Comment on Why did it take so damn long for humanity to "learn" how to draw/paint realistic images?

• j4k3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Things have changed a lot since I painted. All of the paint systems I used have been phased out in favor of water based alternatives. Those changes largely stopped the way I did my work as water based colors require a very consistent and controlled environment like an advanced downdraft spray booth. I could control many behaviors with the evaporative speed of solvents and reducers in ways that are not possible any more. Now those behaviors (I assume) are handled with temperature, humidity, and a much larger feathering area for masking changes with less accurate paint. The funny part is that clear coat catalyst and solvents are the largest pollution and health hazard by far. The switch to water based color coats massively increases the overhead of a body shop, creates the need to have whole room IR heaters or integrate them into the booth, and then adds an extra panel to prep and feather the repair on every side. It amounts to a massive increase in the cost of auto body work that includes far more pollution and energy use just to say the most insignificant aspect, the color coat is water based. That is a big reason I stopped painting and why my experience is not exactly relevant to the present.

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