A Short Intro into OSL
OSL (Object Source Lighting) is a colouring technique whereby one of the parts on the miniature or on its base emits some kind of light that is lighting that same miniature. With this technique, the contrasts are great and are usually differently coloured than the rest of the subject. I decided to create a diorama where the pirate / sailor is sailing on a boat and sirens are coming out of the sea. I have decided to use the sirens as sources for my OSL. I made the body of the sea using two pastes produced by AK Interactive and that can be obtained easily in Croatia via Carta Magica or Cro Hobby. The paste I have chosen is Pacific Blue Water Gel and Transparent Water Gel. Since I wanted the boat to be dirty with algae, I needed extra texture along the waterline so I used Corrosion Texture from the same manufacturer. I painted the boat with various brown shades.
When the colour was dry, I placed several layers of green "glaze". Glaze is a colour with very little pigment, in fact, it is what is called "filter" in plastic modelling. By adding more thin layers, colouration is obtained by the gradual pigmentation of certain parts. After the glazing was dry, the slightly raised parts of the texture were covered with a thin layer of light green just to add some contrast. I basecoated the sirens white and shaded them with couple of glazes. I used Citadel colours - very diluted Nihilakh Oxide and Guilliman Glaze. After I glued the sirens in their places, I started to be paint white the first layer of Pacific Blue Water Gel. I used a diluted white acrylic colour. For diluting, I used Citadel Lahmian Medium (what other companies call "flow improver"). I tried to simulate a glimmer inside the water with a brush. Also, after painting the sea, I started adding OSL effect to the boat. In this step, I've added pretty rough transitions, just enough to get the feeling of the reflection of the light. In addition to Guilliman Glaze, I used Citadel Midnight Blue and Skull White. After the colour cured, I mixed two gels (Pacific Blue and Transparent) and covered the entire surface. While doing this I made sure that the surface of the sea was not straight, I tried to imitate the waves.
When this layer of gel cured, I added a layer of pure Transparent Water Gel. With careful modelling, I tried to get the waves made by the boat, but also from the sirens by jumping out and diving into the sea. When the gel was almost dry, I decided to finish OSL. By carefully mixing the colours and diluting the mixture with Lahmian Medium, I got gradual transitions from dark to light on the hull of a boat.
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Science behind Acrylic Paints
- Binders (eng. resin) – form a film – in our case probably pure acrylates, I suspect they are styrene acrylates.
- Fillers – in addition to adding volume to the paint, they also affect the viscosity, coverage and appearance of the dry film
- Pigments – the main division is into organic pigments and inorganic pigments. Inorganic ones are more covering but have less vivid shades, while organic ones are often quite poorly covering (yellow for example) but their shades are vivid and bright
Additives:
- Anti-foam
- Rheological modifiers – affect the behavior of wet paint on the substrate (e.g. spillage) and the behavior of the paint when a force is applied to it (brush, roller, spray, airbrush). Rheological modifiers also include thickeners that affect the viscosity of the paint.
- Dispersants – envelop pigment and filler particles and prevent their agglomeration during standing. Good dispersion of pigment and filler affects the coverage and uniform appearance of the dry film. There are a bunch more but I won't go into too much detail
- Solvent – in this case water.
Contrast paints and speed paints – high pigment content, but not so much that it causes high coverage. They are formulated to spread, not to stay where you put them. The result of spreading is that the paint collects in the recesses, where a thicker film of paint remains than on the protruding parts of the miniature. Where the film of paint is thicker (the recesses), the shade of the contrast paint is more pronounced, unlike on the protruding parts where the film is thinner, which is why the shade is then influenced by the color of the substrate.
Composition:
- Binders
- Pigments
- Additives – all listed above + surfactants that reduce the surface tension of the wet paint film, which is why it flows
- solvent
- I would say they do not contain fillers, or contain very, very little of them
Washes – similar in formulation and behavior to contrast agents, only they have a much lower proportion of pigments, certainly no fillers, a higher proportion of surfactants, lower viscosity, and probably less binders.
If we want to greatly dilute acrylic paint or contrast, it is better to use a product intended for this purpose from the manufacturer of that paint rather than water, because it contains all the necessary amount of binders and additives for that paint to retain its properties.
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U ovom članku, naša Dunja nam otkriva znanost iza akrilnih boja.
Akrilne boje – visoki udio pigmenta i dobra pokrivnost. Ako su dobro formulirane ostaju tamo gdje ih naneseš, ne ostavljaju „brush marks“ i suše se dovoljno sporo da stigneš napravit što želiš na minijaturi a opet dovoljno brzo.
Sastav:
- Veziva (eng. resin) – formiraju film – u našem slučaju vjerojatno čisti akrilati, sumnjam da su stiren akrilati.
- Punila – osim što dodaju volumen boji utječu i na viskoznost, pokrivnost i izgled suhog filma
- Pigmenti – glavna podjela je na organske pigmente i anorganske pigmente. Anorganski su više pokrivni ali manje živih nijansi, dok su organski često dosta loše pokrivni (žuti npr) ali zato su im nijanse žive i jarke
Aditivi:
- Protiv pjene
- Reološki modifikatori – utječu na ponašanje mokre boje na podlozi (npr razlijevanje) i na ponašanje boje dok na nju djeluje sila (kist, valjak, sprej, airbrush). Pod reološke modifikatore spadaju i ugušćivači koji utječu na viskozitet boje.
- Dispergatori – obavijaju čestice pigmenata i punila i sprječavaju aglomeraciju istih stajanjem. Dobra dispergiranost pigmenta i punila utječe na pokrivnost i ujednačen izgled suhog filma.
- Ima ih još hrpa ali neću toliko u detalje
- Otapalo – u ovom slučaju voda.
Kontrastice i speed paints – visoki udio pigmenta, ali ne toliki da uzrokuje visoku pokrivnost. Formulirane su da se razlijevaju, a ne da ostaju tamo gdje ih staviš. Posljedica razlijevanja je skupljanje boje u udubine gdje onda ostane deblji film boje nego na isturenim dijelovima minijature. Tamo gdje je film boje deblji (udubine) nijansa kontrastice izraženija, za razliku od isturenih dijelova na kojima je film tanji zbog čega na nijansu onda utječe boja podloge.
Sastav:
- Veziva
- Pigmenti
- Aditivi – svi nabrojani gore +
- surfakanti koji smanjuju površinsku napetost mokrog filma boje zbog čega i dolazi do razlijevanja
- otapalo
- rekla bih da ne sadrže punila, ili ih sadrže vrlo vrlo malo
Washevi – po principu formuliranja i ponašanju slični kontrasticama, samo imaju puno manji udio pigmenata, sigurno ne sadrže punila, veći udio surfakanata, manji viskozitet i vjerojatno manje veziva.
Ako želimo jako razrijediti akrilnu boju ili kontrasticu bolje je koristiti za to predviđen proizvod od proizvođača te boje nego vodu, jer sadrži svu potrebnu količinu veziva i aditiva kako bi ta boja zadržala svoja svojstva.
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