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How to Make: The best Wet Palette for Painting Miniatures & Models
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Nov 30, 2022
Article - https://www.fauxhammer.com/tutorials/how-to-make-a-wet-palette-for-painting-miniatures-models/ Best Wet Palettes - https://www.fauxhammer.com/tools/best-wet-palette-for-painting-miniatures-and-wargames-models/ FauxHammer Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/fauxhammerblog FauxHammer Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/301354824076167 FauxHammer Discord - https://discord.gg/dPexM9SeN4 Other Guides Transfer paints to Dropper Bottles; https://www.fauxhammer.com/featured/games-workshop-paints-into-dropper-bottles/ Best Airbrush For Miniatures: https://www.fauxhammer.com/top-10/best-airbrushes-for-miniatures-wargames-models/ Beginner Airbrush: https://www.fauxhammer.com/featured/best-beginner-airbrush-for-miniatures/ Our Affiliate Links: Element Games - https://elementgames.co.uk/wargames-and-miniatures-by-manufacturer/games-workshop/warhammer-40k/warhammer-40000-indomitus-english-?d=10279 Wayland Games - https://affiliates.waylandgames.co.uk/781-1-3-4.html
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hey guys welcome back to Furhammer videos. Today I'm going to show you how to
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make your very own wet palette, but before we begin let's start with some
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much-needed upgrades. So, lights, camera, action. Hey welcome, if you are new please take a moment to like the video, hit the
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notification bell and subscribe to the channel. You may want to check out some of the other videos
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we've done already but we've got some more great content coming soon that you don't want to miss
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I always like to ask a question with each video so that I can better understand the audience that
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follows us and this time I'd like to know which tool that you've used so far in your hobby career
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has led to the biggest improvement when painting or building your miniatures and models. As always
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put your answer down in the comments below, it's right below the bit where you've just clicked like
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and subscribe and the notification bell. So a wet palette, if you don't know it's a pretty
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invaluable tool especially if you're a beginner painter. You probably don't realize how much
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you're actually fighting the paint drying whilst it's on your palette and what these do in principle
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is just keep your paint wet and at a perfect consistency for hours and hours and hours as
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you're painting a miniature or a model. Making a wet palette is relatively straightforward and you
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only need three things some kind of storage container such as tupperware or a food container
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you also need something that's flat and water absorbent and then you need something that's
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semi-permeable which can be a bit tricky and we'll get onto that in the tutorial
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So to start off just get yourself a plastic container now I know I said you can use anything
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and you can there are plenty of options out there but here I've opted to use the
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Systema storage containers a couple of reasons one they're available anywhere in the world so
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if you want to follow this guide exactly, nip to your local Amazon store online and you should be
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able to pick one of these up. But also I've got them in three sizes here, which is the small
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sandwich container, the medium container, and then the large cake container. And the reason for this
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is because these sizes are pretty directly comparable to the retail wet palette options
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that you can find online. There is another reason why I've picked the Sistema storage container
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specifically, but I'll get onto that in the video. For now, here's a direct comparison of these three
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containers against some of the retail wet palette options that are available Start off by taking your container and remove the lid if it has one
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Next you want your absorbent layer. So here as an example I've used some really absorbent kitchen
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tissue. I don't recommend you use the cheap stuff, you want something really absorbent because you
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want it to hold the moisture in. Now all you need to do with this is just cut it to size
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and place it in the base of the container. Another option would be to use something like a cleaning
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cloth or this cellulose sponge. These are readily available online and cheap as anything. I've
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actually stolen this one from the kitchen and I need to get it back before my wife notices
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The next bit is to just add some water and people generally want to know how much water is enough
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water. How much is too much? Well really just pour water in until your absorbent layer is completely
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saturated not swimming just wet and then what you want to do is tip up your palette or container
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and any excess water just let it drain off you don't want to press it you don't want to wring it
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out just let it naturally drain off and that should be your rough guide as to how much water
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you want to maintain on your wet palette throughout your painting session one reasonable concern that
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people have with a wet palette is having mold forming especially if you're intending to leave
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active for several days. So a couple of ways to combat this. One, I've never tried it myself but
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people have said if you leave some pennies underneath your absorbent layer then the copper
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content actually goes into the water and that stops mould forming. But for me I just take some
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cleaning liquid or some dish soap and then pop that underneath and this for me allows my palette
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to last for weeks especially if I keep it in the fridge between sessions. So now on to the bit that
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people actually struggle with the most and I struggled with this when I first made a wet palette
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and the reason for this is because the same stuff has different names around the world
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You'll probably find a lot of your guides are written by people in the US where they'll suggest using baking paper
