Last night I put a slurry of mig pigments, made with water, onto the tracks of my tank ( off of the tank). This morning as I brushed the excess off, it crumbled and fell apart. What is the best thing to mix my pigments with to have them stay on the tracks. Preferably while the tracks are still off the tank.
Thanks.

Paints having binding agents in them so just using water will not work because there is nothing to adhere the pigments to the model. I've used thinned matte clear acrylic paint. Also, I've used thinned matte oil varnish as well. It worked well but you need to use turpentine to thin the varnish. More importantly the fumes from this combination will make your head swim. So it must be done in a well ventilated room.

here a video tutorial
brown pigment+grass+ white glue+ matt varnish= dry mud
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx1e6ooh8PA&feature=player_embedded

HERE Mig Jimenez gives pigment use advices


Cheers

Mig does produce products for fixing their pigments.

Acrylic Resin [P032] This will PPermanently fix the pigments to the surface. Used to make pigments up like mud effects. For thick mud this is what I would use. I believe it will give a more wet mud like effect.

Pigment Fixer [P249] This product makes the pigments adhere to the surface better. You can remove excess pigments as needed.

THINNER FOR WASHES [P239] Used to help flow the pigments on the surface.

I would recommend viewing some videos online or the DVD's from MIG Productions to get a better understanding of how all these products work. I have found them to be very useful.

You can also use white glue to fix the pigments to the surface.

Here are some links I googled and shows some of this.

http://www.internethobbies.com/seofpi.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx1e6ooh8PA&feature=related

You can use also the Liquitex Acrylic Resin

I'm sure that would be a lot cheaper to use. Would it perform the same as the MIG Product?

Excellent advice guys. Thanks much for the help. I have some flat base Tamiya that I could mix in thinned down. I was also thinking about a small amount of plaster of paris for the running gear area.
I like the glue and Matte varnish idea too.
Maybe I will try a little of each to see which gives me the best effect.

Yes using some plaster will really help reduce the amount of pigments you needs. I don't remember if you need to add a bit of color to the plaster. My thinking is that in case you get some chipping of the mud the lighter color would show. I imagine mixing the pigments in the plaster would eliminate this.

I have used talcom powder mixed with a thick paint the color of the mud wanted and it did a pretty good job on a sherman build and it smelled nice also.

Bob

Yes, I'm almost sure that it works as Mig medium .
Many modellers who I know use Liquitex product whit excellent results and you can find on internet, some tutorials about that.
(See for exemple
here )

But apart from that, it's just a chemical matter.
Pigments are just mineral components so they are inert.
You need just a medium to solve it and to fix it on the surfaces (white glue,rubber alcohol, acrylic resin, turpentine,oil, white spirit and so on....)
In fact, the mixture beetween a pigment and a medium, is the same process used to make ALL kind of painting.
You can use as medium also the water...but it doesn't grip on plastic surfaces .



cheers

Tyler,

I use Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement as a fixer for my heavy pigment weathering. It's very inexpensve when compared to other proprietary fixers and is usually available in most hobby shops in the US. You can even find it in the big box craft store chains, like Michael's and Hobby Lobby.

You can also use an overspray of Dull Coat to fix pigments, but that's not as "permanent" as the Scenic Cement. (It does work good for lighter, dusty pigment applications.) The Scenic Cement works just like a thinned white glue (PVA), but it is already thinned and has a wetting agent / flow enhancer already in it. It dries dead flat and has other uses like holding down the ground cover on dioramas.

To use the cement with the pigments, you can either mix it in and apply the pigments wet, or you can put the cement on the model surface and sprinkle the pigments on, or you can mix the pigments with water, and after they dry, apply the cement to the dried. It also can be mixed with the pigments into a thinner, rather runny mixture and splattered on like splashed on mud.

For wet, shiny looking mud, you can fix your pigments using Future Floor Wax available in most groucery stores in the US. Also, a very inexpensive and useful product to have on hand in the work shop.

You can see the results of fixing with Scenic Cement the pigments I applied to my Canadian Firefly here:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/158659&page=1

At any rate, if you're still looking for a pigment fixer, it's a good choice.

HTH,
Mike