DIY making transparent color

I'm following the advice of that popular article about making wood effects that comes up first on all the searches. I have all testors enamels. I'm doing the wood on 3 WWI planes at once. Instead of the desert yellow mix, I just use testors gloss wood for my base coat. I put a coat of future over that. I don't have all the artist oils he used, but I did use burnt umber, burnt siena, and ocre yellow. I have a fan brush, which works great. I just did it over and over, until I randomly would get a wood looking pattern going across 3 propellers, and 3 cockpit interiors. Everything looks okay so far. I'd rather my prop look like the perfect one on the box (with the wood grains expanding perfectly toward the ends, like it was cut from corkscrew wood, or something). I'll try that next time if I get a touch up wood marker. The last step in this tutorial I read was: you use yellow or orange clear, (in some combination maybe?), to paint a final coat. That's the part I'm on. I'm going to give this oil at least a week to dry (no Japanese paint dryer, don't know what it is :)  , so I have plenty of time to find some kinda clear coat.

Food coloring does sound cheaper all in all, but you'd really have to be sure you were going with that only. I've had so many experiences trying to go cheap, and regretting it after having broke down and bought "the real thing", and saw how much easier it was.

A whole pack of food coloring costs more than one jar of tamiya clear, is all I'm saying. Don't know if I need any orange in there. It already looks pretty orange, and if anything, yellow might make it look a little better. I was just hoping there'd be some of that food coloring in the kitchen, but if I have to go out to get something, I'd rather just go to the hobby shop, than walmart :)

I'm not sure whether my printer ink is a dye or pigment. It's for an inkjet printer. I load it into permanent cartriges (instead of buying disposable ones), to save money. cyan, yellow, and magenta. I'll probably end up messing with this on a little piece of styrene after seeing if it'll mix with the future.

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I'm not doing colored glass, ...<snip>... Food coloring is a little pricier than I thought. Might just end up going with the tamiya.. I also have a bunch of yellow printer ink. I could try that too. Thanks for all the advice folks.

Don't know where you looking for food coloring but  WalMart here has red, yellow, green and blue for $3.56. Cheaper than a bottle of paint if you already have Future. Yellow printer ink (if a dye and not pigment) should also work but I think that would really be expensive at the local prices for printer ink. I use dyed Future because Tamiya paints aren't available in any shop within a two hour drive for me. I was happy with how it worked.

From what I've seen from others doing the simulated wood thing, your best bet is to use Tamiya clear yellow and orange over a light tan or a dark oil paint over a light tan.  I've had pretty good results with the clear paint over tan route- if you need to make it dirty and grungy then use a wash of clear smoke mixed with Future.

Or you could use wood grain decals- look for some of Stephen Lawson's posts in the aircraft section as he's reviewed a wood-grain decal set for WWI aircraft.

I'm not doing colored glass, I'm doing the simulated wood from the tutorial on here somewhere. But, I wonder if the markers would work on the wood. Maybe even a florecent marker. I'll have to experiment with that. I have some time as this oil paint will probably take the rest of the week to dry. Food coloring is a little pricier than I thought. Might just end up going with the tamiya.. I also have a bunch of yellow printer ink. I could try that too. Thanks for all the advice folks.

I tried the Future + food colour mix once and could not get the stuff to dry. There must be a fine line between enough dye and too much. Or maybe there were other factors at work - I'll have to give it another go.

I have not used future, but have added paint to clear glosscoat or dullcoat to make transparent paints.  Also, I use magic markers.  The later are great for coloring transparent lenses, say marker lights or tail-lights.

I've used both Tamiya clears & regular Tamiya acrylics mixed with Future & haven't had any problems, although getting the tint correct can take a bit of time.

To get an orange / brown tint on the canopies of a TSR.2 I tried clears only, but ended up with Future & Tamiya acrylic brown to get a decent match;

You're welcome. Be aware that you have to tint the Future to a quite dense color with the dye (ink) to get a nice effect. Here's a pic of my yellow and red dyed future to give you an idea. My props took 3 coats of the yellow shown here to get the effect I wanted.

Awesome. I have a ton of future, and food coloring sounds cheaper than tamiya paint. Thanks!

Yes, I've done it! I mix watercolor ink or liquid food coloring with future. Made transparent yellow to finish the props on my V173.  Was mentioned in THIS thread. Have also made transparent blue, green and red using this technique, Works for me. Orange is often found with liquid egg coloring dyes.

Yes, I've tried it.

If its not "clear" paint it won't work.  You'll end up seeing little opaque specs in the mixture.  And even if it is clear paint mixing it with Future yields very mixed results.