Painting Miniatures With Oil Paints Pt. 2

OK, first test drive of the oils complete. Here's what I learned.

1. Getting buttery smooth blends is easy (it's like cheating).
2. Getting buttery smooth paint is hard.
3. Having a limited palette is not so limiting.
4. Priming with black acrylic leads to difficult coverage with light paint, especially once thinned (I primed in black because the BONES are hard to see with any other color, but given their hydrophobic nature you could probably just rock'n-roll (future tests will examine this).
5. Use care when laying down colors as they remain active for a very long time (it's oil...)
6. Bob Ross used to talk about thick paints sticking to thin, or maybe vice versa, I now know what he was going on about.
7. Stippling is your friend.
8. Texture can be cool.

Primed Cyclops 

Initial Blocking

Poor color rendition, daylight photos tomorrow

The white balance is a little off

 I'm going to let it dry for a day before I try anything else.
 More to come.
HMP

Painting Miniatures with Oil Paints

Miniature painting with oils isn't a new thing, but it does seem to get a lot less coverage in the you-tube-o-sphere/blog-o-sphere. That said, I came across an awesome video last week that made me go buy some oil paints. I found a beginner set at my local art store with 8 colors for only $8, more excitingly, they were made in the Netherlands, (it's not even Chinese garbage!). I figured that for a buck a tube it was probably worth a go. The line is called "Art Creation" and is one of many art products made by Royal Talens.

The colors are titanium white (what it says), yellow (non information, some kind of bright yellow, maybe cad-yellow), carmine (this is a red), ultramarine (obviously blue), burnt umber (what it says), permanent green (duh it's green, dunno what "permanent" is, at first I thought is said peppermint lol, it's a fairly bright green maybe an emerald or forest green), yellow ochre (what it says, sort of a mustard yellow brown), and ivory black (carbon black?). Each tube contains 12 mL; more than enough.

Oil Paints

To thin oil you need either some kind of oil, or thinner, depending on what you're trying to do. The thinner at the Art store looked expensive, too expensive for a mixture of hydrocarbons. Basically its higher hydrocarbons, and I figured that there would be something suitable in the garage...

Cheap Thinner

 This old bottle of odorless BBQ starter fluid did the trick and it only cost $3 (IDIOT ALERT, it's obviously highly flammable, so if you mistake your ashtray for your thinner pot you might have a problem on your hands).

 Anyhow, since the surface tension is super low the washes you can maker are amazing. They readily find all the all the crack and require no coaxing. Also, if your get a little too crazy you can always wet your brush with thinner and just pick it up. It's like having an "undo" button. Truly awesome. The other thing you can do is mix your paint with powders and thinner to make mud and grime. This is where the advantage is huge. Below are my initial trials, I think they look sick.

Grim grime

War is hell

Awesome filth

Next I'm going to try and paint some kind of big figure exclusively with oils. I'll be sure to keep you all posted.

HMP

Liquitex Acrylic Ink Review

In a fit a madness I went to the local art supply store and bought a bunch of Liquitex Ink. This short product review will give my initial impressions, and highlight some of what I have already learned.

First of all the colors, Quinacradone Magenta, Yellow Orange Azo, Phthalocyanine Blue (green shade), Carbon Black, and Titaniutm White. The colors I chose are all fully transparent while the black is semi transparent and the white is opaque.

Liquitex Acrylic Ink

 I did this on purpose as I wanted to be able to use these inks as tints and washes, plus you can always add white or black to make them opaque. In fact, since Liquitex is a no nonsense professional level pigment and dye company, they just straight up tell you what's inside. You can look and see if you are buying a blend of pigments, or a single pigment. I specifically chose inks that are single pigments, this allows for more precise blending down the road.

Liquitex Ink product description

From the label we see the that it is transparent, indicated by the white box (and it straight up tells you), it also lists the pigment, PB15:3. This stands for Pigment Blue 15:3, which you can look up! Imagine that. Here's a handy reference site for ya'll. (http://www.artiscreation.com/blue.html).

 
Using the link above and simply clicking on PB15:3, you can find out all kinds of goodies, including the CAS #. The CAS# is a unique identifier to the chemical, as you can see, there are many names but only one CAS#, that's so chemists around the world don't get confused. By searching the CAS# on google or your favorite chemical supply company, one can learn even more.

CuPc on Sigma Aldrich

 Fun fact, I've made versions of the above compound! In the biz we call it "copper-pc" (CuPc for the written shorthand). Even artists don't usually bother with the whole phthalocyanine, and just call it phthalo-blue.