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Unfortunately in the UK baking paper is most commonly greaseproof paper and it's non-permeable
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so you may as well be using a plastic palette. The actual absorbency doesn't come through and therefore your paint doesn't stay wet
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It's pointless. What you want to look for in the UK and I think Australia as well
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is you need to look for baking parchment or parchment paper. And this is kind of baking paper that doesn't stick
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So if you don know what you need in your area of the world find a friend who into baking especially cake baking and see if they can tell you which of the papers is the non variety That the stuff that you need to use for your
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wet pallet. For those of you struggling or just can't be bothered with the hunt of finding the
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right stuff, why not just go to one of the manufacturers that make wet pallets online
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and buy a pack of their paper. It's normally around 50 sheets and arguably for the price of
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it you'll be paying the same as for a roll of baking parchment anyway. So once you've got the
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paper all you need to do then is cut it to size and place it on top of your absorbent layer. If
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you've got the right paper it doesn't matter which way up this goes because they are two-way
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You will find naturally as you place it on top as it gets wet it will start to curl back on itself
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Just keep pushing it out until it sticks. If you want to start off with a nice neat palette I
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recommend taking something like a credit card and just squeegeeing it out until it's all flat
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And that's it that's your wet palette nice and simple. All you need to do now is add some paint
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to the surface thin it with some water as you normally would and then you'll find that it stays
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at the perfect consistency and you can paint for hours. And now time for a dramatic twist
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So for the last few minutes I've been showing you how to make a wet palette out of a food container
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completely the wrong way. I'll show you the problem with making one this way right now
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So I actually persisted with this type of wet palette for several years before I realized just
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how much I'm making it difficult for myself. And once you see this tiny tweak, you, like me
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might feel a little bit daft. So here's the issue. Using a food container as a wet pallet
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you've probably found that because of the raised edges, your brush is constantly knocking and
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clicking against the sides, which is either knocking the pallet all over your desk or flicking
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paint over models and just generally making things really, really nasty and untidy. Now
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you may be sitting there realizing the solution to this problem already thinking i'm being stupid
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and that's fair enough well done bravo you but i'm not the only person who's had this problem and
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there have been some really creative ways to try and combat it i've seen people fill these things
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with castable resin in order to combat the problem i've even seen people use cleaning sponges to pad
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out the base but the problem with that is as you add the water the weight of the water will actually
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make it flow away from the surface of your wet pallet and just sit in a pool at the bottom of
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the tub. But here's how you actually fix it. And this is also the other reason why I've picked
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the Systema storage containers So what if I was to take this and do this You see that not your
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wet palette. That's your wet palette. So in case it wasn't already clear one of the other reasons
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I've chosen the Systema storage container is because the clips are on the base and not on the
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lid. So when I'm using the lid as a palette I don't have two clips sprung out across my desk
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The good thing is if you've already made a wet pallet the wrong way, the solution is simply lift and shift
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And now no matter what, just like the retail options, you've got clearance all around your pallet
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You're very unlikely to knock this or the paint across your desk. So the final two benefits of having the Systema storage containers as wet pallets is one, you have a tighter seal when you clip it closed
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and two, when you put it in the fridge, which I recommend between sessions
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you'll actually find the water condenses and sits on the lid of your palette. And at least with a clear lid, you can see this before you open the palette
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and splash it all over your paints, making mixers you didn't want
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The final tip I'll leave you with is that I recommend you get something like a dropper bottle with water in it
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This is to top up moisture during your painting session. You'll normally find that over three, four hours, especially on a hot day
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your palette will start to dry out quite quickly. So every hour or so, just top up some water around the edge and that'll keep it flowing smoothly for the whole painting session
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So once again, here's a quick summary for those of you who want the TLDR. Just pour some water on it, pour off the excess, put your paper down, squeege it out
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There you go, wet palette done. And now here's some B-roll of the completed wet palette because I've heard this is what professional YouTubers do
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Just remember if you want to use the same paints over several days or even weeks
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just box it up when you finish with it and pop it in the fridge and then it should be ready for you next time you come to paint
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That's all from me, don't forget to like, subscribe and hit the notification bell
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on your way down to comment where you're going to tell me what your favourite hobby tool is and why
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That's all, see you next time, Fauxhammer out
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