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im not able to access your site Les.....

Hawkins wrote:im not able to access your site Les.....

Ditto, all I get is a screen saying "Site Ready". Hope all is well.

He has been changing it somewhat frequently to get his web store up and running. Most likely that the store is ready now just not up yet.

Keep in mind that he's not selling his washes anymore unfortunately.

No washes?!?! That is what I was going there for! Dang, I was hoping to not have to do the whole "Mixing it myself" route, as I am fairly lazy when it comes to the painting side of the hobby. *sigh* Oh well, hope all is well for Les.

I can make some sepia or black ones for you for a decent price if you want to avoid buying all the materials. $2 ea and I can mix them as heavy as you want.

I find that soft body black is great for tabletop standard finishing, but it goes fast, as I used about 15ml(1 bottle) on 2 units.

He HAS released all the recipes on his site though for all the washes he sold

I got around to putting together Les's washes, and they are simply amazing. You can really tell the difference between the inks the recipe calls for and the GW washes.

I followed his recipe to the letter including all the components..rowley inks especially. Now I played sir mix alot and made a sepia, black,flesh, and parchment...this actually took all of 10 minutes to make 1 oz bottles of each. When I was looking at the finished product I will admit some doubt crossed my mind..it was a little milky looking ang of a lighter consistency than the GW washes.

I have only been painting a year so like any good little sheep starting the hobby I stuck with safe products ie GW paint and washes. I might not post, but I check these forums dailey, and love looking at the awesome artwork that this community produces. I follow links to blogs etc and have learned a great deal. Enought that I have mastered the basics and now am trying some of the more advanced techniques here.

Well now back to the original topic, the wash was so different than I was used to. So anyhow I happen to be working on 15 IG grenaders and flamers..so awashin I went. It is of a lighter consitency than the GW so I was pretty liberal with the wash...well after about 20 seconds the wash settled and started to give me nice crisp detail with actual deeply blackend recess's, smooth tecture and smooth transition...in all just a big piece of awesome.

So I took a chimera turret (my first paint job) and slathered some sepia on...to be honest it looked like I just doused it in coffee, but wham the warm richness of the ink popped out and added a huge amount of depth above and beyond anything I have ever gotten with one hit of GW.

It was around this time while I was drinking my coffee that a little thought occurred to me....the difference between the 2 washes is the medium...Les's is the stable nice matte, and no idea what GW uses. But the ink's are where its at for the depth and the damn stuff dries faster than the GW!

Well I rambled, but I just wanted to share my experience with this recipe with the community.

Les you better ship to Canada, I owe you a few orders at least.


North

Thanks for the feedback North!

Yeah people get scared when they mix colors like sepia because it almost looks like a light purple/brown and never remember that the medium is white, but dries clear.

Another problem people have had is when putting the wash over primer, the wash dries in weird spots and this is caused by over priming. If you dust on the primer and then wash, it works fantastic.

It's good to hear what people have to say so thanks again!

-Les

I mixed some of these up a few weeks ago. So far I have made Soft and heavy black, Flesh, Parchment and Stone. A few general thoughts on each...

Flesh... kind of different than what I am used to but getting the hang of it.

Stone... my favorite of the lot. Added that extra something to a project I am working on and really helped it pop in a big way.

Soft black... I think I did something wrong because I am just not getting much of an effect from it. Need more testing.

Heavy black... I havent really uses yet... soon though.

Parchment... have not used yet.

One other thing I have noticed... I have to shake the hell out of these because the ink seperates and settles at the bottom. Is this common or did I so something wrong.

separation is quite common with them. I leave my bottles on their sides so that they are easier to shake up and mix.

That explains why i was not able to access your store once I hit ground here in Afghanistan. But otherwise great work, and your recipes are outstanding.

Does anyone still have the recipes. I have made some of the black ones but I cannot located any of the other recipes now that Les's site is changing.

the recipes are all in the first post of this thread.

Les' DIRTY WASH recipes have been added to the recipe list in the first post! Have fun! -Les

I'm not normally one for "me too" posts, but I have made the heavy black wash, and used it to great success. I've got a little bottle of that wash waiting for me whenever I need it, and wanted to thank Les for his awesome recipe. I plan to make some of the sepia wash next for some aging on my Necrons.

This may be a silly question but am I correct that the old wash recipes were for a 1 oz container, and the new recipes are for a 1/2 oz container?

Basically meaning if we cut the ink in the old recipes in half we can also make them in 1/2 oz containers and get the same effect?

One last question for Les, did you ever release your recipe for black soot that you use around gun barrels in some of your videos? I've been searching for it to no avail.

1: yes the original recipe was 1oz, meaning a standard 15ml dropper is 1/2 the recipe, so half as many drops of ink.

2: iirc his black soot is just black pigment as sold by Mig or ground up pastel bars.

LBursley wrote:Les' DIRTY WASH recipes have been added to the recipe list in the first post! Have fun! -Les

Many thanks Les

Thanks for the new recipes. I went to the art supply and purchased a few more inks. Mixed up sewer water, armour
wash, stone and concrete. I was wondering if anyone has tried airbrushing the FW inks? They are really well pigmented, and have brilliant colors. They do have an
acrylic base to them. Thanks again for the recipes.
Never mind they really airbrush well, very smooth and seem to adhere to plastic . They lay down a very fine , bright coat with a little gloss.

I don't know about FW inks, but Les' washes work like magic in an airbrush. Possibly the smoothest and most even application of washes you can get.

aerethan , is there any clogging problems due to the
matt medium? Sorry Les didn't mean to hijack your thead.

not at all. The medium is water based and thus the flo aid used in the water mix will thin it down nicely. I haven't tried using GW washes in my airbrush as they are much thicker than the home made ones, but watered down I'm sure they work fine.

I have a question for your new Dirty Wash recipes...

Just to double check, if you're going to make 1 oz, then you double the requisite drops of ink, and quadruple it for 2 oz, and so on and so forth?

That seems like quite a lot based on the original wash recipes. Does that give you more depth on the washes? Also, has anyone tried the painting technique outlined here with these washes?

all i have around here is liquitex, can the transparent umber or sienna be used in its place, or does the trnsparent part already mean its not too pigment heavy?

The acrylic inks Les uses for the wash are rather thick. The ink you may want to use may not work as when it gets diluted the ink may become more transparent than it already is.

Daler Rowley inks aren't think at all. They are the consistency of water.

I agree that something tagged as transparent might not mix well for this use.

I guess it was making sense in my head, I just could not think of the words to use at the time.

Hey Les, do you happen to have examples of the dirty washes that you could post? I noticed in one of your videos you seem to have cards where you tested each one and I would love to see each. Thanks so much!

bearden314 wrote:Hey Les, do you happen to have examples of the dirty washes that you could post? I noticed in one of your videos you seem to have cards where you tested each one and I would love to see each. Thanks so much!

Yeah I'll get them done next week. New wash examples are overdue.

Awesome!! Thanks so much!!