wet palette

[Saul]

so i switched to a homemade wet palette recently.  it cost me $5, sets up in 3 minutes, cleans up in 1 minute, holds about 20 different paints for 4+ hours, speeds up my painting by 100% at least, and lets me spend most of my time painting, which i like, instead of mixing and remixing paint, which i don't.  it's a tray, a paper towel folded in half, and some parchment paper with the sides folded under.  add water.  why isn't this virtually mandatory?  seems like wet palette discussion comes around to personal taste, or climate, or something else, but it changed my life, damnit.  is there actually a downside that i haven't found yet?  it's easier to clean and use than my dry palette, by a mile.

[rfusca]

Ya, I can't paint without it.  Working on a dry pallet is a serious PITA.

[Doug Sundseth]

If you're doing serious production line painting or painting very large figures, well palettes can work better, at least for the colors you use a lot. Other than that, wet palettes are my consistent choice.

 

And I'm glad you found a tool that makes painting more fun.

[Cyradis]

Getting a wet palette is one of the top pieces of advice I ever got here. Now I don't know how I managed without one for so long. 

 

Well... yeah I do. 

 

I think I can point to the figures just Before WP, and After WP. It was one of those big jump in goodness items. 

[NecroMancer]

I mostly use a wet palette but I keep a porcelain tile around just in case I'm looking for a different paint consistency than what the wet palette gives me. 

[buglips*the*goblin]

28 minutes ago, Doug Sundseth said:

If you're doing serious production line painting or painting very large figures, well palettes can work better, at least for the colors you use a lot. Other than that, wet palettes are my consistent choice.

 

Pretty much how I see it.  I use well palettes (actually old soda pop caps, but a well's a well) for most of my work because even if I'm working on one figure... say the leathers, then I have about 20 figures lurking in the background I'll do the leathers on at the same time.  So it's series production, if not army production (all the figures being different, sometimes substantially).  This is a good working method for most of my stuff and I'm fast with it.

 

However, sometime after January I'll be filtering in special models that I'll want to work on exclusively and take as much time as is necessary instead of belting out lots of figures.  For these I intend to employ the wet palette, and purchased all the necessary materials some months back.  The primary advantage to a wet palette will be using it to make more transition steps, whereas most of my production is just simple shade/midtone/highlight.  3 steps is fine for regular figs, but won't cut it for the special ones.  Trying to ratio mix that many steps in wells is just too much work to bother with when I can mix it on the go on the wet palette.

[ced1106]

For brush-on priming, undercoating, and sometimes base coating assembly-line, I've found the GW pots (gasp) to be more convenient than wp's. None of the wild shaking of eye droppers, you can thin the paint right in the pot, and no re-dropping paint. In practice, though, the majority of pots I use are only GW black primer and a GW brown paint. I find wp's essential when I need to do any sort of mixing, of course.

[Saul]

enjoying the feedback, guys.  i guess i really just wanted to emphasize to people who are relatively new that the WP is more than just a potential quality-of-life improvement, for me at least.  i think i paint better with it.  i know i'm more patient with layering, and i know i can get a cleaner, faster base coat down since all my colors are still there and usable.  i guess i could see how a WP might not help a brand new painter, but i think with a half dozen or so minis under your belt, it's definitely worth a try.  i think i was put off for this long by people talking about mold issues, but i'd eat a chicken fried steak off mine.  i'm not over here with a sponge that never dries, trying to keep paint up for a week.  you feel me?

[Pingo]

4 hours ago, Cyradis said:

Getting a wet palette is one of the top pieces of advice I ever got here. Now I don't know how I managed without one for so long. 

 

Me too.

 

 

[Mierot]

9 hours ago, buglips*the*goblin said:

The primary advantage to a wet palette will be using it to make more transition steps, whereas most of my production is just simple shade/midtone/highlight.  3 steps is fine for regular figs, but won't cut it for the special ones.  Trying to ratio mix that many steps in wells is just too much work to bother with when I can mix it on the go on the wet palette.

 

I love my wet palette and use it almost exclusively for this reason (and that I can keep my paint going over multiple days). The wet palette has allowed me to mix colors differently and more spontaneously, vary my paint consistency, and keep better track of which colors I'm using for a given figure.

[TaleSpinner]

I'll be the voice of dissension I guess.  I really want to like wet palettes, but I just can't get them to work the way I want.  I have tried many times, and I hate the way the paint changes consistency the longer I paint, getting wetter as I go (the opposite of my wells, really).  I want my paint at the consistency I mix it and to have it stay that way for a whole session, not have my base coat turn into a glaze over the course of an hour.

 

Maybe I am just using them wrong.

[Cyradis]

Mine don't get wetter as I go. I also live in a very dry area. 

[Clearman]

4 minutes ago, TaleSpinner said:

I'll be the voice of dissension I guess.  I really want to like wet palettes, but I just can't get them to work the way I want.  I have tried many times, and I hate the way the paint changes consistency the longer I paint, getting wetter as I go (the opposite of my wells, really).  I want my paint at the consistency I mix it and to have it stay that way for a whole session, not have my base coat turn into a glaze over the course of an hour.

 

Maybe I am just using them wrong.

 

I work around this by using fewer drops of paint per puddle.  That way I don't feel like I'm wasting any when I start a new puddle.

 

[Dalth]

I find the biggest advantage of a wet palette is that it keeps the paint nicely thinned out.  But if you're used to painting with a well, and keep the paint in the well thinned then a wet palette isn't always a huge advantage.  Because really the main point behind the wet palette is just to keep the paint thin.  I've used both on Koren and I got very good results I think. 

 

The downside of a wet palette IMO/IME is when you need a lot of paint to cover large areas, because as you paint you tend to spread the paint out over a larger area of the palette and that can thin it down more then you want.  I don't think I'd use a wet palette much to paint a CAV for example. Unless it was small detail areas.

 

If you're new to painting, just don't understand how important keeping your paint thin is, or even have trouble keeping it properly thin, then a WP can be a huge improvement in how your painting turns out.  But if you're someone like TS who already knows how to keep the paint suitably thin, it may not be quite so useful.  

 

For me, when I first started using one, it made for a marked improvement in the quality of my models but that was because I didn't really thin my paints properly.  So while it can be a very useful tool it isn't magic, and you can get the same results without one. 

[Bruunwald]

I don't want to store wet paint out of its pots. That would be a disaster in my house. Wet palette lids are far from a guarantee.

I don't like cleaning wet palettes up. It takes about fifteen times longer than the OP suggests, but maybe physics breaks down in his house. I don't know.

I don't like having to dedicate the same large space to it each time; I like using different sized palettes, depending on allotted space, and typically I use something discardable and use the hell out of it.

I don't like the time it takes to set it up. Balancing it out takes about fifteen times longer than the OP suggests, but again, I am not a physicist, and maybe time works differently for him.

I don't like the time it takes to wrangle with it to get it to work right; IT NEVER DOES.

I like having more control over my paints and mixing, and to me, that means doing it the old fashioned way.

 

Mandatory? Your enthusiasm is noted.

 

Gross.