A few general painting questions. I need some help.

Hi all! I'm a conplete beginner painter and have had some problems getting my models to look how I want. I think I'm putting too much paint on the brush, not watering it down enough and putting too much paint on the model leaving that 'blotchy' look. I'd really appreciate some advice on the following quieries:

- How much do people generally water down the base coat? Also, does this mean more than one layer is needed, or does this result in blotches and loss of detail on the model?

- With highlights, I know one uses a fine brush and wipes away a lot of the paint but do you water down the highlight paint? Or is it just slightly watered down?

- Same with washes/shades, they're already incredibly watery so I guess you don't add more however, are you meant to load the brush with them so that they actually get into the crevasses or again wipe off the bulk before applying them to the model?

- I'm trying to get that gold effect that shines in the centre. I've put down a layer of Balthazar gold and then a coat of aggrax earth shade but it's lost all its brightness. Does this return when you highlight it or do you only apply the wash the certain areas of the gold?

- Lastly, when painting with metallic colours do you still water them down? Do you do it less? Because as I understand it the metallic paints are constructed differently so I didn't know if watering them down would spoil the pigmentation and make them less 'metallic' and shiny.

Sorry for all the questions but I'm a complete noob! I should probably upload some shots for critique. Many thanks in advance.

A lot to cover here, but I'll take a stab at it.
1. I don't water down base coats. Using a wet palette will keep your paints fluid enough to not blotch up on you. I showed my cheap wet palette in my project log. A Rubbermaid food container, a sponge, and a sheet of parchment paper is all that you need to make one. I painted for 20 years without one, I'll never go back. I tend to get base coats down in a single coat, though the color that you are using can sometimes require two coats. (Yellow is infamous for requiring more than one coat)

2. You will find that you don't have to water down the highlight paints as much using a wet palette. Some paints require a bit of thinning, though I don't do much thinning to be honest if the paint itself doesn't require it.

3. Washes work best if you don't water them down. I wipe just a little bit off before applying.

4. I prefer to shade only certain areas with washes, though it is not completely necessary. You can re-highlight after washing to get the shine back.

5. I still have my older GW metallics,but have found the newer bronze, brass metallics to be fairly watery to begin with. Again, I think that using a wet palette will solve the problem of needing to thin your paints. (This seems to be a reoccurring theme in your questions/painting problems)

I hope this helps!

A lot of this is a question of style with no right answer!

I thin down almost everything just so it's a thinner layer and detail is always kept clean, partly because I do some wet blending with some of the colours (e.g. Green on whips, guns etc) and this requires at times multiple layers.

I never thin down metallics though.

My trick with metallics is don't be afraid to start with a metallic effect that looks shockingly bright!

I base with Thinnned mourn fang brown (just a little water, it will still apply nicely over black undercoat) then layer Brass Scorpion then highlight layer Auric gold...it will now look rather ott bright.

Heavy wash with Reikland Fleshtone makes it just become deep and lustrous.

Then highlight with Auric and edge with Auric mixed with a silver.

Cheers (I got from your posts on my Kabal thread that you wanted to know about the gold effect most!)

Chris

Thanks to both of you for all your advice. I made myself a wet palette today! They're amazing. Although a quick question, how moist should the baking paper (is this what you call parchment paper in the states?) be, I'm not sure if I'm using as much water as I could or should but it works better than my old plastic palette aka, 'the paint perisher'. Lol

Evil Space Elves wrote:

3. Washes work best if you don't water them down. I wipe just a little bit off before applying.

So Space Elves, on those warriors in your blog, when you paint their gold knee caps and weapon parts are you only applying the wash to the edges or do you douse the whole thing because it'll shine later from the highlights?

Tangentical wrote:

I never thin down metallics though.

And Tangentical, do you advise against watering down metallics, even slightly? I must also confess, and thank you because I've stolen your gold colour scheme for my army. :/ Although yours has all the sexy conversion bits and is painted to an incredible standard so our armies will never look alike. My base is Necron Abyss so it'll be slightly darker than yours. I just never found anything that complemented it so well until I painted the helmet and a few bits of armour in gold. Then I couldn't go back.

Edit - On my phone I couldn't really reply with the quotes that easily. Now added