I’ve seen enough with the dot filter stuff to want to give it a try. Oil paints are not cheap and I live in the boonies where its not easy to just run to the store and get another color.
I’ll be spending a few days in a city so plan on hitting Michaels while I’m there.
I’m looking for some suggestions for a base 2-4 colors to get. I’m primarily looking at working with greens, browns / tans and greys (military helicopters).
As far as thinner any suggestions? I mostly use acrylics and Future.
Also should I get a brush or two to keep seperate from my usual brushes?
I’ve only used the technique twice, but I would use red, yellow, blue, and a white. Thinner, I just use oderless mineral spirits. Brushes, I would keep 'em seperate. Hope it helps, and good luck!
Windsor and Newton make a fine set of water mixable oils. I would suggest the following: Burnt Umber (Dark Brown), Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna (Reddish Brown), Yellow Ochre, Van Dyke Brown, Lamp Black. These colors are great for doing dot filters.
The awesome thing about the water mixable oils is that they behave just like acrylics. They are mixable with water, (I use windex) they cure quickly (compared to oils) they are easy to use and they clean up with water.
They are somewhat pricey, around 5.50 a tube but a tube will last you until your children are grown, gone to college, married, have children and their children have children.
I use these paints pretty much exclusively. I cannot give a better endorsement and I don’t work for the company either.
The colors Gamewarden mentioned were more along those in the demonstration I saw done at a model show a couple years ago.
I went with Lamp black, Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, if I decide I like the technique I can always add more colors.
I did go with the regular oils and odorless thinner though. My understanding is that oil filters over acrylics or acrylic filters over enamels have a benefit of not disturbing the underlying paint. I use acrylics and Future extensively so was worried about the Windex (Future and Windex don’t get along).
I am curious how you guys use the yellow, red, blue and green? I haven’t seen that done.
I’ve only done this ONE time, on my E100 documented in a WIP, including a misstep with trying to use water soluble oils and spirits, but I used red, blue, yellow, white, anything BUT earth tones.
As I understand it, you are removing so much of the paint, that its not designed to look like a “red” or other colored blob, it just looks like the paint in the undercoat varies in tone just a bit.
Don’t try dot filtering with black, it stays on too much, and changes the whole paint job! Ditto what HvH said, Doog’s tutorial is spot on! Remember, it may look odd in the beginning, but the end result is awesome!
I guess it makes sense that the actual colors may not matter so much if the point is just to vary the colors a bit. What I’ve seen done is more of a weathering technique for staining areas. I may be using the wrong term for a similar technique (wash vs filter, I know there is a difference but couldn’t really tell you what, its all a wash to me).
Anyway, thanks and now that I have something to play with I’ll start searching the forums again for examples.
A wash is completely different than a filter… The main purpose of the wash is to put heavily-thinned paint (or more accurately, heavily-tinted thinner) into all the recesses, nooks, & crannies of the model to add depth and to pop out panel lines and such without changing the base color… Dot-filtering is for changing the overall base color in various places…
Personally, I don’t care for it… I tried it on a Sherman and was quite disappointed with the look, so I’ll stick to washes followed by drybrushing, airbrush fading, and pastels…
Sounds like I may have used the wrong term then. The demo I saw done was to give a dirty or greasy streaked look using oil paints, mostly browns and some black. The technique was what I’ve seen done with the dot filter, speckle the model with dots of oil paint then using thinner spread it out in a downward motion giving the impression water caused streaks in the dirt and grime.
I’m really just looking for something to spice up green helicopters, my standby washes and dry brushing I’ve used on armor just diesn’t seem to work the same on helicopters. This seemed like a good technique when I saw it so I want to give it a try.