Homemade transparent paint.

[ausf]

I was clear coating a non-modeling subject (resin) and wanted a bit of tint to it. As I was reaching for the Vallejo transparents, the old light bulb went off...

I have a bunch of FD&C dyes and lakes that are left over from my effects days and gallons of fake blood. I cracked the jars of the color I was looking for and put a tiny bit in a few onces of Future and viola!.

Here's the paint and the 30+ years old dye jars:

Those jars were actually free, most dye companies want you to be happy with the color before purchase, so they're happy to provide samples. Each of those jars would easily tint about a hundred gallons of Future. I'm not kidding, I used the amount of dye I could pick up with a #11 point.

 

[moon puppy]

Tinting future, that's cool!

 

[Swordsman]

Very nice ... Thanks for the update ...

I Also mix about 4 drops of Black Ink in future for a prewash on the primer of a War gaming figure and paint them before I paint them ... It will settle in the crevasses ... This brings out the details and makes it easier to color between the lines

 

[ausf]

Very nice ... Thanks for the update ...

I Also mix about 4 drops of Black Ink in future for a prewash on the primer of a War gaming figure and paint them before I paint them ... It will settle in the crevasses ... This brings out the details and makes it easier to color between the lines

That's cool to hear, I'm actually using this on chess pieces, so it's basically the same function.

 

[Swordsman]

I've always wanted to understand painting tech better ... Thanks

 

[ausf]

Paint is pretty simple, it's pigment in a binder.

It gets fancy when plasticizers, retarders, etc are added for different functions, but you can buy raw binders with all the qualities you want already. I do it all the time with acrylics, that's how I make the 1/16 leaves, add pigment to a binder.

We all know Future works well as a clear, so It'll surely carry pigment. Just a matter of how fine the pigment is. Dyes are completely dissolvable, using your India Ink in Future is a perfect example.

Think about it, a gallon is 3785ml. A Vallejo bottle is 17ml. That's like $700 a gallon. And there's a lot less pigment and a lot more water in a gallon of Vallejo than there is a gallon of house paint.