Mixing your own paint

[Guest]

After trawling the interweb for a couple of hours looking to batch buy paints for future and current projects, it occured to me that buying all these piddly 14ml pots is an expensive way of doing things.

Surely with just four large tins of matt red/green/blue/white you can make any colour you need by mixing differing amounts.

Has anyone any realtime experience of this and maybe some mixing data (amounts and such) for each colour?

Also where to buy large tins of matt enamel?

[Guest]

As I have to be carefull what I carry around with me to work I do figure painting with a tin of each prime colour and a black and white.

It is amazing what you can achieve with just five tins of paint and a bottle of thinners.

[Guest]

I have LOTS of paints, but thats just because im lazy and get them cheap! However i only really ever use about 9-10 of them. I use inks or oils for washes and a couple of specific colours you cant mix such as silver.

The main reason people have so many paints is so they can get an EXACT match to the original. Whilst mixing your colours will get a very close result its never 100%. People add rivots to seats so you can see why they need the perfect paint!



A colour wheel will also help you mix your colours and figure out which colours to mix for the desired result.

[Guest]

Larger tins of enamel paint - Homebase!

[wonwinglo]

Every artist knows that all you really need are the three primary colours-red,blue,yellow,plus plenty of white and this will mix up virtually every colour that you will ever need,add a tin of black to this and you will only need to carry around these five tins of colour,check the Meuthean colour guide for the exact references.

We take the commercial tinlets as being exact shades but sometimes this is far from the truth,even the dark earth and greens are not exact,neither were the real colours anyway,with a good colour swatch you soon learn how to mix colours yourself,and it is a good learning curve as well.

Richard is correct in saying that it is surprising what can be achieved with a simple handful of colours.

[Guest]

Cheers fellas, I know it sounded like a silly question. I always wondered if the big stuff at homebase was the same as the humbrol or tam stuff.

which brings up the next question Turpentine or white spirit for watereing down, or are they the same stuff?

[wonwinglo]

***Humbrol is a more refined version of the domestic enamel paints,Pure Turpentine is a rare commodity these days,Turps Subs is a refined oil,White Spirit is better for thinning paint but smells awful,Sansador is far better and is odourless,even better and the one that I use personally is Oil of Spike Lavender,when you use as much oil paint as I do then you do not want to breathe in harmful vapours.

As everything you get what you pay for.

Cheers fellas, I know it sounded like a silly question. I always wondered if the big stuff at homebase was the same as the humbrol or tam stuff.which brings up the next question Turpentine or white spirit for watereing down, or are they the same stuff?

[John]

I use personally is Oil of Spike Lavender

Probably a daft question but would that be the same as the aromatherapy oil? your workshop must smell nice and doesn't lavender repel flies? extra bonus

[wonwinglo]

***This is the distillate of the same product John,oil of spike has been used for generations by artists as an excellent thinners,yet another product that I did not mention is called 'Zest' this is made from grapefruit extract and once again a safe thinner,the new European rules coming in prohibit the use of turpentine and white spirit in public buildings ie art classes,so manufacturers are looking at some good alternatives.

Probably a daft question but would that be the same as the aromatherapy oil? your workshop must smell nice and doesn't lavender repel flies? extra bonus

[Guest]

I have to say "you learn something new everyday". In a million years i would not have known that you could water down oil based paints with citric acid/fruit juice. Or is zest not the same thing?

Just making sure before I attack the wifes fruit bowl with a squeezer. Cheers onewing.

One more question, Is there an easy way to remove acrylic paints from plastic models ? NigeD has assisted me in the purchase of a paasche vls set up. So it's going to get messy!

[wonwinglo]

Warm water with a dash of meths,give the model a dunk holding it under water witrh something heavy,leave to soak and the paint should lift,if it does not let me know and it will be time for something drastic.