Friday 2 May 2014

Adding Talc to Acrylic Paint - part two


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I was so intrigued by the last Blog post that I made up this simple swatch of six colour boxes.

I have used Vallejo Game Colour Bloody Red (72010) painted on to artists sketch paper. I made sure that I shook the paint bottle prior to conducting this experiment.

I have started with the 100% Bloody Red, then added talc in roughly 10% increments.

I used Johnson's Baby Powder - a perfumed Talc.

Results;
Vallejo Game Colour has very good coverage.
Vallejo Game colour does dry with a very slight sheen.
Adding talc does effect the colour, best seen in the 40% box.
At 10% there does not seem to be any change in the colour, but I would suggest that the colour is a little more matt.
The opacity seems to have been affected, with 30% and 40% affected most.
By adding 50% talc, the paint became much thicker and too thick to be used for painting miniatures.
I needed to add additional water to the 30%, 40% and 50% boxes as the paint was too thick to use properly.

Conclusion;
I can see a case for adding a small amount of talc to acrylic paints. I would suggest that 5% - 15% maximum.
I would like to conduct further tests - possibly over a Black undercoat to see if the paint performs differently or has different opacity values.

I hope that this helps.

Tony

Updated 13.36 02/05/2014
This post from Vexillia gives more details.

3 comments:

Vexillia said...

Wow! 40% is a lot: I'm not surprised the colour changes.

I tend to mix in damp brush loads of talc into my palette wells so this probably fits with the 5-15% range you found.

I sometimes have to add a little water, or more paint if I've added too much talc.

mxconnell said...

I remember adding talc to flatten enamels back on the 70s. Never would have occurred to me to try it with acrylics. Perhaps it would help opacity as well?
Martin

Neil Hughes said...

Interesting article. I wonder if this helps with the usual problem colours of red and yellow covering a black undercoat ?