Hi all.
I’ve started dabbling with figure painting, which is my first encounter with regular brushes and acrylics. The advice is to use distilled water as thinner. The local pharmacy has sterile water, which may be some trade mark for distilled water, or something entirely different than distilled water - I have no idea.
I have also tried to use airbrush cleaner as thinner, with the result that the 2nd wash washed away the 1st wash.
So: Would Isoprophyl Alcohol work to thin Vallejo?
DoC
Alcohol will make the paint clump into a gooey mess. Try bottled water or Future. The dilution rate below is “part of paint” to “parts of water”:
1:1 Minimum rate of dilution used primarily for basecoating. Good solid coverage.
1:2 Thin coatings, airbrushing, outlining and small details. Thin without being transparent.
1:5 Minimum for highlighting and shading. Transparent, base color will show through.
Try your local auto parts store for distilled/demineralised water.
Target sells distilled water also, its in with the regular water… got a gallon for 1.09
Should be able to find distilled water by the gallon in any grocery store… It’s sold there primarily for use in steam irons and vaporizers…
As for thinners, I use rubbing alcohol for about all my acrylics… It evaporates faster than water and doesn’t bead up on bare surfaces…
Rubbing alcohol? Not a familiar term. Which types of stores sell it? What is it used for?
DoC
I highly recommend against using any alcohol as a thinner for vallejo paints. Whether it is their model color, model air, or game color line, they ‘curdle’ in alcohol, and become a clumpy mess.
Any art supply store like Michaels or Hobby Lobby will sell Golden’s acrylic flow release. I use this instead of water for most applications.
Chris
DONT use alcohol on Valejo Model Colour paints… they gum up. They thin down just fine with distilled water. If you are airbrushing them, you can get the Model air which is already thinned for the AB.
Got some distilled water from the auto shop, and used a couple of drops of liquid diswash soap in it. Seems to work just fine.
DoC
water works but I just use Tamiya X-20 thinner for vallejos
I assume X20A? Didn’t work for me. The paint gooed up. Not as bad as with alcohol, but enough to retire the brush.
DoC
not with me it was just the right cosistancy for me ive even airbrushed with X-20A thiner and vallejo acrylics
Well, I broke down and bought some Valejo paints (Skin-painting kit) to make sure that I could use alcohol with those (alcohol works fine with Tamiya and Model Master acrylics and the tube acrylics & water colors I use) and alcohol worked fine with them for me… I didn’t have any kind of curdling. It didn’t mix right away, took a bit of stirring, bu went on fine… One thing though… Were you talking about brush-painting Valejo or airbrushing? I didn’t AB any of them… Rather than rubbing alcohol, I’ll try some denatured alcohol instead with the airbrush and see if that makes a difference…
Rubbing alcohol may be dilute enough to work without issues, but if your denatured alcohol is as strong as what I’m using (methylated spirits, aka 90+% ethyl alcohol) you may find that it clumps up. Test on a palette, rather than in your airbrush.
I just use plain old demineralised (or distilled) water with Vallejo - it works.
Do you have to add a wetting agent (like dish soap) to the mix when you use water?
I haven’t had to add anything else so far. It seems to work ok as long as you don’t dilute it too far.
I’ll give it a shot, Phil…
I think you may have already seen it, but there’s a good tutorial here on Vallejo’s site: http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/asp-inc/_modelis.asp?p1=ing&p2=modelcolortecnicas#modelcolortecnica01
Though Vallejo have their own thinner, this tutorial suggests using water. I have experimented with an artists acrylic medium in addition to water, but so far it’s been a bit variable and inconclusive…
Ya, I downloaded that one and printed it out, lol…
To the best of my knowledge the Tamiya Thinner basically IS alcohol, just has a little retarder mixed in. Probably why it still gooed up but not as bad.