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Hi, I'm new here. My bro bought some tyranids the other day and said I could paint a few and I'm working on a genestealer.

I painted the base coat white, the shell and claws black and the rest bleached bone. This is the color scheme he wanted. I then went back and used black ink over the entire model to fill in the detail. It did a good job of that but darkened the bleached bone parts way too much and is nearly solid black now.

My bro is pissed and says I ruined it but I'm going to try and dry brush some bleached bone on to it but it has a hard time going on over black so it may take a few coats.

I'm just wondering, did I do the ink wash right or did I screw it up somehow? Is there an easier way of getting ink to fill in the details without out having to go back and dry brush multiple coats?

Ink does a capillary action where it flows into where ever there is enough liquid to reach.

If you use less ink it wont be able to run to places you dont want it to go to i guess.

If you water down the ink it will work a lot better.
Alternetively just use the GW washes.

LunaHound wrote:
Ink does a capillary action where it flows into where ever there is enough liquid to reach.

If you use less ink it wont be able to run to places you dont want it to go to i guess.

Yeah I wanted it to go into all the recesses and it did, it just darkened the entire model in the process. Am I just supposed to aim for the recesses of just apply it heavily all over the place like I've been doing?

Mekboy wrote:If you water down the ink it will work a lot better.
Alternetively just use the GW washes.

The ink I'm using is an old GW one called Black Ink. I'm not sure if its the same thing as the new black ink wash they have called Badab Black. Watering it down sounds good, I'll give that a shot.

The old Inks are very Potent stuffs. Almost more like a dye. Do your self a favor and save that for later go pick up the new GW washes. You will see the differance instantly.

Aye, basically if the ink is not watered, you are pretty much just painting the model with watery black paint, so it will cover everything you put it on.

When watered down, it will do the same, but it will be more pronounced in the detail areas, as it will pool there You can test this out with a white primed model, and trying different mixtures of ink/water on each part, to see what kind of mixture you like.

Washes do not cover like inks do, and pool better in detail, but they are not as strong and do not give the shine of ink.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll get some of the new ink wash and play around with watering down the ink I have now on a test model.

Also pay attention to the selection of ink color. The black is wrong color for washing the bone as it is way too dark. You would get better results with brown ink/ wash. Try ogryn flesh or sepia washes, or in case you go for inks chestnut or brown inks.

As said before the inks need to be diluted by adding as much water as ink to get wash.