Matte medium advice?

Hi,
I have been meaning to try using acrylic medium for some time. Just got a container of Windsor & Newton matte medium. Any tips? Besides "don't drink it" I know next to nothing of the subject of mediums but it was on a massive discount, so I figured I'd try and expand my painting-minis-technique-horizons. I've been painting minis for decades but never touched this stuff.

I expect few of us know anything about it (and likely those few would never post on the forum, sorry.)

Well, I've been having a ball with the stuff. Best thing I discovered since using a color wheel.

Excellent! What is it for?

I have never heard of the stuff, but I'd love to see the results.

It is sold by Citadel Colour as "Lahmian Medium" but this is kinda like Citadel PVA Glue. Truly one of those cases where it does not make sense to pay the premium for the "official" product. Basically everything in paint is either pigment, binder, or filler. We all tweak the ratios of these things when we mix paints to alter pigments, or add water as a filler to thin our paints.

Acrylic medium is the binder. It's kinda like a bottle of clear acrylic paint. Matte medium (as opposed to gloss) is useful because it can be used to make things less shiny when dried.

I like using inks but they can dry very glassy looking, which is bad if it's a time of year when spraying matte sealer on stuff is not an option. A tiny (and I do mean tiny) drop of matte medium fixes that glassiness.

I also thin almost all my paints with a mix of water and medium now, not just water. It is a game changer. You don't need much at all (too much will destroy opacity) and a BIG bottle retails for around $15 at an art store. Bigbox art stores like Michael's and AC Moore typically have 50% off coupons so it's more like $8. Basically, for paint it comes down to playing not just with thickness/thinness, but also tweaking the surface tension of the paint so it can be thin without being runny.

People use it to make glazes too but I don't glaze much. Yet.

Thanks for the info, Jon. It sounds like an interesting technique. Citadel Colours aren't readily available around here.

If you use good, high density, artists acrylic tubes of paint, it is the best thing for thinning them.

Also sometime you get a "dead" jar of super-thick semi dried out Citadel paint on your desk... we all know that adding a few drops of water never REALLY revives it... but adding a few drops of medium works wonders, I've discovered!

A little late to the party but I LOVE matte medium. I'm always using it instead of water to "thin" my inks, one thing that you may or may not have seen with inks is a calcifying effect when diluted with water - impurities in the water (of course this can also be solved by just using distilled water) can mess up an ink job pretty good, making the ink turn white.

I've also noticed that it reduces the surface tension of an ink, allowing for better flow. My skaven were painted in a manner where after I sealed the model with varnish I then went back with a pigment wash (just some pigment diluted with water/medium). A higher water content caused the wash to dry in a splotchy manner (this can be desired depending), but the more medium I used the easier it flowed over the surface of the varnish. I then used a pigment fixer to seal the wash once it was dry.

Here's a picture of the effect:
From left to right:
water only
water + a couple drops of medium
only medium



Slave tax:


IRL they're not as orange as they are in the picture...

The Rat Guys are SPLENDID LOOKING creations. VERY WELL DONE!