Oz Painters

Numbat asked me to write something about the way I use matte medium, so here we go:

The way I use matte medium is quite simple. The brand I use is pébéo, it's a French brand of artists supplies, rather than a miniature-related brand. I just found it at an art shop a while ago, and it looked good And it seems to work well - but I haven't actually tried any other brands so I'm not sure how it compares! It's not very expensive though, which is a bonus - my 125ml bottle cost about $8, and 125ml is a lot when you consider that GW paints are only 12ml!

The medium itself is like a clear gel, it's quite thick and viscous, gloopy - it looks sort of milky white in the bottle but don't worry about that, it's quite clear when used in the small amounts any of us would require.

The main purpose of the medium - what it is really designed for - is thinning paints, just as you might thin them with water. All of the paints we use are basically certain colours of pigment suspended evenly in a medium. So by adding more matte medium, the pigments are further dispersed, making the paint more translucent: the more medium you add, the more spread out are the pigments, and the more see-through the paint becomes. The translucency of paint is very important for creating smooth colour transitions when painting – many layers of very dilute paint to shade and highlight surfaces allow smooth blending and a clean, soft painting style.

The advantage of using matte medium instead of water comes with the viscous nature of the medium: it allows you to thin your paints without losing their viscosity. What I mean is that it makes your paint more translucent, without becoming so watery.

This can be good for a couple of things:

First, it means that you can have greater control over the paint, which can be good in situations where you are painting a small area, or a surface is very textured – the high viscosity – thickness – of the paint means that it won’t run into all the cracks so easily, because it isn’t so watery.

Second – and this is the main advantage and use in my opinion – the viscosity of the medium means that when you thin your paint with it, the pigments of the paint are more evenly and uniformly dispersed than they would be if you just thinned with water. This means that the paint is less likely to ‘break’, and separate into different colours – something that often happens when using Vallejo model colour paints, especially – and also, it means that the pigments will not all sink to the bottom of the well in your palette, as happens with very watery mixtures, meaning that it need not be constantly stirred to achieve even distribution of colour. This is especially true of metallics: it is very difficult to achieve an even distribution of the metallic ‘flakes’ in your dilute metallic paint, if you thin with water only.

If you are not sure exactly what I am talking about, then try this quick experiment: put some water in one of the wells on your palette (you should always use a palette with ‘wells’, the little depressions which hold the paint and allow you to make very dilute mixtures). Put in a decent amount of water – half fill the well. Get one of your metallic paints – boltgun metal or mithril, say – and mix a little bit of the paint with the water, to create a dilute mixture. Mix it well, so that the paint is spread evenly – as normal when thinning paints. Now, stop mixing and leave the paint alone for 30-60 seconds. After this time, you will see a change: the mixture just looks like grey water. There will be a few little flakes floating on the surface, but the rest of them have sunk to the bottom. Mix it again, and you will immediately see the difference – but the flakes will just sink to the bottom again very quickly!

So, this is what I am talking about – thinning paints with water can be problematic, because sometimes the pigment will not be evenly suspended in the mixture, as it should be. So this is where the matte medium comes in – because of its viscosity, it can allow you to create a more viscous mixture, with the pigments spread more evenly, while still being very dilute and translucent. This is especially useful when you want to use dilute metallics.

It is not necessary to use the medium all the time though – some paints are more prone to breaking or separating than others, and I really don’t use the medium all that much – certainly not every time I thin paints. Water is just fine usually, and is what I use most! But adding a little matte medium can be useful on occasion – if your paint and blending seems a little rough of mottled, even when it is very dilute, and you are struggling to get an even finish or smooth transition, then try mixing in some matte medium with the paint on the palette, as it can often create a smoother finish. And remember, paint mixtures need not have water only or matte medium only – the medium is perfectly soluble with water, so you can add different amounts of medium and water to make more or less viscous mixtures. I don’t think I would ever use straight medium to thin paint – the medium really is too thick and viscous for that! It would be like trying to paint with honey haha.

There is another thing you can try, which is mixing the matte medium with inks: because the medium is matte, I find that it removes a lot of the glossy/shiny finish you get after using inks on a surface. I also find that it helps by slightly breaking the surface tension, allowing the inks to stay in the recesses better. But I very, very rarely use inks these days, and I am not as sure of these properties, so you would be best to just try experimenting yourself first.

