Reddit reviews Winsor & Newton Flow Improver, Professional Acrylic Medium, 125ml, 4 Fl Oz
We found 3 Reddit comments about Winsor & Newton Flow Improver, Professional Acrylic Medium, 125ml, 4 Fl Oz. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Medium increases the flow of acrylic colors, allowing the application of areas of flat, even color without changing color strengthEffective for hard edge painting techniquesMaintains the stability of the color and slightly slows dryingMaintains no color shift from wet to dry when used with Winsor & newton professional acrylic
Technically, a primer is just a medium to help the paint adhere, where as a base coat is a covering in a a flat colour to give you an even start.
Practically, especially with spray primers they are the the same thing.
Citadel 'Base' paints, are intentionally higher in pigment to give a better coverage.
As a practice I'd recommend always using a flow improver as it reduces the surface tension allowing the paint to flow more smoothly.
I've found that the best thing for controlling the amount of water to paint, is a dropper bottle. You can find sets of them on Amazon for pretty cheap.
Water is perfectly fine for thinning, so long as you don't over thin. Eventually water will reach a critical mass where it starts to break down the medium, causing the paint to start to separate, and that point changes between ranges, colors within a range, and sometimes even between different paint pots of the same color (You don't know how long that pot has sat on a shelf at the warehouse or store).
You can combat this by adding more acrylic medium, and for a long time, I enjoyed something like 5-10% matte medium to 90-95% distilled water ratio. This adds more medium for the pigment to bond to, and will make your paints go further. This, by the way is effectively Lahmian Medium.
I've since added flow improver to the mix (say 5-10 % medium, 30-35-ish % flow improver, and the rest distilled water), and have really enjoyed the results. Paints flow a bit better, and the flow improver also increases the drying time, so I have more freedom to play with my blends (and saves on how much dry time retarder I was using).
Also to expand on the thinning guide, generally, I'll use thicker paints for my initial base coat, and wet blends so around melted ice cream, as that will usually cover in a coat or two. I'll use thinner paints for my layering, so around skim milk. Also, if you haven't, look into making or buying a wet palette.
Awesome! Don’t be shy to share some pics!
If you’re not using it already, the [Pledge Floor Gloss](Pledge Floor Finish Gloss 27 Oz https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002YC438C?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share) definitely helps a lot for the dotting step so it’s worth tracking some down. As I mentioned in one of my replies above, the only way I can tell which of the models were painted with the catgutt wash recipe vs. GW Skeleton Horde is by looking at the dots. The first 5 I painted were without the floor gloss and the dots are not as neat because I was basically trying to paint them on vs. depositing a small bead onto the model.
If you can’t get that stuff where you are, I think you would get similar results using [Acrylic Flow Improver](Winsor & Newton Professional... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0060KRGQA?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share).
Let me know if I can be of any help as you paint yours up. Catgutt has been really helpful to me and I’m happy to pay it forward!