Using inks

[badgermaniac]

I was looking into purchasing some inks, specifically for use on some of the Bones translucent figures.  The best purchasing value seems to be a set of basic colors, which can be purchased for around $25-$30.  

 

Here is my question.   Once my handful of translucent figures are done (a few ghosts, gem dragon, spell effects), are there other things I can use the inks for? (I don't use an airbrush,.)

 

I just want to justify the purchase by identifying other ways that people use inks. Do people find ways to give them use?

[Inarah]

They make good washes and glazes over a basecoat of paint. 

 

[ksbsnowowl]

Are you talking about these kinds of inks?

 

 

...or these kinds of inks?

 

[badgermaniac]

The Vallejo game ink.

[haldir]

While this is a translucent figure, it's not a Bones figure, but the elementals in the Nolzur's line up look amazing using inks. The water elemental looks great mixing up green & blue. Also I painted up a triton & his face & hair were the same aqua-green color so I used the mix to shade his hair & it turned out better then I thought it would.

[lexomatic]

Never used the game inks.  I use my inks (the liquitex kind) as washes,  or with medium as a different shade, or to thin something out without losing the intensity of the color.

[Auberon]

If you do a search for "Les' Wash Recipe" it will give you an idea of what you can make with ink washes.  You will need a few additional supplies - which DakkaDakka allows links to - but you'll never need to buy another pre-made wash.

[SotF]

I've been using a lot of inks for simple washes with water dilution for most things (It's flesh washes that I haven't swapped over from there).

 

For a lot of things that are textured wood with models, a straight brown ink actually seems to work very well for a dark wood over a grey prime or base coat, and follow that with a drybrush of a light brown or warm off white. It also works for some simple dirt basing for things with covering integral bases on minis without the drybrush (I used both with part of a set of the Nativity boxed set for christmas last year).

 

I've also used a combo of ink washes to get a great rough ground. The mix of sand that I use for my minis with basing and for a lot of other things as a ground texture is relatively simple.

 

I use superglue and a sand mix that goes from extremely fine to a more medium grit, then I add a bit more superglue before leaving it to dry for a while before I prime the model or terrain with a grey...which I touch up after finishing painting the model. They I use about a 50/50 mix of brown ink with water over the base and let it dry, then a 25/75 black ink/water over that and let it dry, and finish with a light drybrush of a warm off white. The pooling during it actually adds a more varied spread to the look. If I'm going for a wetter area, I skip the drybrush and use a polyeurethane gloss over that part.

 

Brown ink is also great for an old white look for clothing, base in a parchment/ivory/warm off-white color of choice, use a 50/50 brown ink/water wash over it, then work back to the base tone and highlight to white as needed.

 

Thinned black ink is great for getting a black look. Base with a darker grey, then a thinned black ink over it, then highlight with the original. The end result tends to work well for black cloth and leather.

 

I've been using the light blue, pale green, yellow, brown, and a few other colors, heavily thinned, as part of a stonework paint scheme I've used recently over a white base followed by some drybrushes of warm and cold off-whites and white highlights. None of the colors specifically pop out with it, and you still get the white stone and most people tend to think it looks like a marble, and works great at the scale.