Hey Guys,

I find my ships look to clean what's the best way to enhance the panel lines on a ship. I could use some advice from master painters.

Corey

This depends entirely on the tool (the wash) you are intending to use.

Ideally, you want a wash that is Thin in texture, but dark in opacity. As a premixed option, you have the games workshop "Shade" Washes, and they are - at their most basic - slap on and move around until they work... (Personally, I still find that a bit much, and cut them with either medium or water, depending on what's on hand).

If you onlt have paints, then you'll need to thin down paints so they flow better, but keep enough pigment that they aren't just a watery mess, and that can be tricky.

There are numerous other ways of going about it, too - there's using a very small brush and aiming for the panel lines itself (pin/detail washing), and there's always the paint to re-correct any overwashing afterwards as well....

I popped a really basic wash on the TIE fighters in my "So, You want to paint a TIE Fighter" Thread, and that kind of shows the process there, if you want to check it out:

Drasnighta thanks. I had read your post but didn't see your section on that. I think I will go with Nuln oil.

Follow Dras' advice: water it down. Nothing sucks more than nuln oil that doesn't flow right.

7 hours ago, FoaS said:

Follow Dras' advice: water it down. Nothing sucks more than nuln oil that doesn't flow right.

Or makes the world literally black. Stuff is strong out of the pot.

Lately I've been struggling with my washes over darkening my paint job, to the point where everything is coming out way too dark. I wash the entire mini due to the quantity I'd like to output and in the past I have had VERY good success with a wood varnish, Minwax Polyshades Tudor Satin. I would simply glob this stuff on, in any amount, and soak up any over washed areas and it would magically dry with perfect results.

Unfortunately, I believe the formula has changed in recent past (~3-4 years) and now it's more viscous and results in darker results. In the past year I've shifted to GW Nuln Oil and it also is making results too dark. My last project, some 25mm castles and forts for a War of The Ring project, have all come out too dark, even when I filled the GW Muln oil pot with almost 50% warm water.

Any ideas? I've also tried Army Painter washes and recall not liking those results. I also home-brewed up a wash with black acrylic paint and water and it's just ok. It also is coming out too dark.

In short:
I would like a magic product that just works out of the box that I can apply to the whole mini and not have them come out too dark. With how much painting output I want to maintain, and how little time I currently have (until retirement), I don't think I'll ever switch to washing at the micro level, where you only apply it to the recessed areas. Too fiddly for me.

There is no magic product that won't just make your mini look dirty and like crap when you mop wash it. If you slap it over panels, you are going to stain them if you dont repaint/clean the panels.

My heel -> your dreams ?

Maybe you want to try the oil paint 'wash' method to darkline. Varnish it up (gloss!) Work it in on a rag, remove by rubbing all spots you don't want. I think that's how it went anyway.

This seems to contain the instructions for your varnish/wash/dab method:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdv-tmXjd_I

I'll try that next.