There are some quite simple basics to acrylics, but if you come from oils they may not be intuitive. I remember my despair when i first tried them. I just couldn't understand why people were doing anything with acrylics.... Looking back the basics were all described in books and articles, but they only hit home after some practice.
Here's the list of what I would have liked to know at my acrylics start (maybe you already know some of this):
1. They need to be thinned. Depending on the colour, add 30-50% water for basecoating, more water for highlights and shades.
2. Build layers. A nice basecoat should take about 3-4 layers. You can use this reference to check your diluation as well.
3. Let each layer dry before continuing. This is not sacret however and there are painters that use drying retarder and wet-on-wet techniques. I let each coat dry and speed that up with a hairdrier.
4. Unload your brush. With all that water in your mix, a brush readily sucks it up due to capilary action. If you then apply it to the figure, it will flush it (this is like applying a 'wash'). The thinned paint will pool without control and the colour just settles where the water settles. To avoid this, touch a piece of kitchen towel with your brush after loading it. Yes, this will suck out most of what you just put on the brush, but you'll be needing very little paint anyway. If done correctly, the brush now leaves a thin, but controlled wet layer, that will dry transparent. You keep doing this to build up highlights and shades.
5. I find it very difficult to know where to place highlights and shades. On some places, like folds on arms, it is quite easy, but on others it can be hard, such as vertical folds. Study master painter's work to get a feel for this. Try to find other's versions of the figure you are painting. You will see what works and what doesn't. Alternatively, study the base-coated figure under overhead lighting (in the evening, under a lamp).
6. Most texts start with the basecoat and build up, using very thin paint, the highlights and shades ending with the highes/deepest highlight. Problem with this approach is that each step has very little contrast with the previous one. I do things slightly differently now and feel it gives more control: start with the basecoat and build the steps using low dilution 60-50% water?). This gives more visible results, but higher and very unsmooth contrast. Never mind. Acrylics are very good at covering whole areas transparantly and this property can give glowing results: when done with coarse highlights and shades, go over the midtones with a 70%? diluted layer of basecoat. This is a 'glaze' or 'veil' (there just names and not scientificly defined ones, and different painters use them differently). Over the highlights/shades, apply a glaze/veil of the tone one step down the highlight/shade scale. Take care to properly unload your brush each time. It has to be a controlled layer. This going over earlier contrast both tones it down and softens it. You can now keep 'toggling' (increasing contrast again with lower dilution paint where needed, or toning it down with a thinned veil, until you get the smoothness and contrast you want. Use a bigger brush for the veil than for the highlights and shades.
7. Ensure your paint mixes don't unmix. The water and pigments start to separate quite rapidly, especially at high dilution. Keep an old or cheap brush ready to mix before using the paint. I wish there was a trick to prevent this unmixing as I really dislike it.
8. Mix in a touch of Tamiya X21 matte medium to get a totally matte result. The medium also lowers the surface tension of the mix and eases application. If the result has white stains, you have used too much of the stuff...add water or prepare a new mix.
9. Get a good brush cleaner. I found an oily version that not only gets out old paint when the brush already seems clean, but the oil also keeps the brush in shape when not in use. It dissolves in water. Wish to be more specific, but am sure art stores have some similar form of brush cleaner.
10. When highlighting and shading each successive step of highlight or shade has to stay within the area of the previous one and the highest lights and deepest shades should only be applied on very small areas. It is very tempting to paint the whole highlight/shade area at each step, but it will just result in stark and unrealistic contrast without transitions. The further away from the basetone, the smaller the area of application. This is really key to getting smooth transitions and pleasing contrast, but it is hard not to go overboard. Less really is more when it comes to deep shades and extreme highlights.
It has grown into quite a list, but for me each step was a small "aha moment". Bottom line is it's just paint and with a bit of patience and perseverance we all can get good results. I really believe this.
Anyway, most important things are to learn the different effects the paint has at different degrees of dilution, and to unload your brush to avoid pooling of water/paint.
Hope this helps, if even to hear my take on wash/veil/glazes...
Cheers
Adrian
