The Army Painter Wet Palette - First Look

Hi guys, welcome back to Fohhammer videos

Today we're going to be taking a look at the Army Painter Wet Palette

So I just want to say thank you to the Army Painter to start off for sending us their wet palette before release

I've been using it for about a week now and I'm pretty impressed with the results. It does what I expect

a wet palette to do. When I first took it out the box, I wanted to see what the sizes were

Now, I've been using the everlasting wet palette. I've also been using my own DIY option

for the last two, three years. I've flipped between the two, depending normally on what's available

to grab at the time, or whether I can be bothered with a wet palette, or whether I just want

to paint something quick. I think the Army Painter Wet Palettes great. When you look at the price of

it's certainly competitive and it is possibly the best for its price wet palette on the market

if not the best wet palette on the market. I mean, I would say in all fairness, because most people are going to compare the two

there's this and there's the everlasting games wet palette. They've got the two, the studio and the painter

The painter's the smaller orange one, the studio is the larger blue one

What I was impressed with immediately with the Army Painter Wet Palette is when you compare the usable area, so we'll have a look at this

Pop that off. So forgive that it's creased. This is about take three

So this paint's been in there for about a week now. But with the Army Painter Wet Palet, the actual usable area of the wet palette, the size of the foam and the size of the hydro paper as it's called, is exactly the same as the

Red Grass Games wet palette. The only thing that's smaller, so when you look online and you compare the dimensions

the only thing that's smaller is the actual container unit itself. So it's just a little bit narrower

So here, the Army painter, the Red Grass Games one sits about there

So to say it's the same size, and I think it's, if not, it's nearly half the price

Absolute win. everything else about this is on par with what I expect

So there's a great little addition here. So if you really invested in the Army Painter line

it's great to have these little recesses here so that you can store your Army Painter brushes

and then this sort of more open free area. Now I wouldn't store brushes in there without the tip guard on

because if they do come loose and hit the end, you're going to bend your brushes. But the fact that it's in there

one is an absolute great addition. One thing I have noticed with this and it was an

immediate notice and it something I wondered about was how it sealed Now you may notice I hope this doesn sound too loud on the mic but there is no seal there no rubberized edge Now again having used the Red Gras Games wet

palette, the seal on that I genuinely find pretty pointless anyway. So if you cannot include that

seal, but still make it the same, make it a much lower price, that then puts this again into

the wind column. And again, for the lower tray, so there's no rubberized seal on this

It's just tight-fitting plastic. So the next thing about it is you've got two things in your wet palette

You've got the foam which sits underneath and that absorbs moisture, absorbs water

And then you've got the hydro paper which sits on the top

Now, when I was saying before that I was really impressed with the size

of this, I would say that its greatest strength in that it's a directly comparable size is also

its greatest weakness. I would imagine we're saving costs in having this, which I believe's ABS plastic

This piece here is smaller and it's the same size as the underlying foam and the paper on top

And then the paper, when it gets wet, it actually stretches as well. So what you end up with

instead of having a tray which the foam sits in and then paper on top, which slightly overlaps

the paper actually creases up the edges as you flatten it out

So here you can see it actually goes all the way up that edge, yet it's pretty flush to that edge

The problem here is that even with a wet palette, you need to add water whilst you use it

Now, yeah, you're talking like you can use it a couple of hours with a wet palette before needing to add

more water to your palate, which is the greatest bonus of a wet palette. But in order to top

up that water, as it naturally sort of permeates the hydro layer, the hydro paper and then evaporates

is you've actually got to lift the paper back in the corners and fold it and then drop the water

into these corners, which just makes it a little bit, a little bit trickier to use. Now, for that

reason, I'd probably favour something that didn't do that or I'd snip a corner off

But when you compare it, like if this is your first wet palette and you've never used a wet

palette before and you can't be bothered to do the DIY option or you just want to get it right

first time or you can't be bothered with the whole cutting paper every time, this is an absolute

bargain. It does the job. At the end of the day, it's a wet palette. It's a really simple piece of

kit, you've got an absorbent layer, then you've got a semi-permeable layer where

ideally paint sort of doesn't seep through that way, but water will seep through

this way and it keeps you paint wet As I say I used a wet palette now for a number of years I say probably easily three years when I first discovered them and got the kit to make my own DIY option But a wet palette is something that will change your painting

overnight. The second you start using it, you can get more consistent paints. Your paints will

last longer because instead of drying on a palette, they'll stay wet on the palette and then

they'll dry on your model. So a little bit of paint will go a long way. Now, to test this out

