix will look on a vertical surface by doing this. Nifty trick huh? Learned it in John's "How Not To Suck" class at RAC05.

 

You want your liner to be enough to define the difference in surfaces but not enough to look like a coloring book. So the exact ratio isn't going to be found. Lining dark colors will need a darker (thicker) liner while working with light colors will require a lighter (thinner) liner.

 

I like to live dangerously and line everything after I have it painted. This way I can look at how the liner is going on the figure and adjust my mix accordingly. So my little puddle of liner may have several different thicknesses in it. Very thin where I started adding water and then thicker the farther away I get from that spot. Which means I put down a drop of liner and then put a drop of water next to it. I pull the liner into the water to thin, not the other way around. Once I get a mix I like I use it. I can always mix it differently since I have a pool of unthinned liner sitting there yet.

 

Wow. Long post. I'm getting to be as bad as Anne.

[dougrob173]

What I like to do is thin the liner to almost a wash consistency, so generally 4 or 5 parts water, 1 part liner. Make sure you wipe off most of the paint so barely any is left, then do your lining. You have to build up quite a few layers before anything is noticeable, but with the wash-like consistency most of the paint will settle in only the angled surfaces that you're lining.

[brushforhire]

Another tip i have used for speed painting is after you CLEARcoat the mini line it. I found that the clear tends to let the ink/wash run into the cracks easier and stick less to the paint.

[mattmcl]

I line after painting everything. I generally use a consistency that's thick enough to lay down a good dark line in one shot, but not so thick that you can see brush lines. I use a very, very thin line though, and that's why a like to do it in one shot, otherwise it's too thick for my taste. I've been experimenting with laying down a basecoat, doing three or four shadow layers, then lining, and then moving to highlights, but it doesn't seem to matter.

[Jubilee]

Also remember that the thinner you make your liner paint, the less you want on the brush while you're lining, because thin paint gets increasingly hard to control in large amounts the thinner it gets! So even if you're thinning your paint ALOT! but you're overloading your brush, it will end uplooking too thick or puddly. It also means you may need to develop the pantience to do alot of small strokes to do your lining than to line large areas with a single brush load.. :)

 

/ali

[pae]

I don't thin too terribly much, and certainly not to a wash consistency. If I wind up with some spots that are wider than normal, I'll go back over the wide areas with the shadow color again.

[All-Terrain Monkey]

I thin mine slightly but it's still about basecoat consistency; when I put down a line I don't want to go over it four or five times. When you're first starting to do it, and your brush control is being trained by it, you'll get thicker lines and inconsistent lines. With practice, and the more you do it, you'll get quicker, better results.

 

As far as when to do it, while you're still getting used to it I'd recommend doing it either before or after basecoating. If you get a splorch or a bad area you can use your basecoat to walk it back to where it should be.

 

If you're trying to fine results I'd steer away from a wash to make sure everything is as accurate as possible. I also use my lining color to paint on eyebrows, eyes, and define upper lips (for female characters) so getting a comfortable familiarity with doing it the "hard" way pays off in the end.

[Mclimbin]

I also picked up the perfect brush for lining at my local Michael's. Guess what it's called? A liner! It is a brush with long bristles that have no belly. That is, it doesn't get wider in the middle. They are about a two centimeters long so I can still load the brush with lots of paint, but I can control the placement easily.

 

I found that when I used a typical Winsor and Newton Series 7 for lining, even a really small one, the wider belly would make the line uneven in some places.

 

Oh, and I put a drop or two of flow-aid in my puddle of lining paint. Keeps things flowing without diluting the paint too much.

Edited February 27, 2008 by Mclimbin

[Vaitalla]

As stated previously, no ratio will be perfect, but I tend to like five drops liner to one drop water.

 

--Anne

 

p.s. LOOK! I was the ANTI-RASTL! Only 20 words!

[Rastl]

Anne -

 

Back on topic, as you can see you'll have to play with the thinning to see what works for your painting style and what you want to achieve.

[demonelf3]

Just got home. =) Thanks for all the responses! I see that I probably shouldn't be thinning as much, and I need less paint on the brush. My strokes should be shorter, and maybe I should pick up a special brush. Okay! I'm off to try it!

[Jubilee]

as a ps.. like Anne & Flynn, I don't tend to thin that much for lining. I probably try to get the ratio Anne uses, but i always overthin anyway (I would probably not over thin if I were willing to use 5 drops of paint all at once for anything.. I usually don't use more than 2 drops at a time.. Wish I lived in the paint department..). =)

 

/ali

[ixminis]

What's lining? That is, sometimes a heavy shadow will give you a similar effect, or pretty much what Flynn said. If the lining travels where it's not meant to be, cut back with the appropriate color(s) to trim it's thickness back down...

[Kang]

A trick I've been using lately seems to work quite well for me:

 

- Thin your liner a lot, like the 4-5 drops of water per drop of liner someone mentioned, only make one or 2 of those drops flow improver or acrylic thinner instead of water.

 

- Get a pool of pure flow improver/thinner in your pallete as well

 

- Load up a brush with plenty of flow improver, and paint it generously into the recess you want to darkline, making sure to cover the surrounding raised areas as well

 

- While the coat of flow improver is still wet on the mini, load up a brush with your thinned liner. Load the brush pretty heavily, though no so much that there's a drop of liner hanging off the tip or anything - you still want your brush to hold a good point there.

 

- Dip the tip of the loaded brush into the recess to be lined. The thinned liner should wick right in there, and the flow improver in the surrounding areas should keep the liner from staining any areas other than where it pools in the appropriate nooks and crannies.

 

- Rinse the remaining liner out of your brush, dry the bristles with a paper towel, and use it to soak up a brushfull of the excess flow improver, and any extra liner that got into the cracks. Then rinse and dry your brush again (you don't end up accidentally staining an area you've just removed the flow improver from with the liner you just sucked off the mini) and repeat as necessary. You can pull out as much or as little as you want to, really, so darklines that are too thick should no longer be a problem.

 

I can't promise this will win you any trophies, but it works well enough for me and doesn't involve needing to buy any new gear (except flow improver maybe, but that's something you really ought to keep handy anyhow). YMMV...

 

Kang