I'm new to this (figure painting, brush painting, posting on Planet Figure) and am struggling to get smooth, opaque coverage with Vallejo Model Color for a base coat. I'd love some advice and, heck, encouragement as I'm a little frustrated not being able to figure out the most basic concept.

My technique:

1. Shake the heck out of the paint. I typically shake the paint for a couple of minutes. I roll it, I smack it on the bottom with the heal of my hand.
2. Mix paint and thinner ratio to a 1:1 ratio. I have tried thinner paint but since I'm struggling with opacity, I've been mostly working with 1:1). I've tried thinning with both water and Vallejo Thinner. I think I get better coverage with the Thinner but I know many people say that they get great results with water. I am concerned that my water dropper (a Testors pipette) is dropping more water than the Vallejo dropper. This may be contributing to my problem.
3. Load brush with paint. For brushes, I'm not using the best. I'm using Master's Touch Taklon synthetic brush. While I could argue that this is causing or contributing to brush strokes, it should not be affecting opacity.
4. Draw brush across a paper towel a couple of times. I'm concerned that I'm taking too much paint off the brush. If I don't take off the paint, the paint is opaque but a puddle.
5. Apply paint to primed plastic. I try to stroke the brush in one direction to minize strokes. I've noticed that if I apply a second coat using a brush stroke at a right angle to my first, it helps smooth out the paint but this is not always practical on small surfaces.

Using the above technique, I need to apply three or four coats to get a relatively smooth finish but, even then, it is not opaque.

Any ideas or suggestions is appreciated. Thanks.

Hi,

First of all I would get hold of a top quality brush. It really is worth it. I'd recommend Winsor and Newton Series 7. They are expensive but last for a long time and hold their points. I usually just use one brush for everything - the smallest one (000) - but a slightly bigger brush could be useful for larger figures and busts.

When applying base coats with Vallejo I just use water. I've never used thinner. You want to apply a number of thin coats to build up opacity. You don't want it too watery as it may leave patches of shine. But you want it watery enough to leave a perfectly smooth coat with no brush strokes visible. Keep an eye on the surface for too thick a build up of paint. I would try to be as careful as possible not to overlap the base coat onto other areas. Keeping your painting neat is a good habit to get into. Also, if possible, minimise your paint mixes for base coats when starting out. This way you can just concentrate on technique.

Hope this helps.

Don't understand why it won't go opaque. Maybe the thiner....or maybe you are mixing much water. I agree with Edward, good brush is best choice, believe it makes difference! I also use a Newton Series 7, excellent brush.
I would say, for a base coat you won't need much water, get the paint to the consistency of milk. It is better to do several 3 or 4 thin coats than 1 thick coat...it will cover the details...
Let the paint dry before paint another coat...
Keep tryin'...you'll get it.

Hope it helped, keep on

Regards
Pedro

I'll second that first class brushes and service. Oh and try swearing loudly thats a part of my technique under all circumstances

Thanks, Helm. I've got that part down. I'm both colorful and creative and completely transparent in what the brushes and paint can do to themselves.

Master's Touch brushes are pretty good - especially for the price (I get them when the sets are half off at Hobby Lobby - the kind with the wooden looking handles and yellow-brown bristles) and just fine for base coating and not so detailed stuff. You're not going to get full coverage from one coat of paint, and really, you don't want that because you're going to obscure detail in the process. Two or three coats is good. So you're shaking it up well - good. Not all Vallejo colors cover the same so the amount of water (or thinner, but I just use water) required will depend on the color. You're aiming approximately for the texture of whole milk up to light cream for base coating. Now, some colors just don't cover well at all, like German Camo Black Brown, but that makes them quite nice for shading mixes. So depending on the color used, that could be the problem and the solution is to either use more coats or pick a different color. Also, when unloading a brush, just touch it once on a paper towel so the extra liquid is wicked away and the paint isn't running everywhere when you go to put paint on the figure.

Oh, and for a smooth finish, try not to paint over something again that is still wet and try to paint a different direction for each coat once the last coat has dried.

Keep at it! Really, the best learning is trial and error.

For first layers I think 50-50 is too much water. Try less and less until you get where you want to go. The use of 50-50 or even more water is best for achieving the subtle gradiation between highlight, base, and shadow. I think Pedro nailed it above.--

I notice better success with distilled water. Hard tap water with a lot of minerals is difficult for controlling opacity.

