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Hey all,
If you are a big time modeller you have those little tricks and favorite techniques depending on what your doing. So, with this in mind, i ask: are you a washer or drybrusher or both? When you answer please explain. Personally i am a drybrusher. I have never had good results washing and i like the look of drybrush. To me it looks more natural and less cartoony. Maybe just me. Anyway, give me some feedback, i am interested to hear what you guys do to give your models "depth".

I drybrush and use washes to help blend the colors together. It actually looks like real blending sometimes!

I used to dry brush and i used to wash.

But recently i have stopped doing both unless im working on metal parts ( armor / weapons etc )

mainly because the wash doesnt stay in where i apply them at , they always spread and end up making a mess anyways...

dry brush is similar , it gets messy , and i end up rather painting the high lights instead.

i hear ya luna. When i used to wash, i almost always ended up with a monotone color and no definition. I switched to drybrushing and had to practice it before it worked well.

I have never done any kind of washing, but everything that I've seen washed has looked bad, in my personal opinion. I just started modelling recently, and my boyfriend (AKA you) taught me to drybrush. I picked up on it almost right away, and I love the way it looks.

Gotta say I rate them both. Washes take some practice, but can add a real richness to a model, and is great for instant shading.

This unfinished model shows (I think) the advantages of a good use of both. Mind you, Im no expert painter, I think I get solid tabletop.



This is a base coat mechrite red, a Brown wash (for depth), a heavy blood red drybrush, and then a baal red wash to tie the red with the brown.

Its by no means the best example of this, there are many better on this site, but I cant really post other peoples pics! (or at leatst I dont think so).

Cheers

darkkt wrote:

This is a base coat mechrite red, a Brown wash (for depth), a heavy blood red drybrush, and then a baal red wash to tie the red with the brown.
Its by no means the best example of this, there are many better on this site, but I cant really post other peoples pics! (or at leatst I dont think so).
Cheers

That looks really well done. But here is a situation thats puzzeling me about washes.

For example your steps ( among most other painters too ) / and here is mine:
coat red / coat brown
brown wash for depth / skipped
red dry brush / red applied
baal wash / high light

Not too sure how they visually differ .

Hi Luna - ive seen youre orkz and they are impressive models!

I expect the effect would be very similar - I havent tried the brown base coat/red drybrush. I just dont feel I have the same control with a highlight. I think that says more about my skills than the technique though.

With the red basecoat, I know that my blood red drybrush doesnt need a million coats (Ive done blood right over undercoat black - it sucks) and the two washes just add depth so easily.

I wont post another pic (hijacking someone elses thread), but Ive got a Plague marine that I did with drybrushing, washes and then a final subtle highlight, and I think that turned out ok!

Cheers

darkkt wrote:Hi Luna - ive seen youre orkz and they are impressive models!

I expect the effect would be very similar - I havent tried the brown base coat/red drybrush. I just dont feel I have the same control with a highlight. I think that says more about my skills than the technique though.

With the red basecoat, I know that my blood red drybrush doesnt need a million coats (Ive done blood right over undercoat black - it sucks) and the two washes just add depth so easily.

I wont post another pic (hijacking someone elses thread), but Ive got a Plague marine that I did with drybrushing, washes and then a final subtle highlight, and I think that turned out ok!

Cheers

Ah thank you i'll take a look .

I'll have to give wash another try again , there is a high possibility my washes failure is consequence of me liking to mix paint from different companies -_-

The new citadel washes stay where you put them, and you can vary the strength of the wash's influence by the amount of it you put on. It also doesn't leave the watermarks that inks do. I always use a combination of washes and drybrushing. The key to drybrushing is the get a feel for the amount of paint that is still on the brush, and size of the brush and the pressure you put on the miniature with the brush. It takes some practice to get it right, but it's a great effect once you master it.

warpcrafter wrote:The new citadel washes stay where you put them, and you can vary the strength of the wash's influence by the amount of it you put on. It also doesn't leave the watermarks that inks do. I always use a combination of washes and drybrushing. The key to drybrushing is the get a feel for the amount of paint that is still on the brush, and size of the brush and the pressure you put on the miniature with the brush. It takes some practice to get it right, but it's a great effect once you master it.

But it looks perfect when its still wet.

and once it dries it looks totally different , do you know what went wrong?

