More is not always better, but when it comes to painting massive terrain boards, don't get caught painting out of a Citadel paint bottle.
This is just a quick post so that I can get the recipe down (mainly for myself, but also for anyone searching for terrain-scale washes). This is a high end wash recipe, but when you consider the volume, the cost is significantly cheaper than Citadel washes, and you can make enough to fill a jelly jar, or five.
What you need: Acrylic matte medium, flow improver, filtered water, and ink of your choice. The products shown above are a bit more expensive, but I wanted a high quality wash that could hold up to terrain, vehicles, or minis, no matter the scale.
Recipe: Put 9 tablespoons of filtered water into a medium sized jelly jar (or similar). Add 1 tablespoon flow improver. At this point you should have a half-filled jar (or less). Take this mixture and add to it 10 tablespoons of matte medium. Once done you will have the consistency shown above. This is your base, to which you can add almost any color of ink. For my mix, I added three full droppers (included on the ink jar) of black ink.
A few notes:
1. I always write the recipe on the jars, as I tend to lose track, and some of my projects take forever.
2. When you add the ink, don't go overboard. The mix will look like a slightly dulled down color compared to the the original ink. This is because the matte medium is very thick and white, but dries clear. Don't make your wash so dark that the ink takes over. In my case, it was a gray color, not anywhere near black, but when dried it adds a deep dark shadow.
3. Always test your wash before you commit to large areas. Washes tend to flow best on a surface that has been finished with gloss varnish (like Tamiya clear), but you can experiment with how the wash works on different surface textures.
4. Future posts will show the results (Behold the return of the Promethium Reactorum!)
I'm assuming the dropper is a standard 1ml?
ReplyDeleteATM my mix is Water, PVA Glue, ink, floor polish, dish soap. I'm not 100% happy with it, too strong and it leaves tide marks like crazy. I'll try again with ratios closer to yours, so thank you once again for an informative post. My surface might be way too matte as well.
And my Ink doesn't come from a bottle with a dropper as such, it's more of a office printer sort of thing you could say...
Happy painting.
Yes the ink comes with a 1ml dropper, so a few ml is enough. I always like to test it on a miniature (like a space marine model) that has been sprayed a light color. Then I add a little bit more ink if it needs to be darker. The flow improver makes this wash good enough even for miniatures, I think that's why I like the recipe more than others I have tried.
Delete