Question about how paint dries in Artrage

[AntonyW]

Hi, I absolutely love the way the oil paint mixes on the canvas with other wet oil paint. What I can't work out though is why no blenders have the same effect. Sometimes, a blender - usually the palette knife - gives me the pleasant surprise of smearing the paint in the same way as the oil brush, but this is rare. Is that because the paint dries over time? And if so, is there a way to keep it wet, to switch it back to wet mode, or to tell which paint is dry and which is wet?

[markw]

Hello Antony and welcome to the ArtRage forums :)
The Oil brush lays down paint by default Wet. But if desired Dry by ticking the Instadry check box in the tool’s Settings panel.
If Instadry has been used for some brush strokes then those strokes will instantly dry on the canvas as they are put down and so be harder to blend.
But no type of paint in AR will dry over time. (Though some sort of timed drying is something that has been asked for in the past).

Outside of that there are several things that can also effect blending of any paint in AR;
Paint depth, paint type, Canvas texture, the pressure of the tool doing the blending, what type of tool it is; Oil brush, Knife, Custom Brush and the exact internal settings being used by said tool.
In short there are quit a few variables!

[nekomata]

oil paint brush w/o "dry brush" mode, paint roller, loaded palette knife, paint tube, glitter tool (yes), and custom brush w. depth (artrage 6 only) produce thick, wet oil paintstrokes;

every other brush tool, including custom brush w/o active depth parameter and oil brush in dry brushing mode, will produce "dry" paintmarks, which will be harder to blend, depending on your blending/scumbling tool of choice (palette knife has an optional wet mode that will blend everything, but thick oil brushes it will look slightly different because of the paint thickness being harder to smudge and push around.)


And if so, is there a way to keep it wet, to switch it back to wet mode, or to tell which paint is dry and which is wet?

I'm not aware of any direct way to switch the applied paint between wet and dry states, and I don't think there's a way to visually distinguish between dry and wet states... you kind of have to remember which tools you used for brushing, but generally, no visible paint thickness = dry stroke, any indication of paint thickness/impasto/light hitting paint strokes and reflecting off them = wet paint.

watercolor tool is one of the "dry" tools too iirc, but it can dilute oil paint if I remember that correctly.

[JMMK]

(Hope I understand your question correctly) You can try to save your changes for the oil brush, as preset