How to 'revive' old dry GW paintings

Hi!

I recently opened my 4-5 years-old games workshop paintings... they were dry as a stone.

I read ina forum that adding a little boiling water and moving with a stick for a while would work.. and it did!

But... next day, I opened them, and the effect was gone, the painting were dry again...

Any tip? Should I try to revivie them, or buy new ones?

If it were me, I would buy new paint. you could keep the old ones' and use them for washes. Just add some hot water to the dried up paint and you have an instant wash.

I have had to revive many of the screw top GW paints as well. I have not had them dry up again so fast and I try to keep costs low so if I can use 'em, I will.

So, which system for reviving them did you used?

A n00b question, what are washes, what are they used for? Are the same as inks? I have used black ink to paint my skeletons, first ink so it goes to the holes and crevaces, then dry-paint them with white.

A wash is a very thinned down paint, that when applied, enters the tiny areas of detail, often times to create a shadow/shade affect. It also acts as a thin layer over top of existing paint to give it a softer more uniform look. An example would be using a dark green wash on a goblin model to shade the recessed areas in contrast to the raised areas which would be a lighter green.

I see... unfortunately I am not good at imagining this stuff, I'll search for images of before/after

So, what's the difference with inks??

Ever try warming it up with hot water...??

Diegan wrote:

But... next day, I opened them, and the effect was gone, the painting were dry again...

Really? That shouldn't happen.

Paint basically consists of two parts, the pigment which gives colour and the binder which is the fluid the pigments are suspended in. For acrylic paint, the binder is an emulsion of a plastic-like polymer, acrylic, and water.

As this emulsion of acrylic and water slowly separates--all emulsions will eventually separate--the water evaporates and leaves you with just acrylic. Or in the case of paints, acrylic and pigments.

So........

What I suspect happened is that you didn't mix well enough and instead of re-emulsifying the binder, you just ended up with pigments suspended mostly in water. It might have painted okay-ish, but it would obviously dry out quick--the water in the acrylic-water emulsion doesn't dry out because the water can't directly sublimate from the emulsion (at least not so quickly). It's very important to re-emulsify!

Do this: add a bit of water again and stir until the paint is completely back to normal consistancy. Then shake the jar for a while. Then stir again... repeat until you are bored with it, then repeat again. I don't know how long it will take, depends on a lot of factors, but you'll know that you've re-emulsified correctly when the paint stops drying out

I'll do that. I did not used them when I revived them, so dunno how good they would have painted (not that I am a great judge of that, too).

So, I'll follow your advise. Do you thinks it would be cool also to put the bottles inside hot water for a while, so it gets hot? Also, the water to put inside should be only water, and the hotter the better, right? IO read somewhere you should mix 1 part of glue and 3 of water andd use that to revivify your paintings, have not tried it though.

Diegan wrote:

Do you thinks it would be cool also to put the bottles inside hot water for a while, so it gets hot?

If you think heating will help. I think it might loosen the acrylic a bit but I'm not sure--it can't hurt.

Diegan wrote:

Also, the water to put inside should be only water, and the hotter the better, right?

Yeah, just water.