Is this a 'glaze' ?

[morganm]

 

Did I make a glaze or not? Is it too thick or too thin? How do you tell if it's too thin? Too thick?

[Mercius]

 

 

Did I make a glaze or not? Is it too thick or too thin? How do you tell if it's too thin? Too thick?

 

What am I looking at, the mix in the reservoir of your pallette?

[morganm]

It's a movie, click and watch it =)

[All-Terrain Monkey]

Ok, having watched the movie, are you asking if it's a glaze for use on a miniature, or on paper? If you were looking to use it on a miniature I'd say it's just about right, though I'd go half water:half sealer instead of the 8:3 you used. If it was on a miniature, do you have any pics of how it looked on there? Did you actually try it out on a miniature? Did you just use one coat, or fifteen? Even though you have a video, there's still a whole lot of information needed to answer your question.

 

If you were talking about using a glaze on paper I'm afraid I have no idea; an actual painters forum for watercolor/acrylics on canvas would probably be a better place to ask .

[morganm]

Thanks for the tips!

 

This would be for use on a mini. I used paper to show how much paint it was actually leaving when brushed on. If I showed painting on an actual mini you wouldn't see much of anything because my camera isn't that great with video. When I laid it on the model I couldn't really tell if it did anything and that was with 2x magnification

 

I did end up doing 4 layers of it on the kobolds I'm working on here. I didn't take any before shots but here's the result:

http://s808.photobucket.com/albums/zz10/pic_dumpster/2010-03-04_Minis_Painted_Kobolds_Final_Highlight/

 

I dunno if it helped or not but it didn't make it any worse. I didn't want to put on too many since I didn't even know if it was a glaze or not =) However I couldn't resist experimenting with it.

 

How many coats should I put on ? Or do you just put it on until it's as smooth as you want it? Can you put on too many and how do you tell?

Do I need to wait for each layer of glaze to dry before putting on another? Totally bone dry or still a bit damp?

 

When you say it's about right; would you say it's a little on the thin or thick side?

[All-Terrain Monkey]

To be honest, I think you're obsessing and overanalyzing it. If you know what a glaze is used for, namely, smoothing out layering, then the only answer to "How many coats should I put on" is "Does it look smooth yet?" The answer to "Is it too thin" is "Is it taking too long for you to notice a difference?" Yes, you need to let each glaze dry fully before the next one, but otherwise you're overthinking this way too much.

[Mercius]

Doh! technology 1, Mercius 0. I agree with ATM on this.

[morganm]

By that measure I would say it was too thin because I would put some on and wouldn't notice any difference.

 

Yeah, I tend to overthink things =/ Sometimes I catch myself and other times ppl catch me and say K.I.S.S =)

 

Thx again!

[Heisler]

And as to how much, I know that Dean once used 50+ layers of glaze on a red cloak. That would happen when you don't have anything but primer (and Dean uses a clear primer) under the glaze.

[Kang]

That is a glaze if I ever saw one. I'm going by the video alone FWIW - there are no speakers on this computer. I'm talking about the thinner mix of the 2 you used - not the well at 3 o'clock, but more like around 5:30 on your palette, that is. Probably obvious, but again I have no sound so I just want to be sure.

 

Definitely let each coat dry before adding the next, or you risk messing up the smooth finish that is the whole point of glazing in the first place. I've seen a whack of glazing tutorials where they say it should be thin enough that you can't really see it doing anything when you first put one layer of it on (often painting some on paper to demonstrate, as in your example); some of these were even thinner than what you have there. Generally these painters are going for professional/competition-level results & planning on applying *many* layers of glaze. So you really didn't make it too thin, unless you'd prefer to work faster.

 

You can't really go wrong by going too thin - you can only spend more time getting it finished because you will need more layers. Too thick and you can end up having to go back and fix things (possibly with more glazes). I think you probably have some wiggle room on either side with the mix in your video - you could go a little thicker or a little thinner, as needed and according to your own preference.

 

Here is a great tutorial about blending where the author uses mostly glazes to paint the whole mini. For just smoothing out layers, you might not need it quite as thin as his. Anyhow, maybe it'll shed some light for you...

 

Good luck,

 

Kang