Acrylic paint nightmares

[Anonymous No.3640712]

Do any serious/professional artists that use a more realistic approach actually use acrylic paint?
I can't, for the love of God, get used to this horrible shit (learned from oils, trying to use acrylic because of budget/lack of space to work in oil).
They turn darker when dry (but unevenly, depending on the color) making shading and dealing with values a nightmare. They dry so fucking fast that I waste tons of paint and my palette turns into chaos immediately. Dried paint looks dull and glows like cheap plastic.

Help me out guys

[Anonymous No.3640716]

>>3640712
acrylics are shit, they're made for children but because of the affordability schools have started using them for adults which has led to a culture of "artists" using acrylics seriously

[Anonymous No.3640733]

Stop using acrylics. You don't need any more space for oils than you do acrylics.

[Anonymous No.3640736]

>>3640712
I have about 2 GALLONS of top of the line high pigment artist grade acrylic paint that is just sitting there.
I ran into the same problems as you and switched to oils. Couldn’t be happier.
I used retarder and mediums and plenty of distilled water.....oops, dried before I could mix the right values for anything.
Only thing I can see using it for in the future is blocking in MAYBE and pour painting.
Pic related.

[Anonymous No.3640758]

I paint with acrylics drawings "for the soul", when i'm tired of academic drawing with pencils and want some color. My skill is too low to use godlike oil yet.

This is oil.

[Anonymous No.3640763]

And this is acrylic.

But i have to say it's pretty annoying that acrylic dries very quickly, especially when you need to do some gradient. But there's good side - you don't need to wait until the previous layer dries to paint further.

[Anonymous No.3640774]

>>3640712

A lot of master illustrators have used acrylics almost exclusively. Just lol at you fucking niggers blaming the medium for being shitty painters.

[Anonymous No.3640777]

>>3640712
i used to hate acrylics too until i changed my approach. you need to have your painting well planned out ahead of time, that will solve 70% of your problems. the color shifting stuff is just a matter of experience. the more time you spend with it you'll anticipate what will happen. for blending I use Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid. you don't need a lot of it, just put it in a clean space on your palette and put a tiny bit on the tip of your brush when you pick up the first color, put them down on the canvas, then add your second color and blend.

pic related, acrylic on linen.

[Anonymous No.3640785]

>>3640777
Wow, that's cool.

[Anonymous No.3640786]

>>3640774
Like designer's gouache, it's photogenic because it's flat and quick to work with and and then you throw away the original.

But the truth is that you have to treat it like egg tempera and work like oils haven't been invented yet.

[Anonymous No.3640790]

>>3640777
acrylic is still shit. obv you can overskill it but it still forces you to work a certain way, which is absolutely stupid for painting. you can also paint with a broom on the side of a house in the rain. just cause you can doesn't mean you should.

[Anonymous No.3640795]

>>3640790
And oil doesn't force you to work a certain way or what? There cannot be a medium that doesn't do this.

[Anonymous No.3640798]

Didn't they use acrylic paints for animation movie background since it dries fast enough? Or was it gouache?

[Anonymous No.3640801]

>>3640795
oil is the least restrictive medium apart from going digital. are you really going to argue for acrylics by saying you need to work out the entire painting before actually doing it?

[Anonymous No.3640807]

>>3640801
The only one flaw i could think of is that oil dries too long.

[Anonymous No.3640808]

Pic related was made with acrylics.

If you use a water spray bottle and regularly spray your palette, you paints will stay wet the entire day. If you use a stay wet palette, you can work as slowly as you like.

[Anonymous No.3640815]

>>3640808
This is a great tip. I'm a beginner with paint despite the fact I've been drawing for 15 years. Gonna try my hand at it after inktober. I'll keep this in mind.

[Anonymous No.3640818]

>>3640777
I really don't like this painting in terms of subject (there is no connection between the figure and the background, neither thematically nor stylistically), but GOD FUCKING DAMN IT THE TECHNIQUE IS 11/10 KILLING IT. Mad respect, really. I can't imagine how long this took and if I saw it, i'd say it's either digital or oil, never acrylics.

