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Friday, February 17, 2012

Liquitex ink vs Citadel wash.

Yesterday I picked up a couple dropper bottles of "Transparent Raw Umber" Liquitex ink from a big hobby store chain as it was on clearance for about 50% off. They carry a large range of other colors as well but this one looked close to the color of "Devlan Mud" by Citadel. 

As I am always on the lookout for new painting techniques and tricks (and I am cheap) I sprung for the last two bottles they had in the hopes of finding a suitable fill in or replacement for the foul smelling crud found in the mud. Did a super quick (as in 15 seconds each before I had to run off to work) wash of two skeletons as a comparison and the results are interesting:

Your basic Devlan washed, bleached bone based, skeledude.
The skeledude washed with the "Raw Umber" Liquitex ink.
The direct comparison, Liquitex on the left and Citadel on the right.
One thing I noticed after applying the ink was a layer of particle matter (mostly pigment) on the bottom of the bottle. The skeleton is a bit darker and a little more... metallic? Perhaps that is the floating pigment rearing its head. I have to say I am happy with the results (and price) and I will experiment more with these types of ink on my miniatures. The ink has a different consistency but it doesn't seem to take as much to get the job done, meaning these 100 or so skeletons I need to paint won't break the bank in little wash pots. 

What do you think? Have you used the Liquitex, or another brand of ink wash, before in your painting?

4 comments:

Aventine said...

good heads up, I'll probably check out how there black works

Randroid said...

It looks very, very black but that was another color I was looking at. Let me know how it turns out if you give it a go!

Quaade said...

One is and ink, the other is a wash, if you want comparible results you will need to break the surface tension of the ink so that it falls into the recesses instead of just pooling everywhere.

You can do this in two ways, either buy some professional thinner designed for it or use a small drop of dishwashing detergent.

Test how the ink reacts to the detergent first on a small batch though.

Also, don't ever thin your paint with dishwashing detergent, only use thinner for that

Randroid said...

Thanks for the tip!

I diluted it with water and it seemed to flow well, but I will keep your comment in mind the next time I give it a go!