I am a relatively recent convert to wet palettes. I find it useful for keeping paint fresh over an extended painting period. But it can have an effect on the paint consistency.
Here’s a good video and short blog post on wet palettes.
Painting
How To Achieve A Natural Metal Finish
If your miniatures games involve airplanes — especially early jets — you need to paint your models with a natural metal finish. Swanny Models has a good article with ideas on how to create a natural metal finish.
Painting Stubble
The painting geniuses at Slave to Paint have this guide to painting a five o’clock shadow. I wouldn’t go to all of this trouble on my wargames miniatures, but I also have on occasion painted individual role playing figures for sale on EBay. This would be a good painting technique for such “character” figures.
How To Make A DIY Wet Palette
A wet palette is a game-changing tool for miniature painting, especially when working with acrylics. It’s designed to keep your paints moist and workable for extended periods—hours, days, or even weeks—by using a moisture-retaining system that typically includes:
- A sealed container
- A layer of absorbent sponge
- A sheet of semi-permeable paper on top
This setup allows water from the sponge to slowly pass through the paper, keeping the paint hydrated without diluting it too much. That means smoother blending, less paint waste, and more time to finesse your colors and details.
Here are some good instructions for making a wet palette.
Keeping Track Of Your Paint Schemes
The Paint Machine blog, in a post on painting Landsknechts, has hidden a great tip on keepign track of your paint schemes: at each stage of the army, take a digital photo of the models and the paint used. That way, if you have to add figures, you have a record of what colors you used.