When I painted my Stormtrooper commander he turned out pretty nicely except a few too many brush strokes which I figured out how to resolve.

The main issue was when I attempted to apply Testors Glosscote to the model (about 3 days after it had been painted) and the paint began to smudge and pull pigmentation off the model. It completely removed the detail from the figure’s weapon.

just looking for some advice on this matter.

I can think of a few possibilities.

The first being if you didn't wash the model before painting, that could be part of it.

Secondly, your glosscoat might have gone off on you.

Third, you might have a moisture issue from when you gloss coated it.

What kind of paint did you use to start with? Some react poorly with the lacquer in something like Testors gloss coat. Most Acrylic model paints should be fine, but it's always worth testing to be sure of compatibility.

Varnishing is a dark art fuelled by black magic. There's SO many things that can go wrong, and once you've pressed that spray nozzle it's too late. Your minis are ruined.

In 20 years of painting models I have never bothered with varnishing, and despite having painted literally thousands of models I think I've had to go back and touch up about ten paintjobs, and that's usually because they've received careless or excessive handling, or been stored inappropriately.

SO my advice for applying varnish is: don't.

7 minutes ago, Albertese said:

What kind of paint did you use to start with? Some react poorly with the lacquer in something like Testors gloss coat. Most Acrylic model paints should be fine, but it's always worth testing to be sure of compatibility.

So I used primarily Vallejo White, Vallejo Black and German Grey along with Vallejo Thinner Medium. Then the color areas used Citadel paints. All paint had at least 3 days to before I applied the glosscote.

5 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

Varnishing is a dark art fuelled by black magic. There's SO many things that can go wrong, and once you've pressed that spray nozzle it's too late. Your minis are ruined.

In 20 years of painting models I have never bothered with varnishing, and despite having painted literally thousands of models I think I've had to go back and touch up about ten paintjobs, and that's usually because they've received careless or excessive handling, or been stored inappropriately.

SO my advice for applying varnish is: don't.

Yeah I’m looking at my next commander in progress and all his lines are sharp and I have no brush lines I’m feeling very much like I should avoid application of the Testors.

Also to be clear I used brush on glosscote and dullcote.

One thing I have found is that acrylic varnish applied through an airbrush (or just a hairy brush) is more consistently "safe" than aerosol varnish.

But yeah, I've not found it to be a necessity for gaming pieces. There's the potential for 'frosting', the 'blurring' of paints like you've had, bubbling, varnish yellowing and changing the colour of your minis, or the worst of worsts, accidentally picking up a can of primer instead of a can of varnish and spraying primer all over your finished models!

I mean, lots of people seem to make it work for them and there's probably a list of variables you can lock down, like make sure you've properly prepped the models, only varnish on days with a certain temperature and humidity range, only varnish with a particular brand and make sure it's within an acceptable timeframe from manufacture, only spray varnish onto a particular brand of paints (maybe GW take varnish better than Vallejo? Who knows?) etc etc.

It just seems like a lot of risk for not much reward IMO.

10 minutes ago, Rvnt said:

Yeah I’m looking at my next commander in progress and all his lines are sharp and I have no brush lines I’m feeling very much like I should avoid application of the Testors.

Also to be clear I used brush on glosscote and dullcote.

There you go. I'd only ever spray a lacquer coat on. It can and will soften paints. Spray won't smear.

For the sake of completeness, I use primarily Vallejo and Reaper paint and seal with Krylon Clear gloss spray, then hit that with Testors dullcote. Never had a problem.

And I've also found that skipping the clear coat does tend to let paint rub off the sharper parts of a figure. I'd consider it an essential step, at least for the way I paint.

I don’t really know what to tell you. I have had occasions where the varnish has smudged the wash but never noticed the paint. Personally, I really like the way the varnish feels especially on the bases after the mini is done, and I have had lots of paint get chipped before varnishing. Maybe I’m just a careless guy.

Any and all problems seem to come from too much application rather than too little. I have limited experience with brush on varnishes but I imagine the same rules apply.

I've had brush-on acrylic gloss varnish smear finished paint in the past (long ago). Unfortunately I can't remember what varnish or paints I was using. The only fix I can recall is to wipe away the wet varnish and touch up the mess later.

I've used Testors Dullcote spray for years with no problems. Recently the only brush-on varnish I've used has been as a selective gloss over a coat of Dullcote. This works great to pick up the armor on stormtroopers.

2 hours ago, Albertese said:

There you go. I'd only ever spray a lacquer coat on. It can and will soften paints. Spray won't smear.

For the sake of completeness, I use primarily Vallejo and Reaper paint and seal with Krylon Clear gloss spray, then hit that with Testors dullcote. Never had a problem.

And I've also found that skipping the clear coat does tend to let paint rub off the sharper parts of a figure. I'd consider it an essential step, at least for the way I paint.

Ok good to know. Thank you.

I also had a varnish cause my paint to run. I think it was something in the varnish that didn't like the competitor's paint I was using.