ok, today I went by Hobby Lobby, found this 10 color oil paint set for $12.99 (minus the 40% off coupon), and decided to take the plunge… So how does one use oils? Washes? Flesh tones? etc… This is totally new to me…[^o)]
Check out YouTube and key word oil washes. Man…there’s all kinds of stuff you can do!
Ohh, the possibilities are endless! Use them straight from the tube for filters and fading. Or dilute for washes. Streaking effects can vary depending on how much you dilute the paint. Making wood grains, fuel spills…
Just a note- The higher quality oils do preform better, so I’ve learned.
Oil filters and washes are fool-proof because of the slow drying time of oil paints. If you don’t like the result, you can easily undo it. I also use oil paints for dry-brushing.
I started with cheap oil paints and quickly learned that high quality oil paints such as Winsor & Newton or MIG were definitely worth the price.
I was watching a dvd on painting detailed castings, and he used water-based oil paints. He mentions that he’s not sure how that could work, but it does. I bought some, and sure enough, you thin them with plain tap water, and they work great.
I have used them for Oil Dot filtering. Doog has a great tutorial here
I would love to learn more about working with oils also.I’ll be watching this thread closely
The little I do know about them is they take forever to dry
A little Japan Dryer fixes that and significantly improves their flow and consistency.
They are invaluable for replicating wood grain patterns, and, colors like burnt umber, when mixed with Testors silver enamel, are unsurpassed for simulating worn metal, way better than silver straight out of the bottle which makes me cringe every time I hear of someone using it that way.
How about skin tones for figures? Any suggestions/pointers?
I know many of the best figure painters use oils because of their ability to blend and slow drying time, Giving you time to get things just right or remove and start over. Acrylics dry to fast and so layering is used instead of blending. Blending gives a much better appearance. This applies to our 3D figures as well as canvas.
I’m speaking in generalities. There is some great work out there done with acrylics.
Yes I recall a certain Field Marshall, who shall no longer be named here, used to do some great figure work with oils IIRC…
As far as for filters go, if they are being applied over an enamel base color, does there need to be an acrylic or other such dissimilar clearcoat layer in between?
Also, somebody here mentioned adding oils to enamel paints such as Testors Silver. The two types are compatible?
Yes, there does. Gloss or semi-gloss preferable, to aid in wiping away any undesirable outcomes.
Sounds like a job for Future. If the base coat is acrylic, can the clear layer be skipped?
It depends on the effect you’re looking for. If you’re using it as a panel line wash then you’ll want to apply a gloss coat first so that excess wash can be wiped off cleanly. If you’re using it as a filter, or if you are adding streaks and stains, then you’d want a satin or flat coat so that the oil paint gets worked into the flat paint.
Is this what you were asking?
I was more curious about the dot filter approach. I have been doing panel line washes for years, so I think that I have that down. But to actually alter the color with a tint or filter it makes sense to have a flat finish to give more tooth for the oil to grab on to when applied.
Sorry…I wasn’t implying that you didn’t know about panel line washes but rather I was just providing an overly obvious example of when you’d use the gloss coating. Plus, I figure there might be some people reading this who may not be familiar with these techniques.
No worries there. I am figuring that oils will behave like enamels as far as washes go. Only with a much extended drying time. I mainly got the paints to try out that and flesh tones on figures. But since the set of oils that I bought included the primary colors as well, and somebody mentioned it, I may was as well try out the dot filter thing as well. And since I am a true cherry when it comes to oils, any and all advice is greatly appreciated here.
An advantage to using acrylics for skin painting is many paint companies make skin tone 6-8 bottle kits with the shades already mixed and matched.
To my knowledge I’ve not seen these kinds of kits in oil paints. I assume because you are expected to just mix your own and use blending.
From what I understand, using just a few basic colors: white, burnt sienna, & adding a touch of yellow or other colors to the mix, a whole range of flesh tones can be mixed. That was my prime reason for trying this out.