Working With Glaze Medium

Vallejo Glaze Medium – How Much To Use?

I’m talking specifically about Vallejo Model Color Glaze Medium, bottle #596. There are plenty of other glaze mediums on the market from other manufacturers, but this is the one I like. (All of them work pretty much the same way, try others out to see if they suit your tastes better. I’ve since moved to Liquitex Matte Medium as a replacement most of the time.) It not only makes glazes from a wide range of acrylic paints, it dries flat and also acts as a drying retarder. I’ve frequently had high mixes of glaze stay wet on my palette for days at a time. But I’m getting ahead of myself. How much to use?

I like to relate Glaze Medium to a transparency slider in Adobe Photoshop for those who have used it. Paint straight out of the bottle would be 100% or solid. Glaze Medium straight out of the bottle would be 0%, or completely transparent. (Well, not really, but close enough.) The trick is finding out just how transparent you want your paint to be. Lucky for me, I had a Zealot unit jump up and volunteer to test the mixing ratios for us. I’m just painting the mixes straight over white primer for the best visual feedback. My test color is VMC 150 – German SS Camo Brown, one of my favorite colors. (Acrylic Glaze Medium of any brand will work with any kind of acrylic paint. Please don’t think I’m trying to sell you on Vallejo paint. I rarely use it any more.)

(So to clarify, if you relate this test to the yellow > red diagram above, the white (primer) would be the yellow and the brown would be the red on the scale.)

Volunteer #1

The Zealot Leader stepped up and will serve as our baseline color. No Glaze Medium was added to the paint, just a touch of distilled water to get it to flow smoothly. This is only one coat. VMC 150 has good coverage by itself, another reason to use it for this test.

Volunteer #2

Zealot #2 receives a mix of 1:1 VMC 150 : Glaze Medium (GM). Just a bit weaker than straight paint, but it flows nicely.

Volunteer #3

Zealot #3 receives a mix of 1:2 VMC 150 : GM. Already it’s showing results. The white primer is starting to peek through on the high points, but it’s remaining opaque down in the crevices.

Volunteer #4

Zealot #4 receives a mix of 1:4 VMC 150 : GM. It looks like the model is starting to shade itself.

Volunteer #5

Halfway through the squad now. Zealot #5 receives a mix of 1:6 VMC 150 : GM. It looks like it’s seriously time for laundry day.

Volunteer #6

Zealot#6 receives a mix of 1:8 VMC 150 : GM. More white than brown showing now. Getting closer to a true glaze.

Volunteer #7

Zealot #7 is my first winner. He receives a mix of 1:10 VMC 150 : GM. It may not look much different than the 1:8 ratio, but experience tells me this is about where I need to be.

Volunteer #8

Zealot #8 receives a mix of 1:12 VMC 150 : GM. This is my favorite ratio for glazing. If it turns out too light, a second application in selected spots will almost always give me the results I’m after. I premix most of my glazes using this 1:12 ratio.

Volunteer #9

Zealot #9 receives a mix of 1:14 VMC 150 : GM. This is getting more subtle. It’s hard to believe this started out as a dark brown paint.

Volunteer #10

The last Zealot in the squad receives a mix of 1:16 VMC 150 : GM. Other than the deep recesses, it just looks like dirty linen. This can be used to add a light layer of grime to areas you want to look less than clean. (I’ve been told by Mike McVey that a true glaze takes 3 coats before you see a color shift. I’m not that patient of a painter. Take that for what it’s worth.)

Now you might be saying to yourself, “1 to 12, that’s 13 drops of paint for one color! Holy cow!” or something similar. I have found that when I mix a glaze that I like and I plan on using it again, it’s best to have some empty dropper bottles and premix it right in the bottle. That way when I need it again, I just put a drop or two on my palette. It saves a lot of medium in the long run, and I don’t have big puddles of glaze all over my palette. On the front end though, I’ve gone through 3 full bottles premixing various colors. I went through half a bottle in the test on the Zealots.