Payne's Grey was actually invented by William Payne for this very purpose. He discouraged the use of black in canvas painting, a dark grey blue was proposed to replace it.

As something not very confident in blending of any kind, this visual representation helps a lot.

Vince could literally talk about shaking paint bottles and ill watch every single second of it (ads too) and ill be like "DANG! That was awesome!"

Since I semi-religiously buy everything you recommend, I've already had great mileage from Payne's Grey for a while now, but I now realize I hadn't fully appreciated all its use-cases. Thanks!

Wow, this is awesome, Vince! Honestly - as an illustrator, I'm learning so much great practical advice about *the application and use* of color from your videos... as much as I did in art school. Most art education focuses on color theory, which is fine... but after that, learning how to apply all that knowledge is an even bigger undertaking than understanding the theory itself. [A side note regarding color] - one really good instructor gave me this mantra: "Color is color only, according to: 1. Amount 2. Placement, and 3. Application." ...in other words, a color's appearance is affected by 1. how much of it there is, 2. what is around it, and 3. how it has been applied. This principle is something you reinforce in your videos, along with a lot of great, practical application of the knowledge as it is used in real-life application on an actual piece. (For example, color recipes are not as impactful as how you actually apply the colors, in what order, etc.) Once again, thanks for the great content and useful, practical information and advice. Plus, it's just plain fun to watch the paint go down, the effect come together, and to see the final result. Mikey

Outstanding video Vince!! Just love how clearly you communicate your ideas/information visually & orally. Superb!!👌

Taken to using Payne's Grey and a Warm Yellow for zenithal highlighting. Works nice in getting a base down.

I purchased the Payne'ss gray ink and HBA and they are phenomenal to simulate shadows at night. I used them universally to darken all kinds of colors that faced away from a campfire and it gives it a perfect nightly atmosphere. Just added some brighter blue for the highlights and done.

I bought Payne's Gray about a year ago and find me using it on nearly every model. If I want to go darker I add a little bit of burnt umber.

I love using Payne's Gray! I make glazes and washes from it. It works great when accenting cloth or skin-tone (of ALL skin tones!).

great stuff but I would like to see all of your hand work of dipping,, mixing, and palette activity thats just off camera...it all helps even the stuff you might think is redundant

If you want the absolutely most natural looking shadows the trick is to take the base color, add a touch of the complementary color, and add a touch of black. This will darken the paint but also lower the intensity of the base color. This grey works well because its going to either tone down the reds and yellows, and just deepen the blue.

Another stellar video. Thanks Vince!

agrax earthshade mixed with some drakenhoff night shade makes a nice paynes grey type tone too if you cant get the inks.

Hey Vince! You recommended me an airbrush a few days ago and I ended up with an Infinity CR. 🤣 I really dont regret to buy a more expensive one cause I'm getting absolute stunning results with it even as a beginner. Thx dude for encouraging me to use an airbrush!

Thanks Vince! Great video, I impulse bought Payne's Gray a year ago and had no idea what to do with it, will give this a shot

Well then. Time to add another product to the shopping cart. Thanks Vince.

I’ve been learning watercolours and Payne’s Grey is my go-to colour for controlling value right now. VanDyke brown is also useful on the warmer side of the spectrum, though.

This is great, thank you. This is very close to a technique I stole from painters long ago known as chromatic black or using dark complementary colors to create richer, more interesting blacks, but since they are chromatic, they can be easily mixed with other colors to create realistic shadows.

Excellent advice. Thanks Vince. I'm trying to move away from using shade paints, and this seems like a good way to go.

Fantastic results there. Thanks for the great content! Glad to see one of the products I already have highlighted as so widely usable.

Liquitex muted grey is a purplish grey ink which would probably suit your uses :) I'm also looking into getting the golden high flow transparent shading grey for a more neutral shadow

The rare Reaper cameo!

Yellow - and light orange - would be the exception here, it’s usually best shadowed using browns or reds. In “classical” painting, you’d use burnt umber or burnt sienna.

This is awesome Vince, thank you for posting. I will look for payne's gray. I've been using GW Contrast Shyish Purple a lot for this effect, specially as a glaze with the airbrush.

