Transparent Acrylic Ink - Ochre

An ocher tone between yellow and brown

This shade lies exactly halfway between a straw yellow and an earth brown. It is the color of dried clay, of dust on a road and of old parchment. In its transparent form it does not cover the base but tints it: whatever is underneath stays visible and merely changes in warmth and saturation.

What it is most often used for

The most common use is a glaze. Over a light base it creates a desert cast, over a metal surface it gives a brass or golden tone without reaching for an opaque paint, and on a figure it deepens the shadows in the folds of cloth. It also serves well as a unifying filter that brings several different camouflage patches into one key without hiding the pattern underneath.

Thinning and application

The pigment is very fine, so the medium passes even through a small-diameter nozzle. For spraying it is thinned drop by drop and sparingly, because ink that is too thick leaves marks on the edges. With a brush you work in repeated thin coats; each further one darkens the area, so it is wiser to add slowly than to put things right afterwards.

Storage and fixing

Shake the bottle properly before use, as the contents tend to settle. Wipe the neck after pouring, otherwise the cap will dry shut. It is worth sealing the finished surface with a clear coat, because a glaze on its own stays more sensitive to rubbing than an ordinary coat of paint.

A test beforehand

Before you reach for the model itself, try the shade on a piece of plastic painted with the same base. How saturated it turns out depends a great deal on what lies underneath, and over a light area an ocher looks quite different than it does over a dark green.