Future & Watercolors

Greetings,

I am just getting back into modeling and did a lot of research on washes. Went to hobby lobby to pick up some oils and saw some artist water colors in small tubes for approx $2.49. Picked up a couple of colors and tried them over some future coated airplane parts. They worked great!!!. The wash was very forgiving meaning mistakes were very easy to correct and wipe away. Finished with Testors Dullcoat and it looked pretty darn good. I see two water color benefits. You don't have to wait as long for the future to cure and the colors are cheaper than oils. Hope this helps.

Did you water down the watercolors, and if so, what did you use? I've heard of people using dish-soap and water....

Do your mix with the paint and the water then add a drop or two of dish-washing liquid and a drop or two of white vinegar.

Excellent tips. I recall the white vinager will reduce the "hard edge" when the wash dries.

This is what I did.

Used a small flat plastic lid from some type of food product. I bought three colors. White, black and a grey. I took a tiny bit of color (little goes a long very long way) and blended the colors to the shade I thought would look good on the area I wanted to wash.

Took a little bit of distilled water and dish soap and dropped it on the color then mixed until I created a puddle of solid mass and thin wash. You could probably call this a sludge. Brushed it on, set it aside until it dried then used a q-tip slightly moistened with water to clean it up. It does not take long to dry. If you don't like the results, wash the part off and try again.

I have read where some modelers use vinegar but saw no need with the soap and distilled water. Also, after a time the sludge mix dries on the lid but you can get it wet again by simply adding more water and or water/soap. This was my first attempt at using a wash and it is pretty idiot proof. I also experimented with the oil and lighter fluid wash. This also worked extremely well.

One thing I liked about the water colors is the control. You can dab a q-tip with the color and dirty a large area. It looks pretty realistic to me. Hope this helps ya!!!!!

Try using some Higgin's water soluble ink instead of the watercolor paints. That's what I used on my last two efforts and really liked the results. Mix the wash just like normal, just use ink instead.