Really useful stuff. Thanks again for doing the work for us!

There it is! Been excited for this since I saw the hints about it.

I tend to use stegadon scale green (gw)/dark sea blue (vallejo) as a shadow colour. Very nice green blue colour

Sweet! I was hoping for a good universal shadow colour to go with the universal highlight. Thanks!

This and the universal highlight video may be the two videos that the paint companies absolutely don't want people to see (who needs 15 shades of red when one and the universal highlight and shade will do?). Now to fiddle with varying shades of black and blue sitting on paint desk to hack a Paynes grey while local stores are in lockdown . . . (although methinks my Tamiya Rubber Black is already almost there)

Love Payne’s Gray! Also the color “Blue-Black” from ProAcryl is very close to Payne’s Gray. Maybe a bit higher on the value scale.

Amazing! I'd love to see a hobby cheating about painting shades of white armor (doing it for Stormcasts, not White Scars).

Very nice. Daler should put you on the payroll with how much ink you sell for them. If this is a brand new idea, I get 10% finders fee.

Awesome Vince, just happen to have that FW ink!

Been looking forward to this one and even went and tried exploring for one. I didn't find it, but did discover darker complimentary colours as shadows works too. I'll be trying this next. Thanks Vince, you're helping me think about, learn, and explore, this amazing hobby!

Thanks Vince! God bless you 🙏🏽✝️☮️♾️☯️

awww yeah...nice one

I stumbled upon this myself by using GW's Contrast: Basilicanum Grey. I suspect it's just Payne's Grey in their contrast medium.

Great video once again! Thanks. How were you mixing it in this video? Looks like you were making a bit of a strong glaze? Or a thicker wash type consistency? The blend and shadow looked so amazing for such quick single wet coat.

Great video Vince. I have been using Payne's Gray exactly this way for a while now, but I usually glaze it over my original color rather than mixing it in. Do you see any pros/cons to one way over the other?

Love your content Vincent! One dilemma i struggle with is on the one hand always hearing you want to maximize contrast, but at the same time hearing that for example pure black is boring as your deepest shadows? How do I reunite these two seemingly opposing concepts. I try to have max contrast between my lightest and darkest points but when I put some almost pure black in my shadows it tends to look less vibrant vs shadowing with another color. Thanks again for your very helpful content

Couldn't find any Paynes Grey at my local hobby store :( But I found 20 parts Ultramarine to 1 part Carbon Black made a damn close match. =D

Burgundy and Deep Purple all the way for me! Thanks, Vince. I'll try and give that Payne's Grey more mileage, for a little change. Also, I assume it feels better to have a little bit of a different tone in the shadows when we can?

What are your thoughts on the contrast bottle shyish purple? Seems to be a great choice for this type of usage in recesses. However I have not used it in every possible situation so I am interested in your thoughts. I have the whole line of contrast and that is one of three colors I will use. Really am enjoying the color.

Vince, I’ve been relying on your videos for the past couple of years now to paint my army, so thank you! I’m building an army of 40K Salamanders on snow terrain and I want to have their typical green/black/gold scheme show that they are in a cold environment. Based on this video I think I need to highlight with that pale flesh tone and then shade with something more like the crimson you recommended. Is there anything else I should know about conveying a cold environment? Are there any nuances or difficulties that make it different then the warm highlights/cool shadows you’ve shown here? Thanks in advance!

So, how well would these work on metallics like shading metals? Or turning into a glaze?

Great stuff as usual friend 👏 👍

Have you tried Vallejo Game Wash - Pale Grey? It's basically Payne's Grey made into a wash.

A great tip that really made the hobby easier for me! Many thanks for it. I currently use "Liquitex Muted Grey" instead of "FW Paynes Grey", because for known reasons "FW Paynes Grey" is not available here. Have you tried "Liquitex Transparent Raw Umber"? Also a very versatile usable ink. Greetings! :)

FW ink is very hard to get in Brazil, fhowever liquitex is not. Is it possible to mix liquitex ink and get a similar cooor to Paynes grey?

