 Hello, everybody, and welcome to another hobby-cheating video, and today we're going to talk about a new type of paint that you might really like, but it's from a little different source. Today, we're going to talk about some artist paints that happen to be real good for miniatures. Golden, so flats. Let's get into it. The strict techno-mancer that is VinCV. Let us get into the technique and learn it VinCV style. So there are lots of tools out there in the world outside of our miniature painting world. This paint, Golden, so flat, happens to be one of those tools. It's really designed for artists. It's still an acrylic paint with what we're familiar with, but it has some really neat advantages over our miniature paints, and I've added it to my paint collection and repertoire because I really like some of its properties. So today, we're going to get into it. I'm going to not only sort of review this, but also show you how to use it and why I like it. So this is a little bit of a review and a tutorial, all in one. These paints are really fun. You do have to be willing to mix paints, but if you're willing to go down that road, boy oh boy, can these have some great effects. So let's head over to the desk and see what we can do. Okay, so let's talk about Golden, so flats. As you can see, they are an artist's paint, so they do lots of important things. Like on the front of the paint, they show the opacity quite clearly. When you look inside, they're pretty creamy, pretty smooth. They come out like a slightly thicker miniature paint, but still very miniature paint like. You can tell exactly their coverage. You can also see the exact pigment used. Most of these paints are single pigment paints, which will mean you have to mix them. However, sometimes they are melange, the spice melange or their mixture. In that case, they will show you on the side exactly what pigments were used in that mixture to achieve that color. It's a really nice feature, especially if you happen to be a pigment nerd and want to know exactly what's going on. So you can see every time and know exactly the kinds of colors and reactions you're going to get. They have a pretty decent range. They come in basically 60 milliliter pots, two ounces, and those range in price from about $8 to about $17. They are artist grade pigments, so they vary in price accordingly with the pigment. Here you can see what they look like out on the actual wet palette. So again, very much like miniature paint, very much like what you would expect out of a Vallejo or an AK Interactive or anything like that. They mix together completely normally. And the tones because they're single pigment, you have a really, really good control over exactly what you're getting in your mixtures. So for example, if I wanted to take some red and yellow and white and mix it together to get a fairly standard Caucasian skin tone, I can do so with relative ease. I decided to put out a little bit of a modified Zorn palette here just because it's sort of an easy palette to work with. But they go to, you know, they mix together smooth. I've never had any problem with that. So you're going to be paint mixing a lot to achieve all of your different colors and they blend together absolutely smoothly. And like I said, predictably, since you always know exactly what pigments you're mixing. In addition, let's talk about coverage and actually see it in practice. You know, the front of the bottle is the front of the bottle, but let's see that in play. So here I just have some of the burnt umber. I'm putting it straight over black. Our old friend Larry the Ogre, he's back again and he's been reprimed for the 15th time or something. And, you know, you can see that brown on the front of the bottle. It shows excellent, excellent coverage. And in fact, that's exactly how it plays out. You know, basically it's so pigment dense and rich, one smooth, you know, thin to liquidy coat and you get good coverage. With the reds and yellows, which are naturally much more transparent, right, especially once I mix them together and add a little water. Of course, you don't get the best coverage. Again, this would be mitigated if you were painting over a zenithal prime or something like that. But I wanted to show how these work and give you a really true understanding of them. They're one coat coverage, not the best, especially over a very dark color. But again, you knew that when you looked at the front of the bottle and it told you that both of those were quite translucent. So none of it's a surprise. However, our old rule of two thin coats applies as normal. And of course, with the second layer, we get a nice base coat down, no issue, just like with any other paint. The pigments themselves are extremely matte when they dry. Right now you can see that, you know, it's kind of shiny because it's wet. But as you look frame to frame, you will notice how absolutely completely matte they are. That name Golden So Flat is not a mistake. It's absolutely accurate. These things dry just dead matte, which is a really nice advantage. Even the reds and other colors like that, which in many lines have challenges with being quite flat. Here, no issue at all. Even when thinned down quite a bit, they remain very, very, very matte. As you can see here, I just layered up Larry and yeah, layering paint over paint, no problem at all. Now today I'm talking about these Golden So Flats, but keep in mind it's not the only artist paint that's out there. There's a lot of other artist type products that we can draw a lot of value from. Behind me in the shot for a long time has been Golden Heavy Body Acrylics and indeed there are many brands. Golden just what happens to be quite available to me. But those kinds of artist products, you know, they've been painting with acrylics and doing things for a long, long, long time. So head to your local art store, explore, test some stuff out. The reality is there's lots of really cool things there we can use and bring into our miniature hobby. And if you've got a super cool when you found, drop it down in the comments below so that you can share and we can all learn together. Okay, so first off, your next question is, can they glaze? And the answer is yes, absolutely. Here I'm making a glaze out of red and brown to apply to Larry, same standard as always. I actually added quite a bit of water to this because they are so pigment dense, they make really, really great glazes. You won't see that footage because it got corrupted, but you'll see the sort of effects of the glaze. It's very easy to mix, works like any standard glaze, but you can go really thin to filters. Can they mix with other brands of paints, like normal miniature paints? Yes, they can without issue. So here I'm mixing it with some Vallejo Buff, who doesn't love good old fashioned Vallejo Buff, wonderful color. And goes together like a dream mixes no problem applies without issue. So these are fully interchangeable with your other paints. And in fact, it can be an advantage. If you have paints that are somewhat satin in another line, you can mix them with the golden so flat and they will tend to matte that out. Another advantage of these is, since they're a little on the thicker side, again, not unbelievably thick, but they're thicker miniature paints, they do have a much longer working time. So that means they're really great for techniques like feathering or wet blending or anything like that. So here we're going to just go ahead and wet blend out Larry's pants. And you can see I'm just slowly integrating more of that burnt umber into my previous mixture with the Vallejo and the burnt umber already mixed in. And just very easy to wet blend through it without any kind of problem. This is actually one of the absolute strengths of these. Oftentimes when you thin paints way down, they will dry very quickly. These because of their nature and how long you have to work with them for techniques like feathering and wet blending, they actually do quite a great job and you can establish some pretty significant gradients pretty fast without ever running into any issue where suddenly the paint is glossy or shiny. And you always know your coverage so you know if you're going to have something that, you know, really, really covers the layers underneath it and how much you should thin it down. So great for these kinds of feathering wet blending techniques. The paint is very stable and durable. Here I'm putting some Rykland Fleshade over the top. So, you know, washes, contrast paints, all those kinds of things go over the top of it. No issue. I've never had any challenges with reactivation or anything like that. I was purposely pretty rough with the application of my wash here and worked it a little longer than I normally would have going so far as to even feather it. Didn't run into any issues. Final question, can it be put through the airbrush? You bet. And this is actually another place where it really shines. I love it through the airbrush because it's single pigment and often very saturated. It can be a great way to add filters, tones and final blends to your miniatures. And you can use any artist paint for this, but of course, one of the problems is that those artist paints because of the amount of thinner and flow improver you add often get quite glossy or at least satin. The so flats work directly against that and allow you to add these very thin glazes without ever changing your finish or adding any shine. So there you go. Thank you very much, everybody. I hope you found this really fun. Don't forget to give it a like. Also, don't forget there's a patrion we have here. Link is down below. That patrion is focused on review and feedback and helping you take your next step on your hobby journey. By joining at certain levels, you can also get access to a really cool discord full of awesome people ready to help you with your hobby questions. Subscribe if you haven't already. Don't forget we have new videos here every Saturday. If you've got any questions about this paint, I haven't answered. Drop those down in the comments below. As always, I thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time.