Water

This won't be a terribly impressive post, but RL is busy at the moment and water is important. These aren't complicated suggestions, just a few things to make your life easier.

As you all know, we work with acrylic paints - otherwise named water based paints. You'll always need a container nearby to clean off your brush. This water will get dirty and evaporate, just wash it out from time to time.

The only stuff you should clean off in here are things that are water soluble. Oil based paints, glue, chemicals, etc should never be cleaned here - if you do, you'll end up with crud left behind that will work it's way into your good brushes as you try to clean them.

You'll also want an eye dropper (with container) and a syringe without a needle.

The eye dropper will give you a source of CLEAN water at all times and an easy way to disperse it. I found this at a surplus store but was quite hard to track down with a container.
When you're painting wet, creating your own washes, restoring/thinning paints, etc you shouldn't have to worry about whether or not the water you clean your brush in is too dirty.
If a brush has junk on it you want to keep out of your water supply, drop some water on it while brushing on a paper towel.

The syringe can be used with either the eye dropper or your main water container to move larger amounts of water around.
Most stores with medical supplies will have these, even drugstores.

Now, if you're wondering why I'm filling that little cap full of water, here's the explanation:

Perhaps it's about ergonomics, but the less your arm/wrist are stretching back and forth, the happier they'll be. When I paint, I keep my brush constantly wet. Not wet enough to create a wash, but wet enough to help the paint flow and get a sharper tip. For this reason, I'm constantly back and forth doing Paint -> Water -> Model loop. By keeping a cap full of water right beside whatever I'm painting, it's just a small movement to get a little more water on the brush.

For this reason I suggest having an old cap with a low rim on hand.




+Tony Stanley from Creative Twilight points out that having two water cups handy is good when you're working with metallic paints. It keeps metallic flecks out of your brush when working between normal and metals.

• Uses
• Reconditioning paints