Hello from the frozen Arctic north (Canada)! Big fan, first comment. Question: I have your signature series Pro Acryl Payne's Grey. Would you consider that as a universal shadow colour? How does it compare to the Daler Rowney ink? Thanking you in advance. I also want to see if you really do answer all comments!

You rock!

Thanks, Vince! Quick question about brushes and thinner paints/inks. I've heard that we shouldn't use our nicer sable hair brushes for washes to avoid paint drying in the ferrule. But what about glazes and inks? I would assume they pose the same risk but is perhaps mitigated because applying a wash is more haphazard than applying glazes. What do you think? I might be overthinking brush care...

Another amazing video Vince! One question , in case of Paynes grey´s , do i need to have it as an ink? Or if lets say i find it on acrylic, will it work the same? Or its better as an ink? Thanks!!

Great advice!

me in 2023 watching this painting with vince's MH paynes gray

Thanks a lot Vincent. I guess this works in the same way with oils paints right? I just bought a tube of Paynes grey. Thanks!

Newbie question, but would be Payne's Grey work good to shade vehicles base coated metallic, such as 40k dreadnoughts in my case? Sort of a "reverse zenithal" process?

Hi vince, great video thanks! My trouble is i often find inks to be very glossy and having glossy shadows and satin highlights annoy me. Do you have the same issue or just roll with it? Thanks a bunch!

Notice you used a natural hair brush with the inks . Is it ok to use inks on natural hair brushes? I have heard they can be bad for them due to how easily they can flow back up the brush .

Hi Vince, thanks for the excellent content, as usual. But.... May I say that I really think your videos would be greatly enhanced by some better lighting. I find myself just listening for the most part.

Hello, how well would this work to try to make a shadow on white? If it works what sort of ratio would you do with pro acryl paints? Also if you where to shade your gold recipe would you use this, a brown or something else?

I should be able to mix Payne's Grey with Carbon Black ink (PBk7) and Phtalocyanine Blue green shade (PB15:3), both Liquitex artist inks. Those are the same pigments as the Payne's Grey, but maybe they used the red shade instead of the blue shade (only slightly different colors). Any tips for the ratio?

I've been playing around with zenithal highlighting on my Space Wolves, and I had a question -- do you usually go for a solid color on the highest highlight, or is the speckle I've been getting more expected? Going about things slightly differently in that I'm using three opaque colors (Citadel The Fang, Vallejo Mecha Blue Grey, Vallejo Game Wolf Grey) with the same theory of operation and it forms the primary color on the armor. Which on space marines is a lot.

Great vid. Thx

I'm having a hard time finding the Daler Rowney inks here in Denmark, but I do have some Liquitex inks that I like a lot, including a black ink and a prussian blue ink. How would I go about mixing my own paynes grey? I'm not looking for an exact recipe, but merely a rough guideline. Is it 50/50 black and blue or something else? I've never seen how the color actually looks :)

Awesome tip once more! Can we achieve the same results using a black ink?

Am I correct in thinking that this is all wet blending? I will need to put down a fresh layer of the base color even if I have all the basing done so I can wet blend in the payne's grey layer?

Vince, The Reaper Gothic Crimson 09686. Is that a limited color? Can not seem to find it.

I have the whole set of Ghost Tints, could I use some of the dark blues/blacks in that line similarly to how you are using Paynes Grey?

I have the Vallejo ink set. Can I make a paynes grey with the black and a bit of the blue?

Have you changed something about your recording set up? Your voice sounds lower, more even, smoother, and more processed.

Can you dilute the ink and spay it through an airbrush for panel lines or hard edges shading on vehicles?

I just went and bought a bottle but I just looked and I ended up with Lamp Black instead of Payne's Gray. I haven't opened it, should I return it?

Nice!

Vince, that sticker, is that from Gilmore Girls?

👍🏻👍🏻

It's so infuriating that this is the ONLY color I can't get off of Amazon (and I also don't have a local store that has Daler Rowney inks) in Austria. Not even overexaggerating, there is a prime seller with 30 colors, but this is not one of them. Update: I was able to find an arts seller and ordered it, though I hate it when I pay more shipping than the article itself costs