Evo i linka teme na kojoj je to postovanoautomaton wrote:ah yes, ok, here we go:
The way I use matte medium is quite simple. The brand I use is pébéo, it's a French brand of artists supplies, rather than a miniature-related brand. I just found it at an art shop a while ago, and it looked good Wink And it seems to work well - but I haven't actually tried any other brands so I'm not sure how it compares! It's not very expensive though, which is a bonus - my 125ml bottle cost about $8, and 125ml is a lot when you consider that GW paints are only 12ml!
The medium itself is like a clear gel, it's quite thick and viscous, gloopy - it looks sort of milky white in the bottle but don't worry about that, it's quite clear when used in the small amounts any of us would require.
The main purpose of the medium - what it is really designed for - is thinning paints, just as you might thin them with water. All of the paints we use are basically certain colours of pigment suspended evenly in a medium. So by adding more matte medium, the pigments are further dispersed, making the paint more translucent: the more medium you add, the more spread out are the pigments, and the more see-through the paint becomes. The translucency of paint is very important for creating smooth colour transitions when painting – many layers of very dilute paint to shade and highlight surfaces allow smooth blending and a clean, soft painting style.
The advantage of using matte medium instead of water comes with the viscous nature of the medium: it allows you to thin your paints without losing their viscosity. What I mean is that it makes your paint more translucent, without becoming so watery.
This can be good for a couple of things:
First, it means that you can have greater control over the paint, which can be good in situations where you are painting a small area, or a surface is very textured – the high viscosity – thickness – of the paint means that it won’t run into all the cracks so easily, because it isn’t so watery.
Second – and this is the main advantage and use in my opinion – the viscosity of the medium means that when you thin your paint with it, the pigments of the paint are more evenly and uniformly dispersed than they would be if you just thinned with water. This means that the paint is less likely to ‘break’, and separate into different colours – something that often happens when using Vallejo model colour paints, especially – and also, it means that the pigments will not all sink to the bottom of the well in your palette, as happens with very watery mixtures, meaning that it need not be constantly stirred to achieve even distribution of colour. This is especially true of metallics: it is very difficult to achieve an even distribution of the metallic ‘flakes’ in your dilute metallic paint, if you thin with water only.
If you are not sure exactly what I am talking about, then try this quick experiment: put some water in one of the wells on your palette (you should always use a palette with ‘wells’, the little depressions which hold the paint and allow you to make very dilute mixtures). Put in a decent amount of water – half fill the well. Get one of your metallic paints – boltgun metal or mithril, say – and mix a little bit of the paint with the water, to create a dilute mixture. Mix it well, so that the paint is spread evenly – as normal when thinning paints. Now, stop mixing and leave the paint alone for 30-60 seconds. After this time, you will see a change: the mixture just looks like grey water. There will be a few little flakes floating on the surface, but the rest of them have sunk to the bottom. Mix it again, and you will immediately see the difference – but the flakes will just sink to the bottom again very quickly!
So, this is what I am talking about – thinning paints with water can be problematic, because sometimes the pigment will not be evenly suspended in the mixture, as it should be. So this is where the matte medium comes in – because of its viscosity, it can allow you to create a more viscous mixture, with the pigments spread more evenly, while still being very dilute and translucent. This is especially useful when you want to use dilute metallics.
It is not necessary to use the medium all the time though – some paints are more prone to breaking or separating than others, and I really don’t use the pigment all that much – certainly not every time I thin paints. Water is just fine usually, and is what I use most! But adding a little matte medium can be useful on occasion – if your paint and blending seems a little rough of mottled, even when it is very dilute, and you are struggling to get an even finish or smooth transition, then try mixing in some matte medium with the paint on the palette, as it can often create a smoother finish. And remember, paint mixtures need not have water only or matte medium only – the medium is perfectly soluble with water, so you can add different amounts of medium and water to make more or less viscous mixtures. I don’t think I would ever use straight medium to thin paint – the medium really is too thick and viscous for that! It would be like trying to paint with honey haha.
There is another thing you can try, which is mixing the matte medium with inks: because the medium is matte, I find that it removes a lot of the glossy/shiny finish you get after using inks on a surface. I also find that it helps by slightly breaking the surface tension, allowing the inks to stay in the recesses better. But I very, very rarely use inks these days, and I am not as sure of these properties, so you would be best to just try experimenting yourself first.
Well, I hope this was useful to some of you, and that it wasn’t too long and boring haha. If you have any questions or things that need clarifying, just ask me! Very Happy
-sebastian
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