Why Wet Palettes?
Second Only to Brushes and Paint, It's Miniature Painting's Most Common Tool
What is a tool? I didn’t know the exact definition until very recently, it is “Anything used as a means of accomplishing a task or purpose” — according to dictionary.com. There are countless tools marketed to miniature hobbyists, from complete scams to incredibly useful items like airbrushes. Apart from the obvious things like brushes, paint, and a water glass, one implement stands ubiquitous as a tool almost all miniature painters own and use constantly: The wet palette.
When we are painting miniatures, we are often using well — miniature amounts of paint. Since acrylic dries very fast, at least compared to mediums like oil, the paint dries very quickly once it leaves the bottle, so it can be equally difficult to use that paint because it is getting drier and further from the ideal consistency every second. To overcome this, miniature painters often use a wet palette, which consists of a sheet of parchment spread across a wet sponge in some kind of waterproof container, which dilutes the paint at about the same rate it dries. This makes a wet palette something of a tool; it certainly helps us get more minis painted!
When I first got started in the miniature painting hobby, I built a rather simple homemade one using a plastic container, a kitchen sponge, and some parchment paper. It quickly developed mildew, which quickly evolved into mold, and it was also unreliable, so I abandoned it for the Army Painter Wet Palette. That wet palette was reliable, easy to use, and quite affordable, and I used it for much of my journey as a miniature painting novice. Now, I’ve upgraded to the Redgrass wet palette, which is everything my Army Painter palette was — but better. If you want to pick up either of these great wet palettes, you can find Army Painter’s here and the Redgrass Games palette here.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you learned a bit about wet palettes and why miniature painters use them. If you liked this article and don’t want to miss any of content, please subscribe!