I grabbed it out the box a week ago, threw some paints at it, took some shots, did some videos

and I'll be sharing this soon on Fohammer.com. But then I started mixing up different consistences

And what you can see here, I've just left this, and I'll show you why I've left this for a week

is because I wanted to show that after a week, the paint is still wet

So I can now just add more water to any of these

I've got my hands now covered in in paint. But these are all still wet after a week

And as I was saying before, you know, I haven't, it hasn't got a seal on it

It's just sat in there for a week. So that's one of the features of it, is the fact that it's the best feature of a wet

palette is you can put paint on there, you can leave it for ages, you can come back to it

and just keep using it over and over again. So these are all army painter paints. I think the only

ones that have dried out are these ones here, which even then, you know, it's actually, it's still

slightly wet and these are my glazers that are threw together. So all of it's still wet

Now, one of the things that people will be wondering about is the hydrofoam layer. So immediately it's

It's absorbent. I'm trying to clean my hands now. It's absorbent, it absorbs water and it holds water well

It's also advertised as being mould resistant. Now I need to point out here that mould resistant is not mould-proof

So what that means is it will resist mould, it won't stop it going mouldy

So the reason I left this for a week is to see how mould-resistant it was

Now, I wouldn't recommend you leave your wet palette for a week

I'd say, like, at the very least, clean it out once a week. So if I fold this back here, and I hope you can see this on the camera

under some of the paint areas, we have actually got some mould spores already forming

Now, again, before everybody gets up in arms and complaining about, oh, it's meant to be mould resistant

this is exactly the same behaviour of what I would expect from any kind of sponge

any kind of tissue paper and I have this exact same behaviour

with the everlasting games wet palette it's the same thing so yes whilst there are

some mould spores forming in there this is because I intentionally left it in there to see

whether or not we could get mould spores to form or whether it would be resistant now there are a couple of tricks around that What you can easily do is you can when you put it in there just underneath put a drop of

or a couple of drops of, like, dishwasher fluid, like cleaning fluid, like fairy liquid or something

like that. Leave that in there and then that will sort of work into the water

You don't want it enough so it froths up, but just enough so you've got some bacterial

killing agents in there. I think some other people have said, like, if you put pennies in there or something with a high copper count, a high copper count, that'll also stop bacteria eating through

So again, this is another great reason to keep your wet palate clean

So yeah, so that's it, guys. It's a really great piece of kit. I would highly recommend anybody who's not using a wet palette to get a wet palette as soon as they can

they will find that if they want to improve their painting, using a wet palette will certainly do that

It'll give you more consistent paint. You paint will last longer and you'll be able to put a lot more paint onto your models

instead of it having dry out on a palette. So if you're after a wet palette, this is an absolute steel

There's nothing wrong with it. It's directly comparable to the other retail options on the market and it's cheaper

So pick these up guys, you can pre-order them now. I think they're available in December and you'll get it with two hydrofoams and you'll also get it with a, with 50 of the papers

So really saves you time. You don't have to cut anything. You don't have to DIY. You literally just buy this

Add some water, add some paper, stick your paint on top. Away you go

And that's it. The only thing I've not tested, and I really want to test this

is at some point I'm going to put a hydro foam and I'll do this for the Fohhammer website

is I'm going to put a piece of hydro foam in the lid

and then some of the hydro paper on top just so that I can see the difference between the two layers

and whether or not we can actually use this lid as sort of like a second wet palette

if I want to have some more paints on the go at the same time

So yeah, so that's it guys. Highly recommend you pick one up

If you're not using a wet palette, again, there are DIY options. You can check phelhammer.com

We've got a guide on how to make a wet palette. But yeah, if you're wanting something that's affordable, easy

saves you time, saves you paints, absolutely fine. Nothing wrong with this

Great product. So that's it, guys. This is possibly the second video I've ever done

I hope it came across okay I'll do some more cuts in the main video

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