Anyhow, back to the story. The pigment content is insane. It's so high that it's hard to understand, imagine a GW base (in pigment terms), but with the viscosity of water! For my first test I painted a shitty BONES really fast and tried to use the Carbon Black as a wash, since it was so fluid. It turned the mini black. The surface tension is a little too high to behave as a good wash, I'm planning some soap tests later today.

Next I black primed a crab and then heavily dry brushed with white to bring out the detail. With this under painting done I used the Yellow Orange Azo and the Phthalocyanine Blue (green shade) to paint the crab. By adding differing amounts of coats and choosing where to have both colors and where to have single colors I was able to paint this crab in about 5 min. No wet blending was required, the greens are simply due to the transparency.

Mr Crab

I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into, but given my past experiences with Liquitex products, particularly their acrylic mediums, I was expecting professional results, which is exactly what was delivered. For organic things and beings like Mr Crab, I feel these inks will be amazing, especially as glazes with under-shading and for color blending (phthalo + quinacridone = awesome purples). I really want to get an airbrush...

HMP

Brush Cleaning (advanced techniques)

WARNING, ANY PERSON ATTEMPTING TO REPLICATE THE FOLLOWING DOES SO AT THEIR OWN RISK. THE AUTHOR CAN NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY ACCIDENT, INJURY, DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY, ORGAN FAILURE, AND/OR ANY OTHER UNDESIRABLE OUTCOME WHICH MAY RESULT FROM FOLLOWING THE PROCEDURE OUTLINED BELOW.

A clean brush is a happy brush, and I go nuts with the fancy brush soap and warm water at the end of my painting sessions to really try to de-gunk the brush. I find that doing this has really improved the lifespan of my brushes. The reason is strictly financial, a Windsor & Newton Series 7 #2 round $30 here, you gotta make that last.

Despite all this good treatment, all brushes eventually start getting a little ratty, so today I thought I'd try something a little different. Enter dichloromethane (DCM).

DCM is not a friend to you or the environment so before you give this a go be sure that you have a suitable way of disposing of the waste. Wear proper PPE and read the safety data sheet before you do anything. Also, it dissolves some plastics, so if you have synthetic brushes it might not be wise depending on the composition. It also dissolves glue, if you brush has glue inside holding it all together, it wont be there for long. DCM is very volatile and should only be used where suitable ventilation is present. Avoid inhaling fumes. Avoid contact with skin. Try at your own risk.

With the above warnings out of the way, we can continue. 

I grabbed some old brushes and figured I honey badger it. DCM and an ultrasonic bath. The result was amazing. Mountains of junk out of an otherwise clean brush. 

The picture shows the second (left) and first (right) treatments. The one on the right has so many particles that its scattering the light! 

Now, this isn't a fix all, and your brush won't magically be perfect, but it will be better than it was.

As I stated earlier, this is a bit of a gnarly treatment, so if all your brushes fall apart, and/or you get cancer, and/or you poison the environment, and/or you spill the DCM and strip the paint off the floor, it's all on you. 

Good luck,

HMP

Orc vs Ork

There was a King tide today, so we ended up going to the beach and looking at the tide pools. This had a negative impact on the quantity of painting. Most of the model is color blocked, and the shoulder pads have seen the most attention.

Checkers are important 

Black Pants

I also tried a new method for painting black. I started with black, then used Kantor Blue for the first edge highlight, and some kind of gray for the second highlight. It's the closest I've come to copying the GW style for black trousers.

Happy New Year!

Dear reader, happy new year, may 2020 be full of many completed mini projects. I have some things in progress, but I broke my own rule and started another. Today I assembled my Ork Nobz. These boys are huge, and since I don't 40K, I just kinda built them up the way I want. Here's the results. (Right now they're just mocked up with sticky tack).

Da Boss, close combat specialist, with a pistol on back

Heavy Support, fire + grenades

Mixed close combat and ranged attack

As above

Close combat specialist with a Big Choppa

Moon Clan!

Ranged capabilities

Grenades

Boss with pistol and "friend"

Veteran with pole

So there you have it, a mix of close support and ranged attacks. The squad shows a heavy mixture of armament, with two biblically augmented "veterans". I'm super excited to paint these guys, the kit was amazing, with so many fun parts available for customization.

I made the Boss appear to have heavy armor, he's been looting for a while. I'll probably add some "boss" arm armor to make him look more badass.

That's all for now.
HMP