What a wet palette actually does
How the thing works, what the three that publish their own specs contain, and how to build one from a lunchbox if you would rather not spend the money yet.
Acrylic paint on a plain plastic palette skins over in a few minutes. You mix a colour, paint two edges, and the mix has gone tacky. That is the problem a wet palette exists to solve, and it solves it with damp foam and a sheet of film.
I am not going to tell you which one to buy, because I have not used them long enough to have earned that opinion. What I can do is take the makers at their own word, put their published numbers next to each other, and show you the version you can build tonight out of a lunchbox.
Three layers, in one order
A foam pad sits in the bottom of a shallow box and holds the water. A hydration membrane goes on top of the foam, touching it. Your paint goes on the membrane.*
The contact matters. The foam is the reservoir, the membrane is only the surface, and if they are not touching, the surface has nothing to draw on.
The part that runs against the name
The first thing the maker’s own guide warns about is too much water. If the water stands higher than the top of the foam, it floods the membrane the moment you lay it down.*
So “wet palette” does not mean a puddle with paint on it. Damp foam, a membrane, no standing water. A beginner reasoning that more water buys more working time gets flooded paint, which is worse than a dry palette, because it looks correct in the well and goes onto the model like tinted water.
Top the water up every couple of hours.*
Why it works at all
For a long time I could not find anyone willing to explain the mechanism rather than the setup. AK Interactive states it on their product page: their paper is 40 grams per square metre, made of a thin silicone film “that allows the transfer of moisture but prevents water transfer and dissolving of paints”.†
Moisture through, liquid water not. That single sentence explains both halves of the thing at once: why the paint stays workable, and why a flooded membrane ruins it. It is a claim by one maker about their own paper rather than a law of physics, and the other three surfaces in this post are made of different materials, so I am attributing it rather than declaring it.
What the three publish about themselves
These are not the three best. They are three that put their own specifications on a page I could read, which is a sourcing criterion and not a quality one. Nothing below is a verdict, and the order is alphabetical.
AK Wet Palette. 23.5 × 17.5 × 2.5 cm. Forty paper sheets, two sponges and a tray with compartments. Airtight seal, and the maker says it can be kept in a fridge. Listed at 20.61 euro.†
Redgrass Everlasting v2. Two sizes: Painter at 16.5 × 24 cm, Studio XL at 30.5 × 20.5 cm. Fifteen reusable membranes and two foams in the box, with the membrane claimed good for at least four uses and often more. The lid is TPE overmoulded for a near air- and watertight seal. From 44.99 euro.‡
The Army Painter Wet Palette. 13.8 × 19.8 cm, the smallest of the three. Two hydro foams and fifty hydro sheets. An inner layer holds up to six Wargamer and ten Hobby brushes, which is the only one of the three that tries to be a brush caddy as well. No anti-mould claim on that page.§
Two things fall out of those numbers without any opinion from me. The price range is better than a factor of two for the same category of object. And the surfaces are genuinely different products: a reusable membrane, silicone-film paper, hydro sheets. “Which sheets do I buy” turns out to be a real question rather than brand loyalty.
Building one for about six dollars
If you would rather not spend forty euro on something you might not stick with, the household version is documented. Gareth Branwyn’s method at Make: runs like this: an air-tight plastic container, a sponge cloth boiled first to get the impurities out and wrung until roughly a third of the water is left, and baking parchment soaked about ten minutes then smoothed down over the sponge. Fill it with distilled water. He puts it at around six dollars against fifteen to twenty for a commercial one.**
The maintenance step is the part I would have skipped and regretted: wring the sponge out and wash the container in hot soapy water every three or four days, which is what stops it going mouldy.**
Note what the DIY version is actually substituting. Baking parchment for silicone-film paper, a kitchen sponge cloth for engineered foam, a lunchbox for a sealed lid. Same three layers, four different materials, and the sealing is the part you lose.
What I still cannot tell you
Which of the three is better, or whether the lunchbox holds up against any of them. Specifications are published; quality is not, and nothing I read measures how long each keeps paint usable or how the foams smell after a month.
Whether the DIY version works as well. The method is documented, so I can describe it. The comparison needs someone who has run both for a month, and that someone is going to have to be me, later.
When it is, that post gets a number at the bottom and this one will link to it.
- *Wet Palette Setup: The Complete Redgrass Guide
Redgrass Games
Backs A wet palette maker's own account of how the thing works and fails: a foam pad holds water, a hydration membrane sits on top in contact with the foam, and paint goes on the membrane. The water must not sit higher than the top of the foam or it floods the membrane; water is topped up every couple of hours; the maker claims the foam is naturally mould resistant and says mould growth can be neutralised with a vinegar solution.
- †AK Wet Palette
AK Interactive
Backs This maker's own published specification and mechanism: 23.5 x 17.5 x 2.5 cm, 40 paper sheets and 2 sponges plus a compartment tray, priced 20.61 euro, with an airtight seal and the claim it can be kept in a refrigerator. The paper is stated as 40 gr/m2 and made of a thin silicone film that allows the transfer of moisture but prevents water transfer and the dissolving of paints — the only maker statement of the actual mechanism found in this research.
- ‡Everlasting Wet Palette v2
Redgrass Games
Backs This maker's own published specification: two sizes, Painter v2 at 16.5 x 24 cm and Studio XL v2 at 30.5 x 20.5 cm; each box holds the case, 15 reusable membranes and 2 hydration foams; the membrane is claimed reusable for at least four uses and often more; the lid uses multi-shot TPE overmoulding for a near air- and watertight seal; priced from 44.99 euro.
- §Wet Palette
The Army Painter
Backs This maker's own published specification: 13.8 x 19.8 cm, two sheets of hydro foam and fifty hydro sheets in the box, and an inner layer that holds up to six Wargamer brushes and ten Hobby brushes. No anti-mould claim appears on this particular product page.
- **How To: Make a Cheap Wet Palette for Acrylic Painting
Make: (Gareth Branwyn)
Backs A published method for building a wet palette from household parts, by a named author: an air-tight plastic container, a sponge cloth boiled to remove impurities and wrung out to about a third of its water, and baking parchment soaked around ten minutes then smoothed over the sponge, filled with distilled water. Maintenance is stated as wringing the sponge and washing the container in hot soapy water every three to four days to prevent mould, at a total cost of roughly six dollars against fifteen to twenty for a commercial palette.