How to glaze?

[DWest]

I read in a lot of logs and tutorials about glazing, which as best as I can tell is using a thin, transparent layer of paint to build up a color. However, every time I try to do this myself, the paint ends up too thin to work with, so that the paint beads and runs to the edges, leaving what looks like a coffee stain in miniature on the model. While that might be handy if I was doing an office diorama, that's not really the effect I am looking for. What am I doing wrong here?

[Deadlift]

Have you tried using a small amount of washing up soap in your glaze ? Either that or invest in a glaze medium to use when thinning your paints.

An alternative to glazes are "candy" paints, but for this your would need an airbrush.

Vallejo and liquitex are two brands to look at for products such as glaze mediums. eBay has plenty.

[fuzzbuket]

i have had sucsess when the glaze is too think to pool, so its a very tiny amount of glaze on my brush and its INSANLEY thin, very tricky and i think glaze medium is a better method.

[OrksOrksOrks]

The trick to remember with glazes is they should be too thin to work with normally, you have to dab on some kitchen paper to remove a lot of the water, leaving you with just the thin colour to apply

[DWest]

These look like some good suggestions to start with, thanks all! I have some glaze medium, but I bought that for doing wet-blending, which went . . . poorly. I will have to try this out on a suitable victim and see how it goes.

[OrksOrksOrks]

These look like some good suggestions to start with, thanks all! I have some glaze medium, but I bought that for doing wet-blending, which went . . . poorly. I will have to try this out on a suitable victim and see how it goes.

Remember, and this applys for all paints if you've thinned properly but especially for glazes, when you make a brush stroke, there will be more pigment left at the end of the stroke than at the start, what this means is, when building up layers of colour your stroke should be toward the highlight or shade, this is how you get the gradient properly. And be patient, wait for the coat to dry before applying another, the best tool a painter can have is a small hairdryer! you can use this to carefully dry your coats of paint so that you're ready to apply another quickly!

[DWest]

when you make a brush stroke, there will be more pigment left at the end of the stroke than at the start

O_O I should have realized that before now, but I hadn't actually caught that until you mentioned it. Thank you!