Candy effect with water based paint

[Paul]

Like a lot of other people, I've been trying to paint realistic flames lately. I am limited to using water based paints and have had problems trying to pull it off without using candies like you would with urethane. I've tried thinning my transparent paints, stretching them with extenders and nothing seemed to work. I was about to give up on it when I thought of one more thing that might do the job. I had some glossy top coat from badger sitting here and thought about using food coloring to dye it. So I threw down some white lines on a black piece of paper real quick and put about 15 drops of clear, 6 drops of food coloring(green is all that I had on hand) and thinned it like I normally thinned my paints. I sprayed it as if it were a candy and it came out pretty good I think. It did not discolor the black background at all and tented the white nicely. I'm going to pick up some more colors tomorrow to give the flames another shot. I wanted to post a picture of my test panel but I'm having trouble sending it from my phone to my computer for some reason. When I get it sorted out I'll post it for you all.

 

[OzAirbrush]

Hey Paul, looks good.
I've thought of trying the food colouring myself, you should be able to mix it with your extender too as it should dry clear also. I also want to try resin tints they use for fibreglassing surfboards, these are also like an ink/dye rather than pigment.
The only downside could be using it for automotive work, how will the food colouring react with solvents i wonder?

 

[autoart]

Looks good mate! Trident Paints have very strong colours and mixed with transperant base give a great candy effect, I know it's not avialable in the states yet but look out for it! You'll be impressed.
cheers Lou.

 

[Fire Brush]

The one downside to food colorings are: They're not lightfast, and will easily degrade over time. If you want to mix transparent colors with a water medium, you might want to consider using Doc Martins Radiant Watercolor Dyes for Airbrushing? Just a thought....

 

[FirePanther]

With auto-air and wicked colors you can make candy like stuff. Maybe not the MOST fibrant, but pretty good.

some videos with the used colors info:
Wicked colors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRNzeQAnjtY
Auto-air: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qzu8l78nMo&feature=relmfu

Have fun

 

[Mr.Micron]

Main thing I have learned on using water base even the AutoAir candies is that the muddy up if you layer too many . Noticed in the video that every though it looked like real fire the over spray killed it unless he later comes back in with the base color and knocks it out. But yes it is a challenge to paint real fire with water base , They kind of lack that POP you get with Uros
Fire brush has the best ideal on Doc Martin dyes, mixed into a clear base coat would be about the same as AutoAir Candies.
But I have seen some killer real fire done with Trident paints as well. They are designed to be thinned down to make a clean candy wash and the color stay pretty true.

 

[Paul]

Thanks for every ones input. Some very good points were brought up. I agree that it probably wouldn't work for anything outdoors. I was just trying to come up with an cheap way to practice realistic flames on paper. I have come pretty close playing with Wicked Detail. However, it tended to get muddy very fast which this method didn't. I'll have to look into Doc Martins product.Now I have to work on laying out the flame forms. I don't know why i'm having so much trouble. It looks so damn easy in all of the videos. I'm on a mission now! When I get something half way resembling flames I'll post it up. Wish me luck.

 

[AndreZA]

I know it doe not help you much, but here in South Africa we have an acrylic drawing ink that is quite transparent. The sample below is opaque white laid down and then went over it with the ink straight out of the bottle and then some white again. It can be done.

 

[Mr.Micron]

You can get real looking fire with WICKED as Dru Blair has shown..here: http://createxcolors.com/gallery/drublair/main.html
But Dru can paint anything and make it look real. But What I did was to take a pic of real fire and kind of traced in the highs , and mid and the darkest point and then started building it from there.
Trying to do it any other way I always tended to over think how my mind pictured fire.
But I will get it one of these days and yes all the videos including Mike Lavallee tru firs makes it look like the easiest thing to paint ever.

Anyway check out the flaming skull done by Dru on the WICKED page by Createx paints.

 

[autoart]

Thanks for every ones input. Some very good points were brought up. I agree that it probably wouldn't work for anything outdoors. I was just trying to come up with an cheap way to practice realistic flames on paper. I have come pretty close playing with Wicked Detail. However, it tended to get muddy very fast which this method didn't. I'll have to look into Doc Martins product.Now I have to work on laying out the flame forms. I don't know why i'm having so much trouble. It looks so damn easy in all of the videos. I'm on a mission now! When I get something half way resembling flames I'll post it up. Wish me luck.

Just a couple of hints that might help you Paul, First go about 50/50 with stencils and free hand it makes the flames look more realistic, the other thing is work on colours if your trying to get them realistic study the colours in the flames and where the hot spots are ( I sat and watched flames for many hours before painting them ) you need to use at least 3 different colours plus black and white. and last of all when you clear them they will give more depth and will look more realistic...
I hope this helps you with your flames mate.
Cheers Lou.

 

[Studio180]

You defiantly need your candys to get your real flames to POP .

 

[Sith]

great tip, but the food pigment don´t will fade in time??? i think its usable to practice

 

[IMCustom]

Gearbox did a good step by step on creating this.. Here is the first video, there is 8 total I believe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNIaGqZSAAc

 

[FARAM CUSTOMS]

flames will do your head in. i cut out fifty stencils. thinking that would help. but now i only use two or three of them. there in a link in here in the tutorials thread. it is really good. one day it will just click. and you,ll wonder why you could not do it before. then you can just play with it and make it your own.

 

[justme]

@ Andrea what's the name of that ink you've used on that example.

 

[zoro]

I think Andrea was referring to the Dala Drawing Ink. Search for it on Google.

Should be able to find it a most proper art shops. I've used it myself and works well.