The best technique to use is the one that's right for what you're painting. Certain things look best when drybrushed, certain things look best when edge-highlighted, certain things look best when washed, certain things look best when blended... etc. etc.

To paraphrase: It's not the technique that counts, it's how you use it

LunaHound wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:The new citadel washes stay where you put them, and you can vary the strength of the wash's influence by the amount of it you put on. It also doesn't leave the watermarks that inks do. I always use a combination of washes and drybrushing. The key to drybrushing is the get a feel for the amount of paint that is still on the brush, and size of the brush and the pressure you put on the miniature with the brush. It takes some practice to get it right, but it's a great effect once you master it.

But it looks perfect when its still wet.

and once it dries it looks totally different , do you know what went wrong?

If you want it to still look wet, use some gloss varnish.

The way I heard it is that drybrushing is good for building layers and/or highlighting, while washing is good for reccessed areas and shadow. [/2bitz]

Edit: Yes the colors change a bit when they dry.

I use both drybrushing and washing - I always figured that both of these techniques would find themselves on most models which the poll is definitely leaning towards. Its strange to me that the OP and others exclude these techniques from being used with eachother; but I'm far from a Golden Daemon painter.

For vehicles I find myself using a lot of drybrushing and washing; I don't see how anyone couldn't!

I do both when appropriate, but most of the time I will just layer or glaze the colors onto the model.

I do both. Washes add depth, and can cover small mistakes. Drybrushing hits the raised portions and is the fastest form of highlighting. So, using both makes a speedy way to make the colors or pieces of the mini look seperate from eachother.

Both as well.

Drybrushing is GREAT for metal, as well as adding highlights here and there quickly!
Washing (I love Badab Black and Delvan Mud!) is great for tying colors together or giving pieces more depth.

right now i am working on Tyranids. I do some of the stuff using dry brush like carapace details and then i wash over it.
My reason behind it is that Tyranids are big bugs and they are burrowing through the dirt all the time. The wash helps give it a grimy feel.
If i was doing an army of SM , I would only wash over the feet and bottom of some of the capes and groin cloths.

Everyone has their own preferences obviously, but I use a mix of all of them, I drybrush Metal, and skin...I tried to do it on my marines but there were so many flat surfaces higher them the bits I wanted that I just got grey oveer the legs and it just ended up looking like I'd undercoated it poorly and left it like that(someone please point it out if I'm just doing it wrong), so I switched to line highlighting, on the green (halved black/green scheme) I line highlight and then wash it to blend them together.

And in response to luna's (much) earlier comment, washing adds faar more depth and only stains it, as opposed to regular painting which colours it , if you start with brown, It's brown...as opposed to being darkened and given a brown hue.

warpcrafter wrote:

LunaHound wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:The new citadel washes stay where you put them, and you can vary the strength of the wash's influence by the amount of it you put on. It also doesn't leave the watermarks that inks do. I always use a combination of washes and drybrushing. The key to drybrushing is the get a feel for the amount of paint that is still on the brush, and size of the brush and the pressure you put on the miniature with the brush. It takes some practice to get it right, but it's a great effect once you master it.

But it looks perfect when its still wet.

and once it dries it looks totally different , do you know what went wrong?

If you want it to still look wet, use some gloss varnish.

Ahaha... i see what you did there.

No , i meant when its wet , it looks properly settled in the crevices.
when it dries , the pigment seem to diffuse all over the surrounding areas.

I usually do both. My usual process is: basecoat, drybrush, lighter drybrush just of extreme highlights, wash. Admittedly, this is usually with orks, where I'm trying for faded and dirty looking.

I hear everyone talking about doing both. Maybe in my experience i was washing wrong. Can anyone post a link or something to a washing tutorial? I want to try it again cause i see how it deepens the shadow.

Let's not forget that natural light also creates shadows for your miniatures.

Drybrush , then wash ... blends them kinda

I use washes on most things - paints, GW washes and ink washes.

I also use drybrushing, and often also use "wet brushing" - thinned down paint mostly wiped off goes on thinner and more smoothly with a drybrushing method. You don't end up with patchy or chalky results as much.

Problems with washes, you just need to be aware what it is likely to turn out like to ensure you get the right result - and less can be more - you can always do another coat, however if you put on too much you can screw up your work.