p3 mixing medium

[1972Lt1]

I'm trying to follow the tutorials in the Privateer Press codexs.
Some blends call for p3 mixing medium. Can't find it anywhere. Saw online that Vallejo matt medium is the same thing. Any other suggestions? Also, what is the difference between Vallejo Matt Medium and Vallejo Thinner Medium? Thanks for your time.

 

[rokkin]

I think it's better to use p3 mixing medium for p3 paints because it uses the same binder as p3 paints while vallejos uses vallejos if you get what I mean?

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

P3 mixing medium is a thinner, not a Matt medium. So if you truly wanted to go Vallejo and follow your recipes, get the thinner medium. I bought the P3 mixing medium awhile back and truthfully was not a fan. However, doesn't mean that it isn't a good medium and that the recipes you are following aren't good ones. Thinners are simply an alternative to diluting with water, and are advertised to provide better brush control and less separation on the pallet. However, you can likely do very good without them. It is often best to learn to paint with just water as your dilution medium, because if you depend on these expensive mediums, you will only learn brush control while using these mediums. If you only rely on water, well then you may take longer to learn to control the paint, but ultimately it is in your favor. All that being said, GW Lahmian Medium is a glaze medium that does everything I want out of an additive.

 

[griffongames]

P3 mixing medium is a thinner, not a Matt medium. So if you truly wanted to go Vallejo and follow your recipes, get the thinner medium. I bought the P3 mixing medium awhile back and truthfully was not a fan. However, doesn't mean that it isn't a good medium and that the recipes you are following aren't good ones. Thinners are simply an alternative to diluting with water, and are advertised to provide better brush control and less separation on the pallet. However, you can likely do very good without them. It is often best to learn to paint with just water as your dilution medium, because if you depend on these expensive mediums, you will only learn brush control while using these mediums. If you only rely on water, well then you may take longer to learn to control the paint, but ultimately it is in your favor. All that being said, GW Lahmian Medium is a glaze medium that does everything I want out of an additive.

I beg to differ. The P3 Mixing Medium is absolutely a medium and not a thinner. You CAN thin with it because it is thinner than the paint itself, but that doesn't make it a "thinner". One clue is that it is not clear - thinners are clear. The other is that the label actually says that it's a medium. I'd bet that they would know better than anybody else what is in their bottle.

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Struggling to understand what you mean by a "medium." Of course it is a medium. This is a generic term similar to saying that it's an additive. All thinners are mediums. All mediums are not thinners. But ignoring this, if you mean to say that you beg to differ and that P3 Mixing Medium is a Matt Medium, you are wrong here. Furthermore, if you aren't even contending this, and you are simply saying that P3 Mixing Medium is NOT a thinner, you would be wrong here too. As you say, nobody knows more than Privateer Press what their bottle is used for. Go to this link, at their shop, and you will read clearly that the P3 Mixing Medium is a thinner. Indisputably. The color, opacity, and consistency of thinners across brands varies as much as the pigmentation density of their acrylics.

http://store.privateerpress.com/formulap3mixingmedium.aspx

 

[griffongames]

Struggling to understand what you mean by a "medium." Of course it is a medium. This is a generic term similar to saying that it's an additive. All thinners are mediums. All mediums are not thinners. But ignoring this, if you mean to say that you beg to differ and that P3 Mixing Medium is a Matt Medium, you are wrong here. Furthermore, if you aren't even contending this, and you are simply saying that P3 Mixing Medium is NOT a thinner, you would be wrong here too. As you say, nobody knows more than Privateer Press what their bottle is used for. Go to this link, at their shop, and you will read clearly that the P3 Mixing Medium is a thinner. Indisputably. The color, opacity, and consistency of thinners across brands varies as much as the pigmentation density of their acrylics.

http://store.privateerpress.com/formulap3mixingmedium.aspx

I think you're being confused by terminology.

"Medium" is a specific term in paint. Paint (in its most basic form) is made from a solvent, a binder and and pigment. When you subtract the pigment what you're left with is generally referred to as "medium". If you take the binder away from that what you have left is generally referred to as "thinner". BTW - If you take away the binder and solvent from paint you are left with pigment which a lot of companies now sell under the name of "weathering powders".

