Ok here is my wet palette. I’ve only been using it for a couple of days but it is fantastic. I’ve not really used it to blend paints which as far as I can tell a wet palette just makes easier. The primary advantage I can see is it keeps the paint wet and useful for well pretty much the entire evening (since I paint in the evenings). Really this palette is just based on Jen Haley’s (the Paintrix) article describing the exact same thing.
Here are the basic ingredients. The plastic from a fairly shallow flames of war blister. And a piece of Games Workshop foam with the edges on the bottom trimmed for a snug fit. It’s small but since I only paint for a few hours in the evening generally it’s plenty big enough for my purposes.
The foam in situ so to speak with a piece of baking paper for the semi permeable barrier cut to size. I created a card template so I can trace out and cut multiple sheets from the baking paper (Pams cause I’m cheap) at once. Since every time you use it you end up chucking away the paper at the end. With a palette this small though you can get uncountable (for me at least) sheets.
Ok here is the adding the water part. I’m not really sure how to show this picture wise and what I’ve done isn’t really sufficient. But at anyrate you want the sponge to be wet but you don’t really want so much water as to be pooling on top of the sponge like if you saturated it. To much water and the paper barrier also becomes saturated and begins to water down your paints, which is possibly not a bad thing but it’s nicer to be in control of that yourself.
Here is probably a pointless photo of me trying to show how much water is in the sponge. There is a bit, it is a sponge afterall but it’s not overloaded. Ultimately you’ll probably figure out what works and what doesn’t when you start using it. It’s only water so you can add to it and remove it without difficulty.
This is with the paper on and some paint on the palette. I’ve pushed the paper onto the sponge a little so you can see that it’s wet underneath. This keeps the paint cool and wet, to give you some idea of the benefit in this, that is vallejo german grey on the palette. That amount of that paint on a dry palette would be starting to dry in about 30mins, the pigment sticking together and the paint becoming crumbley and bitsy. So if I was painting a lot of figures I’d have to do lots of little drops every now and then to ensure I was using fresh paint. However on the wet palette that paint lasted all evening. The photo was taken at about 8:00pm and when I finished painting at 11:00pm it was still wet and usable.
I really like the way you cleaned your finger especially for the photo….
No paint on your finger.. well I suppose you are sick of going to work and having work colleges look at you as if you had been finger printed at the cop shot the night before…. me too.
So I want a wet pallet too. In fact I see a market in these… we could make them and sell them in a pack for beginners of blending… cool.
I am super impressed with the time the paint took to dry. I use retardant (can’t you tell?) and it works so well that two days later the paint still hasn’t set… but has in fact fallen off the figure… damn it!
I’ve used retardant too, the stuff you gave me, but the advantage of this over retardant is that it doesn’t make the paint thicker (and thus require water or some other medium to lower the viscosity) and once off the palette it dries just as fast as it normally would, meaning you can paint over it, or handle it within minutes.
Really great to reconnect with Michael after living next door to him more than 15 years ago at the Uni.
I’m also glad to learn something new today about the wet palette. It seems like this technique addresses the issue with acrylics where it tends to dry on too quickly on hard services. My fingers are itchy tempted to try it!
Thankyou Hans. In all my time painting figures over the last twenty years the one tip that I think has made the most difference and been most beneficial it’s using a wet palette with acrylic paints. Absolutely essential in my opinion, especially if you’re a slow painter like myself.
And for my part Hans when I first saw some of your painting figs at Titan Street was the first time I had ever heard or seen what is called dry brushing….
Although having not yet made or used a wet palate.. two things I would say are pivotal developments would be Johnson floor polish as a wash medium (now redundant with Badab Black and Devlen Mud GW washes) and Digital photography with the internet community.
Nice to say hello again… be it some short of 20 years ago…
Well you’ll be ‘pleased’ to know they no longer make badab black or devlan mud. New manufacturer, new bottles, new tones and new names. Nuln Oil (shade) is the new badab black (ink) for example. There are bases (old foundations I think), layers (regular paints), shades (inks), glazes (wahoo they bought them back), dry (for drybrushing), textures (paint with crap in it for painting bases), technicals (mediums, varnish, primer and liquid greenstuff) there’s also like a million of them.
Congratulations.. I actually used a wet Pallet last night.
It was very hot her in Queenstown.. about 27 degrees at five o clock so painting in hteevening with the dreaded TAmyia paints meant paint was goign off real quik.
Te wet pallet worked very well.
I was surprisd at how dry ht ebaking paper kept the surface… I thought it would turn into a blotted mess but was just slightly damp.
really good use of packaging..
Whahey! It works quite well doesn’t it. Can’t say I’ve tried it on Tamiya paints as I hate brushing them but the theoretically should work just the same.
The only down side is the need to buy baking paper on a periodic basis and a few minutes of setup time. In return though far less paint wastage both in the pot and out, better for your brush as you can afford to waste time cleaning it more often as the paint on your pallet isn’t going off at a rate of knots, and better paint finish as you’re not trying to brush paint that is going thick and tacky onto your figures.
I’m glad you tried it, seriously think it’s one of the most useful painting tips.
And the baking paper is reusable even with some old paint on it in places.
I based those new orcs inthe weekend… need to go over with a dilute PVS to stick it down proper.
LOL you cheap bastard
PVS? PVA? Good work, I ahh did nothing, mowed the lawns though :-\
I still havn’t over run with PVA dilute yet.
Have still to make those weapons yet too. Lost my lenght ot TPS electrical wire. My source of copper wire of sufficient thickenss
I actually painted Tommy’s warpfire thrower and poison globe mortar on saturday, they’re about half finished (really just fur and weapons to be painted)
…and I mowed the lawns again! I rock