Slitherine

Instead of inking, you could use the Army Painter Quickshade: http://www.thearmypainter.com/index.php (or make your own, see here: http://www.dysartes.com/model/painting/Dipping1.php for example).
Spray the mini whatever color is the dominant colour (or white), do the basic "block painting" job, apply the quickshade with brush (prefered method for 15mm minis), let dry and base it.
Really fast and looks quite nice too.

possum wrote:Could you tell us, please, what exactly you mean by "ink" ?

Possum

Whilst most paints give a solid colour, ink is see through, especially the more you water it down. It runs and settles into cracks, where when dry these areas are darker (the colour of the ink).

On armour it makes the joints stand out, on capes it gives darker areas in the folds, on flesh it makes fingers, and facial features stand out, on horses it makes the tack stand out etc etc.

The method desribed earlier in the thread uses this to make the painting easier.

I have never been able to successfully paint a face anything like acceptable never mind good, so my early figures tended to have a pink blob.

With the ink system at least there are some features showing and at 4 feet (1.??? metres for the young uns) thats good enough for me.

PS - I am not a professional painter nor shop owner, and do not have shares in GW.
As said earlier I use a variety of acryllic paints, now mainly GW because there are four stores locally which stock them.

Bert

bertalucci wrote:

possum wrote:Could you tell us, please, what exactly you mean by "ink" ?

Possum

Whilst most paints give a solid colour, ink is see through, especially the more you water it down. It runs and settles into cracks, where when dry these areas are darker (the colour of the ink).

On armour it makes the joints stand out, on capes it gives darker areas in the folds, on flesh it makes fingers, and facial features stand out, on horses it makes the tack stand out etc etc.

The method desribed earlier in the thread uses this to make the painting easier.

I have never been able to successfully paint a face anything like acceptable never mind good, so my early figures tended to have a pink blob.

With the ink system at least there are some features showing and at 4 feet (1.??? metres for the young uns) thats good enough for me.

PS - I am not a professional painter nor shop owner, and do not have shares in GW.
As said earlier I use a variety of acryllic paints, now mainly GW because there are four stores locally which stock them.

Bert

Cool, Bert, and thanks for the detailed answer. On the Vallejo site, they teach a technique which involves watering down their normal paints with a bunch of water, and then using the result with a wash technique, sort of like what's discussed in that thread in the Modelling sub-forum about Armypainter Quickshade.

When you said "ink" I was thinking you meant like what goes in a pen, and that didn't compute

edit: I just went and looked again at Vallejo's site. I hadn't been there in a year or so, and they have now added a line of inks to their Model Color series (only). So I read that technique article again, and the guy suggests 5-1 as a minimum dilution ratio for the wash technique. Interesting, no?

Hah, and he also says he doesn't use white primer.