BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Miniatures and Terrain => Hobby Tips and Tricks => Topic started by: OverKill on 18 February 2011, 14:18:15
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Hi'ya guys,
Quick question... I have this blue called Mordian Blue (it says Foundation above that). Anyone use this stuff before as a base coat or primary color on a mini? If so did you water it down or simply keep dry brushing until you eventually got complete coverage without it being too thick?
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Always thin your paints. Thinned paints are much easier to work with as they result in thinner layers which won't clog fine details. How much you thin your paints depends on what you want to achieve and what works for you (which you will only find out by experimenting and practising ;)). It is always better to apply a few layers of thinned paint to get good coverage than one layer of undiluted paint.
From your post I take it you want to apply Mordian Blue as a basecoat after priming the miniature? Try a dilution of two parts paint to one part water and see how this works for you.
But why do you want to use drybrushing to apply the basecoat? Especially if you want complete coverage drybrushing is probably not the best technique. More commonly drybrushing is used to hit raised edges with a lighter color to create highlights or to achieve certain weathering effects (and probably the only technique where you actually don't want to thin the paint (that much)).
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Hey Gunji,
I bought eyedroppers yesterday just for this specific mixing!!
I was thinking drybrushing as a means to build up layers of paint with the blue without having it glob but I'll do my base coat with a watered down blue, then to the red highlights and then do my badab black wash after all that is done.
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the only times, in my experience, you want to use drybrushing as your base coat, is if you have primed black, and are going for a severly weathered look.
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I was thinking drybrushing as a means to build up layers of paint with the blue without having it glob but I'll do my base coat with a watered down blue, then to the red highlights and then do my badab black wash after all that is done.
If your paint globs when painting 'normally' it is either because your paint is too thick or you brush is overloaded with paint. If the paint is too thick the solution is to dilute it (more). When your paint is thin and watery it is easy to overload the brush and when you touch the miniature the paint gets released uncontrollably from the brush. To counter this try try dragging your brush across a piece of tissue or a towel after you pick up paint from your palette. This will remove excess moisture from the brush while making the remaining paint/pigment much easier to control.
Building up layers with drybrushing can result in what you want to avoid - thick paint on the miniature clogging details.
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You can thin it with water just keep in mind that the GW Foundations line is specifically formulated to acheive some specific tasks (such as single layer base+primary coat) and that dillution will negate that ability. Given that, there's much cheaper paints that will dilute just fine.
-Jackmc
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Thanks for the tips guys.
I did 30 drops of blue and 15 drop of water and that gave me enough to paint my Warhammer and my Centurion. Just gotta be careful cause I've run in to both problems of too much paint or two much watered down paint so the papertowl / coffee filter trick seems to be working well!
Next up, adding the blood red accents to the mech, then the wash and then the drybrush with grey + light blue
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Sounds good. looking forward to seeing them when you're done.