[Anonymous No.3640822]

>>3640798
A bit of both. I see more gouache (because it's easier to notice when combined with obvious watercolor), but it's hard to tell when you're dealing with bright lights and Technicolor film.

[Anonymous No.3640824]

>>3640798
acrylics for cels, gouache for backgrounds.

[Anonymous No.3640828]

>>3640786

I disagree that all mediums should be compared to oils. Weird mindset. You can't make gouache look like oils and vice versa.

[Anonymous No.3640835]

>>3640801
>are you really going to argue for acrylics by saying you need to work out the entire painting before actually doing it?

it's what all the masters did and they painted in oils. this is basic stuff anon unless you're one of those 'paint muh feelings' artists who throw shit all over the canvas and hopes something comes out of it.

[Anonymous No.3640847]

>>3640828
I meant that it has drying times near that of tempera and a completely different technique closer to early Renaissance and iconographic work. You can't treat acrylic like oil.

[Anonymous No.3640848]

>>3640712
funfact:
francis bacon used acrylics for all his backgrounds. oils for figures

use acrylics only when you are in need of no blending flat color.

[Anonymous No.3640876]

>>3640801
Ink is restrictive but still awesome.limitation is not inherently bad

[Anonymous No.3640878]

>>3640808
Ty , advice like this make jia shitposts bearable (barely)

[Anonymous No.3640881]

>>3640876
sure? i don't personally like it cause i prefer painting to drawing. if you want to impose limitations to your painting watercolor is always there for the sadomasochists.

[Anonymous No.3640973]

>>3640876
>limitation is not inherently bad
That is a big understatement, limitation itself is a giant driver for creativity and greatness imo. If you have too many possibilities you lose yourself in them instead of refining your skills and expression within a limited space.

[Anonymous No.3640974]

>>3640881
It's pure analytic masochism for the perpetually understimulated, but it's also all about letting the medium do the work. Once you learn the desires of every pigment, of every tint and glaze, the infernal calculus of drying shifts and open your eye to the prophecy of result, you become one with it in an engine of pain that calls upon adhd and the wanton beauty of nature itself to ride the currents into a crescendo of esctacy.

I see why oilfags have such a contentious relationship with it.

[Anonymous No.3640981]

>>3640974
i'd rather have a good time with some psychoactives to deal with personal issues and leave the painting for doing artwork.

[Anonymous No.3640993]

>>3640981
I like cussing at paint. Some of us prefer tilting a wash in a flop sweat to spacing out with a blending brush for hours.

[Anonymous No.3640999]

>>3640993
cool but does your preference translate into good artwork or is it personal masturbation?

[Anonymous No.3641013]

>>3640999
You can't get those kinds of textures and gradients anywhere else, so yes. It has unique advantages.

[Anonymous No.3641026]

>>3641013

[Anonymous No.3641045]

>>3640973
Slavery is freedom

[Anonymous No.3641065]

>>3640774
>illustration
I have no desire to do illustration.
I have no desire to paint with plastic.
I have no desire to create cartoon images for grown men with double digit IQ’s.

[Anonymous No.3641088]

>>3640716
>>3640733
>>3640736
I use acrylics along with oils. They can be difficult for juggling accurate skin tones, but really, they're not THAT hard to use. You lot are NGMI.

[Anonymous No.3641096]

>>3641088
some people have actual standards and artistic goals.

[Anonymous No.3641102]

>>3641096
If you say so.

[Anonymous No.3641127]

is there a cheap overall good medium to use for color?

[Anonymous No.3641138]

>>3641127
Some are easier to cheap out on. Do you know what you want to do?

[Anonymous No.3641140]

I've only ever really used water soluble oils, but I found switching to golden open was pretty much seamless, I'm pretty sure I could leave them out for hours if not a whole day without them drying, potentialy longer if the palette is sealed up in tupperwear or somthing

[Anonymous No.3641147]

lol dudes just make a simple wet pallete. get like a small plastic tub/food container. put a damp sponge in it. add a sheet of wax paper over it. use the wax paper as your pallet.

[Anonymous No.3641154]

>>3641138
practice color on printer paper, something with easy cleanup would be great.

