About Me

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London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
A mythical beast - a female wargamer! I got back into wargaming in the summer of 2011 after a very, very long break and haven't looked back since. I must admit that I seem to be more of a painter/collector than a gamer, but do hope to correct that at some point in the near future. My gaming interests span the ages, from the "Biblical" era all the way through to the far future. I enjoy games of all sizes, from a handful of figures up to major battles (see my megalomaniacally sized Choson Korean and Russian Seven Years War armies).

Thursday, 7 April 2022

Tamsin's Test Lab: Army Painter Speedpaints Test #4

 As promised yesterday, here are the results of my repeat test on medium mixing and reactivation.

Testing For Reactivation by Water

Mixes L to R: Water; Vallejo Glaze Medium; Vallejo Matt Varnish; Vallejo Thinning Medium; Matt Medium; Golden Matt Varnish (all mixes 1:1 medium to paint).


In all cases, mixing something in diluted the pigment and increased the tendency to run and pool at the hem, by varying degrees. The two which ran and pooled the least were Vallejo thinning medium and Golden matt varnish.


Testing for reactivation by water also showed variable results. There was no visible reactivation (tested by wiping the brush on white paper) with the Vallejo matt varnish and Golden matt varnish; very little with the Vallejo thinning medium and the matt medium; some with the Vallejo glaze medium and the most with the water.

That being said, very little paint was removed from any of the figures.


Testing For Reactivation By White Paint

I tested for reactivation by painting increasing numbers of coats on each quarter on the backs of the figures without any "smooshing".

L to R: as before

Anticlockwise from top right: 1 coat, 2 coats, 3 coats, 4 coats



Reactivation was seen with all of the mixes (tested the same way as for the water reactivation), some more than others as with water. The glaze medium figure looks cleaner, but I believe that was because it had the most pigment dilution and ran and pooled more. The two with the least pigment dilution and runniness also appeared to reactivate the least.

The fact that there was reactivation in all cases with paint, even those which saw no reactivation with water, suggests that there is something in the paint itself that promotes the reactivation. As the paint dries slower than the water, that probably explains it. It might be worth testing with thinned paint, which should dry quicker, but that will have to wait a while as I plan to take a break from doing these tests.



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11 comments:

  1. Dave Stone7 April 2022 at 21:10

    More interesting results Tamsin.

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  2. Ray Rousell7 April 2022 at 22:04

    Interesting post Tamsin.

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  3. Herkybird7 April 2022 at 22:16

    Its good to have tested all these paints so methodically, but it will be nice to see more of your lovely terrain and figures again.

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    Replies
    1. TamsinP9 April 2022 at 21:35

      Cheers! The terrain should be done by the end of the week if all goes well. :)

      Delete
  4. david in suffolk8 April 2022 at 18:07

    You deserve a break from all those tests! But thanks, and the big question is, will you be using the paints in future, and on what sort of subjects? Maybe that's another post, your general impressions?

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    Replies
    1. TamsinP9 April 2022 at 21:36

      I do! I will do an "impressions" post sometime during the week. :)

      Delete
  5. Pat Smith Silver Whistle Blog.9 April 2022 at 13:31

    You have certainly been thorough Tamsin with your different stages of testing and I look forward to your final conclusion.

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  6. Paul11 April 2022 at 00:31

    Interesting results. I'd like to try some Army Painter speed paints soon, always balked at the price of GW contrast and made my own using Vallejo matt varnish but these look good.

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