Oil washes

[Tarok]

Just a quick question regarding oil washes...

What solvent/thinning agent should I use? Distilled turpentine? Also, what sort of ratio should I use? 50:50?

I'll be using the washes to paint mail, so I need a wash that will flow into all the links, but not be uncontrollable...

Thanks

Rudi

 

[megroot]

I just use white spirit and thinned the paint as thin as water.
I do a wash several times untill i am satisfied with the result. (i let it dry before i redo a wash).
A mailwash i always do it with a mix of alizarin crimson, sepia extra and burnt umber. As dark as possible but not black.
This will do for me.

Good luck.

marc

 

[Mack]

As mentioned in a post before this, I use only the Quick drying petroleoum essence from Lefranc & Burgoise because it helps you to obtain a very good matt finish. For all the metallic part of a medieval figure I use to do two or three or even more, depends by the final result I want to obtain, washes only with the sepia from Rembrandt. After a good drying time (one day) I give a light coat of smoke grey from Gunze.Then the highlights with the printer ink only in some parts of the mail and the armor.In this way the metallic parts seem very realistic.

Marco

 

[Einion]

Normally I'd recommend you use just white spirit/mineral spirits for thinning oils Rudi as this helps oils to dry matt as mentioned before but here you might want some gloss (I certainly do on my mail) so I would suggest you either use a thin satin or gloss finish over the mail when you're done or add in a little Liquin or linseed oil to your wash if you want it to naturally dry with some sheen.

Washes are by their nature fairly hard to control but if you don't flood the area by using a large sopping-wet brush you can keep it to where you want it without too much trouble.

Einion