[Anonymous No.3641181]

>>3641154
When I said easier to cheap out, I was thinking more like "get started in a blending medium for under 30 dollars and not die inside every time you need to resupply" and not...that. Also some mediums you'd like to work in. Some people hate colored pencils and crayons, others consider watercolor a form of sadomasochism.

[Anonymous No.3641190]

I used to paint with acrilics a lot in art school. I know they're super frustrating, but it pays off to spend a few more bucks on them. I always used Amsterdam acrylics because they were a good balance between price and quality. But I remember one girl in my course who could afford Polycolor (they were typically sold in a jar) and the colors in her pieces were really something else.

Pic related something i painted 2 yrs ago

[Anonymous No.3641226]

Huh during my highschool days of painting in acrylic I've never noticed these issues. I mostly do digital. Is oil really that different?

[Anonymous No.3641346]

>>3641226
You can blend on the canvas for weeks straight and take a piss break without everything hardening on the palette. I'm only sort of exaggerating. We are talking about a medium that can take 6 weeks to 6 months to dry enough to work on the next layer.

It depends on where you live and the time of year as to how unbearable acrylic can be. I could see especially dry weather or a hot room causing problems.

[Anonymous No.3641788]

>>3641346
>taking piss breaks
NGMI

[Anonymous No.3641960]

>>3640712
>Do any serious/professional artists that use a more realistic approach actually use acrylic paint?
I do but I'm a joke
>I can't, for the love of God, get used to this horrible shit
I'd say you should think of the process more along the lines of printmaking and layering but that's MY aesthetic bozo

[Anonymous No.3641961]

>>3640712
>They turn darker when dry (but unevenly, depending on the color)
it's always a mystery!
>making shading and dealing with values a nightmare.
I've found that if you use black paint on skin tones, it upsets people enough that they don't notice anything else
>They dry so fucking fast that I waste tons of paint
A: dry or die my dude
B: or you can get retarder, but it kind of pulls the paint apart kind of?
>and my palette turns into chaos immediately.
wabi sabi brah! I generally have gotten into the rhythm where I start with blues for an under layer of skin tones and shadows, then start mixing in purples then reds into the color. Kind of just focus on one color at a time and when you run out add a new color to the slush and apply it where applicable. Just one continuous process. But I unironically love chaos and entropy and that's really what I try to capture with acrylics so idk shit about how best to use it in a functional or repeatable manner.

>Dried paint looks dull and glows like cheap plastic.
Add some varnish?

[Anonymous No.3641966]

>>3641096
>dude oils LMAO

[Anonymous No.3642795]

>>3641065
sounds pretty gay

[Anonymous No.3642844]

>>3640835
>it's what all the masters did and they painted in oils.
Yeah but acrylic also wasn't an option when the masters were alive. They weren't filmmakers either.

[Anonymous No.3642853]

>>3642844
>Yeah but acrylic also wasn't an option when the masters were alive. They weren't filmmakers either.
what the fuck does any of that have to do with planning out your painting before you start?

[Anonymous No.3642876]

>>3640712
Wasn't acrylic paint used for cel animation? Would definitely like to dabble with it if so.

[Anonymous No.3642985]

>>3641045
Double digit IQ, ngmi

[Anonymous No.3642996]

I use acrylic, not masterfully but I have fun with it.

[Anonymous No.3643096]

I just painted traditionally for the first time yesterday and I only have acrylics. Dont make me lose confidece

[Anonymous No.3643103]

>>3642876
Not for Disney, or Warners. They used specially formulated paints and inks, it was cel-vinyl paint, which is more opaque and consistent than commercial acrylics. The Disney Museum has several displays from the Ink and Paint shop Disney Studios had in-house until I think The Black Hole, when they switched to commercial colors.

They had very specific requirements for their colors, see here:

http://www.srlabs.com/disney-paint-colors-from-cel-to-screen-or-why-is-alices-hair-green/

A good slide show of cel-vinyl paints and what can be done with them is here:

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2017/10/using-cel-vinyl-paint.html

[Anonymous No.3643112]

>>3643096
Don't listen to the guy. For beginners they are great anyways, so even if you end up agreeing with him(which I don't), you still learn something.