Yes. Also true, the distilled water is the better thiner you can use.... Avoid water from the faucet (I guess it's the name of the thing we have in the kitchen and bathrooms right??).
Bottled water is not that bad, but also has many minerals.... and change the paint qualitys

First off I wouldn't set too much store in the idea of ratios, you can never completely rely on them because of all the variables.

That aside, I'd usually recommend basecoating with paint that may be a little less dilute than you're using. My rule of thumb is a consistency* around that of cream, the sweet spot between too dilute (with the attendant coverage issues) and not dilute enough so that it's more prone to brushmarks.

Do have to mention though, some people thin heavily even for basecoating - requiring five, eight or even more coats to full coverage. If done right this gives a smoother finish (only beaten by airbrushing) but obviously it's a lot more work and it's probably overkill for you at this stage. So depending on the specific colour I'd aim for 2-3 coats being needed; opacity varies, so with some colours the first coat will get you 90% there.

In terms of loading and then unloading the brush, try loading it more lightly to begin with. It's not a bad thing to aim for paint only in the top 1/3 or 1/2 of the brushhead, not all the way down to the ferrule.

Einion

*Consistency/viscosity is the thing to aim for when diluting, then you get used to judging by eye rather than expecting ratios to give the right results each time.

Agree with all the above good advice , + add a drop of Tamiya acrylic Flat Base to your Vallejo paint : it will dry flat.

BTW on the brushes, I think synthetics are fine, not just for basecoats but especially for those.

The bust in my avatar you can see to the left, nearly all of the work on the face was done with synthetics as a bit of a demo, to show that cheap brushes can do the job. High-end Kolinsky brushes are totally worth it for fine detail painting, and they can help with smoothness, but they're not essential to paint everything - some painters don't use them at all.

Einion

what primer are you using?

Hi Lt.
Welcome to the planet, all the above is very sound advice. How are you holding the piece your are trying to paint? The only reason for asking is you might be suffering contamination from grease.
cheers
Richie

Hello and good luck. Above are some very good advice. You mentioned
you're just getting started. So I presume you have not had much
experience with acrylics. Acrylics are wonderful. But the learning
curve is something you'll have to deal with. Most of what you find
about about painting with acrylics will be from experience, what
you learn on your own. Not every technique that works for some
painters will work for other painters. So a lot of what will work for
you will be just something you found out by accident. So my point
is that you need to start your painting on inexpensive figures that
will give you a lot of practice. That is how you'll learn. You have
to put the time in. And you don't want to make all those learning
mistakes on your expensive figures. Safe those for after you've
learned a lot more, and feel comfortable with using acrylics.

Good luck from K. Kid The Miami Jayhawk

Wow, thanks for the replies, advice and encouragement. I truly appreciate it. Following the advice above, I had better results tonight. I followed @Wendy's advice and just touched the brush to the paper towel to unload it. I also focused on consistency rather than specific ratios as @Steve and @Einion suggested.

For reference, I am not even painting a figure at this point (although I've got some cheap ones ready to go). Right now, I am just trying to get the basic techniques down on plastic card. I am painting square of different transparency. Letting it dry and then putting more layers on top. My thought - right or wrong - is it gets me used to holding the brush, thinning the paint to various degrees while also understanding how to blend.

Tonight it started to click. It's still early days but at least it is starting to make sense to me.

I'm using Vallejo Surface Primer from an airbrush.

Good thought, but in this case, I'm not holding it. My plastic card is just laying on my mat. For figures, when I get to them (soon!), I plan to drill a hole in the foot and hold them on a small mount.

Hi, Stay with it. I would also check your primer. After the primer is dry, check to see if it has a rough surface to it. Some types (filler/sandable primer) will leave a rough surface. If that is the case then use some steel wool or try a different primer.
Hope that helps
Steve

Practice is practice, any painting you do gives you some experience on how paint comes off the brush etc. etc. You do need to get down to painting 3D surfaces fairly soon though as it can be quite a bit different to painting on the flat*.

It seems it's rare for people to do this kind of pure practice painting but it's a really good idea compared to test-bedding painting techniques on a figure, where you're more likely to be tentative or precious because you don't want to 'ruin' the model.

Einion

*Painting a smooth, even transition on a flat surface by brush is actually quite a bit harder than it would typically be over curves!

I'd say move on to figures - painting flat can get boring. Maybe that's just my short attention span though. (Unless one is painting a flat figure - then it's a challenge!) Plastic figures are pretty good these days. A box of Dragon figs or something similar aren't too expensive and the casting is pretty decent. And keep your first figure. It's good for seeing how you've progressed.

What scale of figure do you plan on starting with?