Oz Painters

Conrad,

To answer you questions about the masking fluid.

You can start to paint over it as soon as it dries. You can usually tell when it is dry, by the look of the blobs, they wont look like the stuff in the bottle, more transperent and less shiny.

There are many differnt ways you can remove it. Steve reckons Blu Tac works well, but it doesnt seem to work for me. The rubber colour shaper works quite well also, just rubbing softly over the area. I have read somewhere that Rubber Gloves are good, so you just rub your finger along the surface and it will pick up the masking fluid.

You can leave the masking fluid on the surface for as long as you like. You could even paint the whole model and then take it off just at the end.. its up to you. I would recommend, if you are doing something that need to be dirty and weathered then take it off just after, so you can apply teh dirt to that area aswell.

Hope it helps.

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Sure does, thanks for letting me know

Hope the questions weren't too blunt
Just recovering from a stressful evening re-attaching my Timurid to his base

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PrawnPower is . . . finally updating this out of date comment

My CMoN Gallery

Well after reading this, a masking agent is a must have item. Thanks for putiing up the article Steve. That is one of the best articles I have seen since Sebastian put up his article on juicing.

Cheers,

Jamie

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Finally organised a link to my miniatures:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/Jamie

Great article! Just wondering if anyone can answer a general question.

Does the "Top Coat" after the acrylics work and before the oils work need any particular properties to stop the lighter fluid messing with the original layers of paint? Or does the lighter fluid not affect the base layers of acrylic paint?

I guess the general question is "what general precautions do you have to make when working with a mix of oils and acrylics?

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"Practice. It's a no lose situation.

Except for that poor little pewter bastard who keeps getting dunked in the acetone. Probably sucks to be him."

I use oil washes over acrylics and dont have any problems with stripping off paint.. its very popular technique, acrylic as base for working with oils, and never seen anyone using varnish before applying oils, whatever they were thinned with white spirit or lighter fluid. Of course, if you leave mini in jar of lighter fluid it will be stripped but it dries too fast to affect paint when used only as thinner for washes.

Sounds really interesting!! I guess i'll just have to have a play.

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"Practice. It's a no lose situation.

Except for that poor little pewter bastard who keeps getting dunked in the acetone. Probably sucks to be him."

I have just found this for the pigments. I thought I would share. Seems ok and was going to buy some anyway. I was thinking of getting the fresh mud and the rust/ smoke pigments.

http://www.southeasthobbies.com.au/cata ... oductions/

Also a quick question, will liquid latex work the same as the masking solution (is it the same stuff?).

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Finally organised a link to my miniatures:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/Jamie

top coat before pigment and oil paint ...glad you guys all trying out

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"psychotic megalomaniacal rant" X
NO MORE PIZZA ROLL FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!

Have to say from hanging around on the Basement abnd reading up on the historic painters stuff that quite a few of them seem to use acrylics to basecoat their figures and then use the olis for the shading and highlighting. So I would have thought you could use the oils directly over the acrylic. Though the Top Coat might alter the properties of the surface and make the weathering easier I suppose.

Another point about the "masking" fluid. I came across an article where you do something very similar with marmite Although that was using an airbrush so it may not resist brush strokes as well. Could make licking your brush tastier though

And finally, I've been working on a Necron as a bit of a metallics demo/test and was going to do a base similar to my yellow space marine guy, so I'll try and do a tutorial on that if I remember to keep my camera handy. Won't be using oils or powders I think, but should fit with SirJD's and VMartins base work quite well.

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PrawnPower is . . . finally updating this out of date comment

My CMoN Gallery

Looking forward to that, Prawn.

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"When you follow your bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else."

- Joseph Campbell

as will i

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http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/Darkmessiah

STEVE....... cool article man. been playing around with masking fluid for a while but been missing things. think i will give it another going over, this time a little more carfull to get the small dots.
I really like the oils, i used to use them for all my painting but not like that. will be defently getting them out again.
Mark.

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http://guildofharmony.com/gallery.php

great article!
that masking stuff looks really usefull, and i have been inspired to weather the hell out of my bases from now on!

aidan

Ive had a bit of a play with some masking fluid. I dabbed it onto black painted on raw plasticard, then painted golden yellow over the top. However, I couldnt remove the masking fluid with out removing the black and/or smearing the yellow (having left plenty of time to dry).

I tried using my finger and an eraser to remove the mask with gentle rubbing. Any other ideas?

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"Practice. It's a no lose situation.

Except for that poor little pewter bastard who keeps getting dunked in the acetone. Probably sucks to be him."

If you are having a problem with the masking fluid taking off the paint underneath it, or want to be extra careful - then try painting on a layer of matte varnish over the surface to protect it, before applying the masking fluid. That should solve that problem.

As for the yellow 'smearing'.... I don't see how that is possible if it was properly dry! What happened exactly?

If you are having trouble removing the masking fluid, you can very carefully start it off with a needle, then peel the rest once you have begun an edge. If it is very difficult to remove, perhaps the paint layer applied over the masking fluid is too thick - try using thinner layers maybe.

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