Not all mediums are thin enough to be used as a thinner. In fact, if you were to go to the art store and look at all of the mediums you would find that they tend to be more gel-like than liquid. There's a lot of reasons to add mediums to paint, but for our purposes it is to thin the paint without losing it's ability to stick to the surface of the model. If you over-thin with thinner (water, alcohol, whatever) you can easily have that issue.

Just because you can thin a paint with medium doesn't make it a thinner. I understand that's confusing, but there you go.

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

I am even more confused by your contentions now. You seem to be agreeing with me when I say that medium is pretty much a generic term to describe any of the numerous additives available to acrylic painters. This is the proper way to describe mediums in this context. Here:

http://painting.about.com/od/artglossarym/g/defmedium.htm

Impastos, retardants, matting agents, glosses, fixers, thinners, glazes and so on are all mediums. It is a property added to an acrylic paint to modify its consistency to produce a certain effect.

But then you seem to contend that a medium is simply the solvent with binder piece of the 3 parts of a paint. While this is true, according to art glossary makes it clear that medium means more than this. Further, it still doesn't change that P3 Mixing Medium is a thinner. The manufacturer assesses it as such, and as a user of numerous thinners and other "mediums," I agree wholeheartedly They certainly weren't meaning to describe their mixing medium as a solvent/binder. IOW, nobody is using their mixing medium to add pigment powders to it and make their own paint. Thus, my use of the terminology coincides with the intended use of it by P3.

If you follow the thread, I disagreed by saying that it is a thinner and not a Matt medium, as another poster suggested. This is when you interjected by disagreeing with me to say that it is a medium. This adds even more confusion to the debate, because it appears you were arguing for it to be a Matt medium, but then you qualified your definition to have a completely different, and irrelevant, meaning. Still, I enjoy a debate...

 

[gohkm]

I don't think Griffin Games are being contradictory, mate. It just seems to me that they have illustrated that there is no standardized term, and that is causing a lot of confusion amongst users. I reckon you would be mostly right if you went with the manufacturer's description.

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

You are correct. However, my point is that no such confusion existed, or that the confusion and misunderstanding was introduced by GG. And that their definition of medium is both too narrow and irrelevant to the conversation, because this was never the source of my or the OPs distinctions. Regardless, I hope I am not coming off as abrasive, as I often tend to when trying to be academic.

 

[gohkm]

Not at all, mate. But following the thread, I can see there is discussion on terminology throughout. I think what Griffin Games sought to achieve was to denote differences in terminology use from a technical perspective. Whether that has introduced an element of confusion or not, I think this is up to the respective reader.

I admit, I find GG's explanation clear, and the preceding posts somewhat unclear. Perhaps I am in the minority. Unfortunately, my experience with additives is limited, as I use almost purely water for dilution. The only other additive I use is Tamiya X-21A Acrylic Thinner, which is purely restricted to my airbrush.

 

[MAXXxxx]

for me BoK's explanation is better and I felt, that GG's comment is based on old info that's not quite as relevant anymore.

But to chime in with gohkm: I 'only' use water (well sometimes I feel, that for freehands I'll need extenders/flow improvers) so all this "what is medium" and if I should use it or not doesn't really affect me.

As for the P3 Mixing: I thought it's mostly like the Vallejo glaze medium... then again I never felt a difference between the Vallejo glaze medium and the Vallejo thinner when using them, so it could be either of them.

 

[griffongames]

I'll wrap up my comments on this subject with the following:

If you go to the store and ask for a paint thinner and somebody gives you a paint medium then they have not given you the product you have asked for.
If you go to the store and ask for a paint medium and they give you a paint thinner they have not given you the product you have asked for.

The person giving you those incorrect products could, should they choose, laugh and point out what the generic terms mean and that they have technically given you what you asked for and they would be correct. This would make them somebody to avoid in the future.

I hope that simplifies things.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Medium = something that is a component of the original paint.

Additive = something you add to the original components of the paint.


How complex was that?

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Unfortunately, it is more complex than you describe. While I agree that you have defined the term correctly, as I have pointed out confusion exists over the multiple meanings of the word. Check the art glossary:

http://painting.about.com/od/artglossarym/g/defmedium.htm

Why is this important in this context? Because manufacturers might call something a "mixing medium" when the solution does not have any components of the original paint. Which is what P3 had done here. Their naming of a thinner as a mixing medium, and the link I provided, supports that additive and medium, technically sound or not, are used interchangeably.

 

[jsteel]

wow just reading this thread gave me a headache haha medium thinner.