Ferox Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 I've finally put brush to pewter again last night, and took the opportunity to play with a new toy -- Liquitex matte medium. It certainly makes paint behave... differently. I'm not quite sure what to think, other than that I'll do better if I know what to look for than I will by just flailing around. I've tried it undiluted, a little, but mostly in combination with my gunk mix -- roughly 20:1:1 water:flow improver:drying retarder. I mixed up a small batch of 2:1 medium:gunk, which seems to be working pretty well as a dilutant for layering. Washes and basecoats mixed with the medium (or the 2:1 mix) seem to take longer to dry, but thin layers thinned with the 2:1 mix don't stay wet for noticeably longer than those thinned with plain ol' gunk. Not sure if this is good or bad. I'm expecting to find that paint thinned with matte medium "stays put" better than otherwise. I was hoping that this'd help me lay down smoother basecoats of Linen White (which has been annoying me lately), but so far I haven't hit on the perfect ratio. The Linen White mix I left on my wet palette soaked up a bunch of water overnight. Any advice is appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All-Terrain Monkey Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 I think you'd get better advice Ferox if you let us know why you bought it and what painting deficiency you hoped it would improve, along with what paints you're using them with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferox Posted May 9, 2011 Author Share Posted May 9, 2011 I think you'd get better advice Ferox if you let us know why you bought it and what painting deficiency you hoped it would improve, along with what paints you're using them with. Why I bought it: Another tool/toy in the box, mostly. A fair number of the folks on the Privateer painting forum refer to P3 Matte ("Mixing"?) Medium a lot, and Ghool specifically recommended the Liquitex stuff over P3 in this thread (and brings up medium as a dilutant in the associated tutorial). I'm thinking more "Hey, neat; what does this do?" than "I have this problem, and expect someone to tell me how to solve it with matte medium". Paints: Reaper Master Series, of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psyberwolfe1 Posted May 10, 2011 Share Posted May 10, 2011 The real benefit of matte medium is that you can absolutely duplicate GW/Reaper washes with it with awesome success. Mixing it with inks helps inks not reactivate once dry. It is also a great agent to fix flock/clump foliage into place once the glue has dried. You can use it to thin paints for airbrush applications. This is just the usages I pulled from the top of my head that I have done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serenity Posted May 10, 2011 Share Posted May 10, 2011 If you dilute some paints too far, they start breaking down. The pigments start looking grainy and/or won't stay mixed very well. Basically, there's not enough binder for it to act like paint anymore. If you add a little matte medium (I usually start around 1:1 matte medium to water or gunk), the pigments will stay in solution better I've found. So it can help with glazing. But I only do this if I know the paint doesn't behave well when diluted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferox Posted May 10, 2011 Author Share Posted May 10, 2011 The real benefit of matte medium is that you can absolutely duplicate GW/Reaper washes with it with awesome success. That sounds... amazing, really. You wouldn't happen to have an approximate recipe on hand, would you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psyberwolfe1 Posted May 10, 2011 Share Posted May 10, 2011 The real benefit of matte medium is that you can absolutely duplicate GW/Reaper washes with it with awesome success. That sounds... amazing, really. You wouldn't happen to have an approximate recipe on hand, would you? 3 parts water 3 parts matte medium 1 part paint. 6:1 total stuff to paint. I have a premixed bottle of 50/50 matte medium water. I use it a lot. The trick is I use this recipe as a starting point usually I have to thin more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ddot Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 A useful way to think about matte medium is that it's sort of paint, only without the pigments. Not entirely accurate, but close. I use it to thin down the pigments. Not as much with RMS as with the P3's- they have a very strong pigment. I wouldn't recommend it for basecoating; you want good coverage in that process. The one exception would be if you mixed an ink with your basecoat paint; you'll want that extra bit of body. For layering, it's great. It thins the pigments nicely while retaining consistency. That,s why you didn't see significant change in drying time. It adds a nice bit of body for washes so they are more likely to stay where you put them, although wash control is still good to use. I love the stuff myself, even though I find myself using less of it than I used to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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