After running into a legal wall (ACMI), Les has decided to release his inexpensive wash recipe to the public to help the community since he can no longer offer them via an online shop. (Edit: Les has worked out the legal issues and offers his full range of washes on AwesomePaintjob.com for those without the time or patience to make your own!)
(Edit: The Video is no longer available, but the recipe still works!)
WASH RECIPE:
You will need:
- Distilled Water (grocery store)
- Liquitex Matte Medium
- Liquitex Flow-Aid Fluid Additive
- Plastic Squeeze Bottle
- Daler-Rowney FW Acrylic Water-Resistant Artist's Ink
- Large Plastic Squeeze Filler Bottles
- Recipe notebook so you can write down custom mixes
Preparation:
- Fill 1 filler bottle with Matte Medium, the other with a 10:1 Distilled Water and Flow Aid.
- Fill the 1oz Dropper Bottle half way with Matte Medium then fill the rest of the way with the Water/Flow Aid mix leaving a little room for the ink drops so you dont over flow.
- Every bottle uses this combination to start with.
- Shake inks well before adding them to the mix.
My mixes will give you a starting point and you can customize to your liking from there.
Soft Body Black: 20 drops Black
Heavy Body Black: 60 drops Black
Parchment: 40 Drops Flesh Tint
Flesh Wash: 40 Drops Burnt Umber
Dark Sepia: 40 Drops Sepia
Blue: 40 Drops Rowney Blue
Green: 40 Drops Dark Green
Purple: 40 Drops Purple Lake
You can mix the ink colors to make infinate amounts of custom colors for your own purpose. Never buy washes with limited color choices. You now have the recipe to the most flexible wash production that you can do at home.
Enjoy! -Les
How does this formula compare to GW's? I'm really liking them, there are never any splotchy rings even if I flood the model. I would be interested in a cheaper solution, if it worked just as well!
ReplyDeletefor one LB's is actually flat matt, due to the matt additive, where as the GW ones are still slightly shiny. Although if you finish with matt sealer you will not notice it anyway.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is you get a wider range of colours available to you if you use LB's recipe over just buying the GW ones.
The fact is now that you have the base recipe you can work out the ratios and make any coloured wash you want to do any job.
I tend to mix my own washes out of whatever is at hand, combining paints, washes, flow agent and water together to get the right tint for the job. Since everything gets matt finished I never worry too much about shiny washes.
I'm wondering how LB's recipe dries. When using washes of diluted paint or ink, you really have to be careful that you don't "flood" the model too much; those pools will tend to dry with splotches.
ReplyDeleteWhatever GW puts in their washes, I swear I could probably just pour it on the model and it would dry smooth. I really like it for mass painting.
I've yet to have 'splotching' issues with Les' mixes. They disperse rather nicely across an area.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering about the legal problem. On what grounds did they threaten lawsuit?
ReplyDeleteThis is sweet... I tried myself, but missed the matte medium. I'm going to pick some up and give it a shot. Thanks for posting this.
ReplyDeleteAny particular reason that the Daler Rowney Acrylic Artist Inks are used instead of the Liquitex line?
ReplyDeleteDR came up first in the search engine :) Which is actually how it happened. Then I purchased a bunch of colors and the formulating started. People have e-mailed me having problems using Liquitex inks in the recipe and I can't help them because I never used them. But if followed and using the same addatives and inks, and a color mixing book, you could have hundres of colors for cheap. The commission painters out there love the recipe!
ReplyDelete