[Anonymous No.3644203]

>>3643103
Really interesting links, thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.3644241]

>>3640790
in other words, "I'm right so long as you ignore everything that proves me wrong."

Its the artist that makes the art.

[Anonymous No.3645816]

I was always the opposite. I could only paint acrylics because oil painting intimidated me. To me, oil paints were what "real" artists used and I didn't have the self confidence to use them

[Anonymous No.3645862]

>>3645816
That is an odd way of thinking, but makes sense. I always saw a lot of avoidance of charcoal, oil, ink and the like and this inane focus on markers, colored pencils and oil pastels and found it really weird. It was like they were avoiding being compared to artists using "real" media in order to be immune to criticism. I never thought of it as a confidence thing until now.

When digital art really started hitting its stride online, I saw it again on both sides. Lots of holdouts making excuses and lots of native digifags afraid to work without ctrl z.

[Anonymous No.3646143]

>>3640790
>durr different mediums shouldn't require different methods wtf why can't i just push the paint around for 3 hours this is bullshit

[Anonymous No.3646177]

I think the real way to get gud with acrylic is to take the layering approach.

Like before muh dog died and started doing acid all the time and went back into making paintings look intentionally shitty I think I was pretty close to getting there with like pic related and the rest of the shit I was working on in January.

Here's muh process on it:
https://youtu.be/oB3cW6-lMuY

[Anonymous No.3646229]

Acrylics are objectively shit. This is an indisputable fact. Acrylic apologists will claim all sorts of deluded nonsense like
>all you have to do is use a glaze medium and it will look just like oils!
>all you have to do is use retardant and it’ll dry just like oils!
>all you have to do is spray the goddamn canvas every five fucking seconds with water and you can work it just like oils!
They will never reflect on the fact that they are doing all this Mickey Mouse bullshit with acrylics in order for it to look somewhat like oils, when instead they can just work in oils. There are no techniques when working in oils for the paint to look like you worked in acrylic, because nobody wants that shit, because everyone knows acrylics are an objectively inferior medium.

[Anonymous No.3646251]

>>3646229
>all you have to do is use a glaze medium and it will look just like oils!
>all you have to do is use retardant and it’ll dry just like oils!
>all you have to do is spray the goddamn canvas every five fucking seconds with water and you can work it just like oils!
yeah exactly. Acrylics can emulate the advantages of oils. Oils cannot emulate the advantages of acrylics.
>They will never reflect on the fact that they are doing all this Mickey Mouse bullshit with acrylics in order for it to look somewhat like oils, when instead they can just work in oils.
I mean I do acrylic mainly just for the Mickey Mouse bullshit. It's the more "childish" medium and in many ways it involves more "skill" or whatever to make them work.
>ecause everyone knows acrylics are an objectively inferior medium.
eh potato tomato. Oils are "easier" in most applications, making acrylic kind of more impressive when it's well executed. Acrylic layering involves a lot more forethought and an entirely different order of operations that is to me closer to printmaking than oil painting.

idk I pretty much have to generally agree that acrylics are more shit than oils for portraiture, which is why I use them.

[Anonymous No.3646259]

>>3646251
>>3646177
Do you have to post so fucking much? give someone else a chance to type shit no one reads

[Anonymous No.3646269]

>>3640712
Some tips i was taught at my school, always have water nearby, and use a little spray to keep the paint wet. The kind of spray you use to water plants or stop your cat from humping you, i don't know how you people call that in English. Also use the fact that it dries quick to your advantage, easy to solve mistakes.

But yeah, it's a bitch medium and should only be used for practice imo.

[Anonymous No.3646275]

>>3641190
It's a shame that house is so flat, because that tree is gorgeous.

[Anonymous No.3646285]

>>3646269
Another tip that popped in my head is that you can use water to make the acrylics less dark. The more water you add, the less dark it's gonna be.

[Anonymous No.3646293]

>>3646259
keep up.

What's that Ayn Rand story about like crippling the overachievers so that the underachievers can feel "equal?" Is that Anthem?

Like if you can't read. That's fine. I'm not sure why (you) need to constantly complain that I'm creating too much content. What a cuck. Act less like a tryhard middleschooler maybe mang idk.