Gelling agent in Ink Washes?

[redzed]

Does anyone know what the additives are that GW/Army Painter use in their ink washes to make them 'gel up' and matt up.
Only I'd like to make my own shades.

[Mason]

This IS interesting!

Anyone?

[jthomlin]

After researching on the web and bit of experimenting of my own, I use a master mix of: 50% Matt Acrylic Medium and 50% Distilled Water and flow medium. Mix 6:1 with paint/ink and you have pretty much the same stuff as the Citadel washes. A couple of the pages I found most useful were:

http://www.awesomepaintjob.com/index.cfm/resources.recipes
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2010/06/hobby-quick-tips-make-your-own-washes.html
http://kingsminis.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/perfect-medium.html

I have found just having the master mix in a dropper bottle and mixing on demand with paint works best for me, I found that pre mixed ones tended to separate too quickly, perhaps because I use paints rather than inks. I also found that Liquitex Matt Medium isn't that Matte, or at least when used for this purpose it isn't, so I add about 1:8 of Industial Talc to the master mix to kill any shine (you can do the same to any paint btw* ). Be sure to shake the mix up well before using as the talc separates fairly easily and you will end up with shiny wash. A clear bottle is a great help here as it is obvious when everything is mixed well.

* ~1:8 Talc-Paint plus a bit of water w/flow improver.

Cheers!
Joe Thomlinson

[Mason]

 

Cheers, Joe.

Thank for that.
Will have to give that a go.
 

[redzed]

top post that man

Luckily I just happen to have all that equipment at hand

and will be  tinkering around this afternoon

Cheers.


edit- been having a play, can't really get anything better or too different from the AP/GW stuff, I find the AP stuff pretty near perfect anyway. At some point I'll get some Liquitex inks and use them as the pigment.
I used Liquitex Ultra-matt, which isn't ultramatt at all just more matt than the regular.
And Winsor & Newton Flow Improver (warning this stuff is uber powerful so read the label)

and if you are in the UK you can get Talc from ebay, search for Magnesium Silicate - I ordered 600g of the stuff and it' gonna last me a lifetime - and I use tons of the stuff.