ruk·si
/notes

🎨 Paints
Inks

Updated at 2022-12-18 08:15

Inks are very runny acrylics with fine-grounded and intense pigments.

For example: Liquitex Acrylic Ink, Vallejo Game Ink, Scalecolor Artist Powerful

Compared to washes, inks are more runny and more pigmented. But you can create a wash from an ink by diluting it with a proper medium.

You can airbrush inks for strong color tints. Inks are very translucent which works well for applying smooth tint gradients, especially well for a zenithal highlighted model. 50% airbrush thinner is a good starting point, up to 80% thinner if you want more control.

You can airbrush white ink to create a zenithal highlight over a dark primer. White paints and primers are usually chalky so using ink to create a zenithal is much easier. You can fix and tune zenithal highlights by brushing white paint afterwards.

You can mix inks pretty much with anything to color them. Like modeling paste, paint mediums, epoxy resin, glues, etc.

You can mix inks with other paints and mediums on your palette. But do note that inks tend to include more water than your usual paints so it can turn paints too runny.

  • white paint, mix with purple ink to create pastel purple
  • orange paint, mix red to make it more red
  • brown paint, mix white ink to desaturate and brighten
  • brown paint, mix yellow ink to saturate and brighten
  • paint medium, mix with any ink to just get that color

You can also simply brush inks on models but they are hard to control. The most worthwhile straight-from-the-pot-to-brush -usage that I know of is adding dark inks to recesses for extra shadows. You can also thin inks to use them as a glaze, e.g. to change silver metallics to different color. For glazing, you'd usually thin them like 5 parts of medium to 1 part of ink.

Be careful not to use your best brushes with inks as they can easily soak to the ferrule shortening the lifespan of your expensive brushes.

"Transparent" paint lines are usually like inks. This varies from brand to brand, but usually runny paints with a lot of pigment. Vallejo has a transparent line with paints like Smoke or Transparent Red that are pretty much inks. I use those just like inks.