Chalky paint

[mrmstwk]

Advice please, when I paint my figures the faces look chalky. How do I get to look smooth

[Mercius]

Uhmmm....how much are you thinning your paints? Is it the base coat or just the highlights? The chalky look happens to me when I either don't think my paints enough, I apply the layers too thick after the basecoat, or too many layers, or let the paint dry on the brush....also the lighter paints tend to look more chalky if they aren't thinned just right.

[Midnight Lurker]

....also the lighter paints tend to look more chalky if they aren't thinned just right.

 

Agreed! It might seem counter intuitive, but lighter colors can end up going chalky real fast if thinned TOO much. I'm not sure why it happens, but it does. I suggest trying to match the consistency of whole milk for anything paler than RMS Fair Skin.

 

Most of the time it will help us if you can post pics of what you are working on, or at the very least telling us more about your situation. What colors are you using? How much are you thinning them? Giving us info like that will get you better suggestions that will help you more.

 

Laters,

Jen

[ThornDJL7]

I still have a hard time judging my paint thinness on the fly and then I have the bane of my paint drying on me. Almost driving me to look into a wet pallet.

[Midnight Lurker]

DO IT.

 

There is a learning curve, but fight through it. Wet pallet vs ceramic is like Golden Taklon vs WN Series 7. Once you "get it", you will never look back.

 

J

[morganm]

Here's what I've noticed results in chalky paint from my limited experience.

 

Adding Skull White to anything = chalky... the more I add the worse it gets. I now avoid it if possible and try to lighten colors with other lighter versions of that color.

Too much flow improver when thining.

[Mercius]

Oh yes, go to a wet palette...come to the dark side....we have cookies. I would never go back to a normal palette now.

[oracleartist]

Thinning with a mix of water and Pledge Future FInish Floor polish reduces chalkiness, thought it does make the paint look a bit more plasticy. Thinning with matte medium helps as well. I mostly just have this problem with the fair skin colors for some reason.

[fieldarchy]

Wet palettes are the best in my opinion. Thank you to Jeremie for switching me from flower palettes to wet. It's great!

 

As for chalkiness. I've tried all the tricks people are advising but I have had far too many issues with this happening. I ended switching brands because I got so frustrated. I hate to say that but it's true. Though I heard Anne was working on getting these issues fixed--I personally don't know.

[oracleartist]

One other thing on this problem, I have had much better luck with getting rid of chalkiness by not thnning with flow improver but only using water, nothing else mixed in, just water and found the paints to look much nicer. For lining or putting small highlights on things like eyes, I do thin with flow improver, but for other things just water.

[fieldarchy]

I never use additives with my paint. Just dilute with my rinse water. This has yielded the best results for me.

[olliekickflip]

Yeah, the lighter colors will go chalky when thinned too much. I find that I am using less and less water to dilute my paints with. Maybe just a little spit if I need it to flow better. I just put the paint on my wet pallet and then take very very small amounts of paint with just the tip of my brush and apply...typically with severly strokes of the brush. This gets rid of the chalky look and gives you very bright and colorful highlights. It takes a bit of practice but in the end you'll be faster and happier with the results.

[Cypharius]

I use Liquitex airbrush medium, works well for me.

[Mercius]

So Ollie, you arent using glazing anymore? Sorry to de-rail, but I was trying to use your painting method from your tutorial on a new mini.

[Void]

I though I might add two additional possible causes for chalky looking paint.

 

The first is brushing wet paint over partially dry areas of paint. There seems to be a sweet spot in drying time that causes paint to "pull" away in a tacky - somewhat gritty way when painted over. So watch to see if this could be your problem and avoid it by allowing areas to fully dry before adding more paint. (even while applying the same coat this can happen if you are not methodical about your coverage)

 

The second is very thin paint mixtures without enough medium to support the suspension of the paint pigment. You can try adding a bit of brush on sealer (contains a medium, but no pigment) to reduce this effect.