Ye Olde Inn

I'm sure most of you guys probably already use a wet palette for painting. Since I have been painting miniatures for about 3 years now without ever trying the wet palette, I wanted to share my experiences for those of you, who think they may want to give it a try soon:

When starting to paint miniatures I was very busy trying to learn drybrushing, washing and so on. I always thought, the wet palette was some nerdy technique for pro painters only. Plus I was sceptical about the mess it might produce on my working table and the time I would need to clean it all up afterwards..

I was all wrong because the wet palette really helps painting miniatures a lot: It keeps the paint from drying out so you don't have to add water every two or three minutes while painting. Since the paint keeps its consistence, painting is easier and you can paint several miniatures with the same color (especially useful for mixed color tones). You can keep multiple variations of a color fluid over a long time (which is very useful for painting highlights and shadows). It takes no time to set up and is cleaned up faster than a dry palette. Last but not least: it makes miniature painting even more fun and it improves the quality of the painting!

You probably already got at home what you need:

1) water
2) paper towel
3) baking paper
4) flat bin

Just put some water into the bin and add the paper towel. Once its soaked put the baking paper on top and let it even out. The wet palette is now ready for your colors!



As soon as they are finished I'll upload pictures of my first attempt with the wet palette: the goblins!

Yup. I also use one.
Links here, here and here.

It truly is that simple to do as Sjeng said. If an orc can do it than anyone can (except maybe the undead).

Goblins are finished!



The wet palette helped to achieve a pretty good shading in close tones. This way I was able to avoid that certain dirty look which oftens results from the shade not beeing close enough to the base color. The skin tones are perhaps a bit too close in the end and not that well distributed but I don't want to spend more time on these for the moment.

Yes! These simple devices are brilliant!

It is what allowed me to achieve the subtle layered highlights on the face of this WIP Skaven:

I've really been meaning to make one of those... I can totally see how it would be a big help!