How Men of Quality Resolve Differences

How Men of Quality Resolve Differences
Pudel and Peper attacks - an ugly but inevitable part of any 17th C. British Civil War, "Oh! The Shame of it All!"

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Wet Palette - just say yes and do it!

Well, I had heard of a wet palette a few times, but never really looked into it much. Then I stumbled across a couple of videos while searching for something on prepping soft plastic figs on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/96mjmqWTPfM?t=215
Altho the guy could explain it in 3 minutes, he spends some time explaining why it works and why you should have one. I've stopped it where he discusses the 3 minute process of making one.

Seems like a good series, my main prob is he's drunken deeply of the GW kool-aid. Anyway...

Fast-food plastic container, 3 layers of paper towel and one layer of parchment paper [build time 2min 23 seconds-ish]:


Voila! the center is a flesh wash of vallejo light brown, off-white and old Polly-S flesh. You can see how the moisture causes some beading you can use to thin the paint. You can also tell where I put my paint drops then pulled them to the center to get a few slight variations of [Caucasian] flesh:


Chap below is on the darker side, caught some sun:


This fellow is over white, but the paint performed well:


His pal just arrived from 'Blighty.


What I started with, the unmixed Polly-S flesh tone:


Even on black prime, this flesh mix was very smooth and coated well. Overall, a bit too much paint, still.


All sealed up. Will see how long the paint lasts. it's supposed to keep for several days with this palette.


Overall, I can't see not using a wet palette in the future. I made a couple more as this one is a bit small once you start spreading out the paint for a mix.

I can see this will make it easier to paint, give better mixing and coating with a thinner layer of paint, and save it a few days so it doesn't dry out, allowing me to return to a project multiple times if interrupted [all too common these days].

So I say - make one and try it out!

3 comments:

  1. I discoverer wet pallet some years ago and it really saved my life!!
    My paints seems to last forever and the quality of mixing and diluting paint is a miracle!!Great tutorial!!

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  2. I have used a wet pallet with Vallejo colors as they tend to dry very quickly. It was similar to the one you've described, although I used a kitchen sponge beneath the parchment paper. It worked, although I later found Vallejo's Airbrush Flow Improver (sic) extended the working time considerably, using only a drop of two added to the paint,

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  3. Hey Alan, yeah, I noticed that also about Vallejo - 15 minutes and they'd start to crust over. I usually just put some water in it, but some sort of flow improver or thinner is better I'm sure.

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