Well, I hope this was useful to some of you, and that it wasn’t too long and boring haha. If you have any questions or things that need clarifying, just ask me!


-sebastian

VMC matte medium is also a pretty reasonable product if you can't find the French one mentioned... That said, in comparison it isn't very good value for money...

I'll definitely be trying some of this stuff.
I have had a lot of problems with thinning paint and not being able to control small amounts, it really gets frustrating at times, so if this medium will help overcome that then all well and good.
Thanks Seb, much appreciated.

Thanks for the indepth article Sebastian - one question, can the matte medium be applied like a varnish over painted areas to matte certian areas of the model?

arjay, is the VMC matte medium quite viscous also? It seems to me that much of the benefit from the medium I use comes from it's viscosity...does the VMC one work in a similar way to what I was describing?



ah yes, I forgot to mention that! The answer is yes, it can! With the brand I use, I would not paint is straight over anything - it's too thick. It just needs to be diluted with water, say 50:50 medium:water, then you can paint over sections of the model to give them a matte finish. Doing this also provides a certain extent of protection I have found...in a similar way to painting on a matte varnish.

I often give miniatures a coat of matte medium before photographing them to get rid of any shine (it gives a much nicer finish than Dull-cote)... I wouldn't think it'd offer the protection of a varnish though so I wouldn't use it on anything that was going to be gamed with... That said, I did use it as a sealant on two miniatures I sent to the UK last year and the new owner said it has maintained a nice clear dull finish and he has gamed (carefully) with the miniatures a few times...

From what you said in your article I would say that VMC matte medium is a very similar product. Although at AUD4.00 for 17ml it is a little more expensive... I wouldn't be without it though particularly when dealing with metallics...

I've used the Folk-Art Matte Medium in the past - to dull down glossy base areas that had been soaked in PVA glue.

Never used it as a thinning agent though - could be handy.

Love to see some in progress/step-by-step pics of you using the Pebeo stuff Seb

Would you be able to supply us with some pic of minis that you have used this stuff in and where it was used seb?

Well the whole point is that you shouldn't really be able to see anything! The medium isn't a thing you use for a certain effect - it's just something that you can a use to help you paint normally in certain situations. For example, you might use it to help you with your blending if one of the paints you are using is a bit prone to separating or becoming grainy when thinned with only water, or when you are re-highlighting metallic areas after dulling and darkening with lots of glazes of dark colours. So, do you see what I mean - there isn't really anything to show in photos, because the idea of the medium is that it should just look like normal!

But I'll find a pic of something where I have used it anyway if you want, just to show you that it doens't look like anything haha

If i may add- acryllic matt memium doesn't give very matt felling to glossy paints, but if you need something to dull paints, try tamiya flat base X21. It is very good for base colors, beacuse it gives paint a bit better opacity and nice consistency. It smells good too

i've been giving a derivan matisse one a go and it seems ok but i haven't tried anything else. has anyone use derivan matisse stuff and compare it with anything else?

Ah this is a good read. I've been wondering what to use instead of water to thin my paints, this really helps. Will have to get some shortly

My main issue is juicing. Using water it is INCREDIBLY hard to apply the paint evenly and smoothly, without getting frustrated (as the paint moves to places you don't want if you have too much water on your brush.etc.). Will this solve that issue?

Sorry but this type of stuff never appealed to me. It may be helpful and give painters an extra tool to work with, but I never got used to it (or any other additives) and solely use water for thinning everything.

well you know, I don't use matte medium any more. Only very very rarely sometimes for a stage or two in the metallics process, when I go over with a glaze of boltgun metal after the shading. But after that I switch back to jsut water again for the rest of the highlighting process.

I use only water these days for my painting. However, some people might find it useful to try matte medium - arjay jsut said in another topic that he is enjoying it at the moment. There is no right or wrong way to paint - jsut do whatever works for you!

I stopped using the matte medium mostly because it did give a very slight extra shine to the paint, which was something I didn;t want. Plus I found that I could obtain better results with just water anyway. But that's a personal thing.