JGF Posted June 10, 2018 Share Posted June 10, 2018 Anyone have experience with mixed use of oils and acrylics on minis? I've got some larger mini's that I would love to do some base coating with oil paints and then come back to do detail work with regular acrylic afterwards. Anyone know if this is OK or if there are any special considerations you have to keep in mind for this? I understand that oil has an extended drying time (several days) which is fine... Does oil need a special primer to stick to mini's or are the regular brands fine? What about vice versa... if I've already got a (dried) acrylic base coat down is it OK to do some oil on top for some nice blend effects? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artists Wren Posted June 10, 2018 Artists Share Posted June 10, 2018 I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure that it's okay to do oils over acrylics, but not vice versa. The golden rule in oil paint is 'fat over lean'. Lean is a water thinned paint like acrylic, or the oil thinned with turps/OMS or similar solvent. Then oil paint from the tube on top of that, then oil paint thinned with oil (for oil painting style glazes) as the top layers. The reason for that is partly the cure times, and partly that the method of curing is completely different. Acrylics cure through evaporation of water. Oil paints cure through oxidation of the oil through contact with air. While they may be touch dry in days, oil paints are not considered to be mostly cured for upwards of months. (Apparently the process never completely stops.) It is recommended to not varnish paintings until six months after painting. There are water miscable oil paints on the market that allow you to use water rather than turps to thin the paints and clean brushes. These are made with a modified oil, and is a rare case in art supplies where there really are notable differences between brands because they each do it differently. From what I've read, you'd consider WSO (water soluble oils) to cure in both ways - first the water evaporates, then the oil in the paint oxidizes. So I think the fat over lean rule would still apply - you'd do watery applications first, then full strength and oil thinned ones over. There is one brand, Holbein Aqua Duo, that claims you can intermix acrylic mediums, paint, and even watercolour paint with their WSO paint. I have some, but I haven't played around with them much in that fashion, and not at all with miniatures. There are painters who use both in the historical miniature painting community. My understanding is they paint skin with oils and other materials with acrylics, so they're not mixing them on the same part of the miniature. It's also fairly common to use some oil washes and such over acrylics for weathering on tanks and things. The painter James Wappel has been experimenting a lot with using oils on miniature gaming figures lately. He has a Patreon page, and also posts videos and blog posts related to many of his painting and base making adventures. This is his blog, and you can find a number of links here to the videos of oil painting on figures he's posted on FB:http://wappellious.blogspot.com/ 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heisler Posted June 11, 2018 Share Posted June 11, 2018 I can confirm that oils over acrylics works just fine. Most military modelers start with an acrylic base otherwise the overlaying oil washes can eat through your basic paint work. Although care must still be taken when applying them. As Wren says Wappel is an excellent resource but check out AK Interactive and Ammo by MiG, two companies that produce both acrylic and oil products for modeling. They are an excellent resources as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
czebas Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 Check out Michael rinaldi facebook or his website rinaldi studio press. He shows how to handle using oils in painting. The books, tank art, are excellent and his facebook has lots of q&a posts that detail most of his processes and provide in depth explorations and troubleshooting for the techniques he uses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ducknuck84 Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 can also confirm that acrylic base coat then oil based enamel washes over that will work. i've done it on tanks, figure and Gundam models with out any problem. You just have to put a clear coat over the acrylic first. my usual workflow is acrylic spray on gloss clear coat Ak brand wash's (another clear coat then decals) skipped if there are none Final, Matt/semi mat finish clear coat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmorse Posted July 23, 2018 Share Posted July 23, 2018 23 hours ago, Ducknuck84 said: can also confirm that acrylic base coat then oil based enamel washes over that will work. i've done it on tanks, figure and Gundam models with out any problem. You just have to put a clear coat over the acrylic first. my usual workflow is acrylic spray on gloss clear coat Ak brand wash's (another clear coat then decals) skipped if there are none Final, Matt/semi mat finish clear coat You don't actually need a clear coat between the acrylic and the wash. Not using one just makes the effect slightly muddier, similar to using an acrylic wash over matte acrylic paint. Enamel solvent won't react with the acrylic so you can even clean it up to an extent that you wouldn't be able to with an acrylic wash. Though generally enamels aren't what I think of when people talk about oil paints as they behave quite a bit differently than artist oil paint (and are usually referred to as enamel paints rather than oils paints despite being oil based), particularly in their cure time. Oil based enamel paints generally being fully cured within 3 days or so while artist's oil paints take considerably longer. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madog Barfog Posted July 23, 2018 Share Posted July 23, 2018 I've had luck painting acrylics over old enamel paint jobs, but I'm doubtful about oil. My fiance makes black light paintings and has recently started everything with a black oil primer coat on her canvas. She then pours acrylics over this, and the effect she wants is that the acrylic does not cover the oil very well, giving her black voids, which look pretty cool between the fluorescent colors. Now, she does this before the oil is dry, so that is a big difference in what you are proposing. However, as mentioned, oil takes a *very* long time to dry, so you'd have to at least be very patient. I'm not sure if this helps, but wanted to throw in my 2 cent data point. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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