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SO THERE I WAS, just minding my own buisness, painting my Dire Avengers. I already had 5 painted from my Eldar battleforce from long ago, and had purchased an additional 5 not too much later. It was just recently though, that I got around to painting the new 5. On the original ones, I coated the models with the Drakenoff Nightshade shade, which served it's purpose and shaded the whole model in addition to giving it a very nice, smooth, almost glossy finish. The new ones I painted I also got to this stage, but when I coated them in the shade, it simply blackened it - not a super dark, midnight black, but at the very least a dull grey. It also left a rough, unclean looking finish on the model. So it went from giving me a clear, bluish gloss on the first avengers to blackening the new avengers. I used the exact same paints, and exact same colors. Not even new pots of paint, they were out of the exact same paint pots. Does anyone have any idea what might have gone wrong with these models? If necessary I can upload pictures, but at this very moment I don't have access to a camera and I figured it'd be better to just get the thread up. Anyway, thanks ahead of time for any help you can give me!

George

EDIT: I tired mixing it in a 1:1 and a 2:1 mixture of Drakenoff:Lahmian Medium and that did not help the situation.

How long was it between use of the paint pots? Perhaps the paint had settled and needed to be shaken/mixed?

What about your paintbush? could it have had some lingering paint on it that you didn't realise? Or perhaps just your water you used while painting to thin paints / clean your brush was dirty?

A lot of that is what I had thought about; but I have a counter-argument to most of those. I shake my paint pots before every use, and I've gotten regular use of the Mordian Blue that I've been using for since January. The paintbrush was also a thought I had, but I've since tested it both after cleaning it exceedingly thoroughly and with clean water. I brought a test model to GW today and they tested it there to the same result with their materials; I don't know what that means, but it makes me suspect that the Mordian Blue could be at fault, and that it may be a good idea to buy the version of Mordian from the new series. Is that a logical thought, or am I just stupid?

Your paint may have split and will need more than the quick shake you usually give it (Temperature can play a big part in splitting)

Open the cap get some air in (maybe a drop A DROP off the tip of your brus hof water) and really shake that mother up and down to the point you can feel the paint lapping on the top and bottom of the pot to combined it again. This doesn;t mean shake from over your head to down to your knees, just a real strong shake in your hands.... this happens to washes over time too. Never had this problem myself but people at the painting table at my LGS have had it with other colours they've had in the cuboard for a LOOOOONG time.

Alright, I finally managed to get some pictures of my models. I am aware that they aren't exactly golden demon quality haha,but I do take pride in them and I really do want to achieve the result that I got from my first 5 Avengers. First, I'll say that I painted the armour plates of the Avengers in Mordian blue, and then coated the majority of the model with Drakenhof Nightshade. But anyway, I'm really just looking for possibilities, but I did try shaking my paints quite thoroughly to the same result.

Thanks,
George

I honestly think, with a nice highlight, the blackend one looks better.

I think the paint separation is the issue, but in the reverse order. I think the glossier one was painted with 'separated' Nightshade, and the duller looking one was painted with thoroughly mixed Nightshade. I don't have any proof of this, but I do know that both a pot of shade and a pot of wash I purchased looked really glossy when I first dabbed a bit of them on a test area (and hadn't shaken them up completely).

I might be wrong, but I'm not sure exactly how you would replicate the desired effect if I was right. You might try mixing some of the Nightshade with Future Floor polish, to see if that replicates the finish you are looking for.

That's my suspicion, though, from seeing the models.